Kegging Setups

[TheBrownFalcon]

Hi all. Thought i'd add a picture of my new fridge i just finished. holds 4 kegs and the gass bottle. 3 beer kegs and a ginger beer for the wife.

 

[zxhoon]

wobblythongs is this what you want?

http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=3910

 

[wobblythongs]

wobblythongs is this what you want?

http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=3910

Thanks

That stands out just as well as Julia Gillard at a international Ronald McDonald's convention meeting.

I was looking at that and thought it was a Q/R for the threaded keg connection fittings.

If only Ross put "1/2 15MM BSP" I would have picked that up as imperial conversion gets the better of me most of the time if I see 15MM I know it's big.

 

[wambesi]

Righto, it's about time I finally was able to post pics in here, although it's not 100% complete it works and looks pretty damn nice still.









Big thanks goes out to feelncede who passed on his pre-loved collar, as you can see from the side shot it needed a trim and adjustment to fit on my smaller freezer but it now fits nice. Later I will sand it back and fix it up a little better but the main point was to get it ready and rockin' for the xmas eve lawn party - which went down a treat!
Most of the gear came from Ross over the last year or so (yes it has been a project in the making thats for sure!) so cheers to him as well.

Soooo nice having taps now outside the fridge! (and not plastic ones at that...)

...oh and the plastic bag inside is keeping the picnic tap from the cola keg from dripping everywhere - that will be mounted outside later.

 

[raven19]

Just gorgeous wambesi! Thanks for sharing those piccies.

 

[goomboogo]

Wambesi, those decals are excellent.

 

[under]

Wambesi, those decals are excellent.

I think they add a great touch. Nice work mate, kegging is fantastic.

 

[Adam Howard]

What size/model chest freezer is that Wambesi? Lovely set up. Decals are PRO.

 

[Housecat]

Am I insane or does anyone else polish their kegs? I have polished all of mine as I like the way they look. Here are some pics of before and after.


This is how I got the keg


This is after I have stuffed around for an hour polishing it


This is a comparison of three of my kegs
on the left untouched, middle is just done today and the right was done a few months ago

Also, I decided to insulate my taps as the fridge is outside and I thought it may help with foaming issues. I think it has a a little bit.



Yes I do sometimes have a bit too much time on my hands lol but I'd do this even if I was run off my feet as I like the look of it. :lol:

HC

 

[wambesi]

What size/model chest freezer is that Wambesi? Lovely set up. Decals are PRO.

Its the 216L model, I can't get to the plate to get the actual details at the moment though.
Thanks for the comments guys, i'm much better at graphic design the handy man stuff but it seemed to turn out well!

 

[Amber Fluid]

Hi Everyone
I am from Tasmania and this is my first post here.....

My wife bought me a home brew kit for Xmas and after going through everything, bottling just sounded like too much hassle considering you need to wash and sterilise bottles then bottle your creation then store bottles for x amount of time before you can even try one. Therefore, to save all the hassle I ended up buyinjg a Keg King of which I won't bother posting as I am sure you know what they look like. However, I have taken 3 days to read through all the posts in this thread and must say there are some fantastic setups some of you have of which I envy. I am now on the huint to find a freezer that will house 6-8 kegs to see what creation I can come up with. You are all an inspiration for the "beginner" and I have so many ideas that I really wish to thank all of you for.

My house is 2 story with a basic bar down stairs. Eventually I will leave the Keg King in the kitchen upstairs and have a nice 6-8 keg freezer downstairs in the bar.

Can anybody please adise what size freezer I will need for a 6-8 keg + gas setup?... after reading posts here I assume about a 300ltr freezer should do the job.



BTW, I have the first post in this thread for 2011 woohoo, Happy New Year everyone!!!!

 

[barls]

Am I insane or does anyone else polish their kegs? I have polished all of mine as I like the way they look. Here are some pics of before and after.

View attachment 42994
This is how I got the keg

View attachment 42995
This is after I have stuffed around for an hour polishing it

View attachment 42996
This is a comparison of three of my kegs
on the left untouched, middle is just done today and the right was done a few months ago

Also, I decided to insulate my taps as the fridge is outside and I thought it may help with foaming issues. I think it has a a little bit.
View attachment 42997

ive got a car you can polish if you want to?
Yes I do sometimes have a bit too much time on my hands lol but I'd do this even if I was run off my feet as I like the look of it. :lol:

HC

 

[raven19]

Can anybody please adise what size freezer I will need for a 6-8 keg + gas setup?... after reading posts here I assume about a 300ltr freezer should do the job.
ar everyone!!!!

Corny Kegs are around 220mm x 650mm high, so start with those measurements and go from there!

(and welcome to the forums!)

 

[Rex_Kelway]

G'Day Lads,

Rex thought He'd offer AHB a big thankyou. There is, on this site an amazing amount of information that came in handy when Rex built His first keg-dispensing freezer.

At the moment Rex does all his DIY brewing at SA's Para-Hills U-Brewit. It's very local (2 streets away) which is convenient but in the future He like to try building some actual Home brewed ales.

For the meantime though, He'll share with you a few pics of His finished Freezer conversion:

It had to be a neat and compact thing. Being His first time He used a donated freezer, an old shitbox Kelvinator that had been badly repainted at some stage. Worked well but was just ugly and way too hard to re-paint with a nice finish. As He wanted it to be something that could blend in as a piece of furniture the choice was made to cover it in some fabric. Personally Rex is oven the moon with how it finished up...

The top is reclaimed Jarrah. Actually made from the floorboards from some old cottage somewhere. Just surfaced and laquered in Cabbots matte clear urethane

Stainless 'Lobster-back' font. Rex has His own little freelance motorsport fabrication business here in SA. So it was only right that some race-car'esque fabrication should be involved...

Neatly holds 2 kegs with room for the 50 or so 'travel' stubbies

The evergreen STC-1000 temp controller.

Etched splashback fitted

Finally finished and Home in place. Its worth noting the missing door architraves. Given the idea was sold to her as a n attractive piece of furniture the girlie doesn't mind that convenient beer despensing was allowed to trump renovations for a few weeks...

 

[kelbygreen]

nice rex. If you put a collar on there you could put 4 cornies and have gas outside or 3 cornies and gas inside. That is one nice unit given me inspiration but like most tradesman I have 100 job around the house none finished lol

 

[Cocko]

Tell Rex Cocko loves the Jarrah Top and it looks great!

Can Cocko ask why Rex has wrapped the freezer in such a wrapping?

Cocko would love to know...

 

[Rex_Kelway]

KelbyGreen,

Two kegs at any one time is plenty for Rex. Unfortunaltely the girlie doesnt do beer so generally Its just Himself and guests. Plus! and most importantly, once two kegs are down, He can try brewing something different...


Cocko,

The finish on the freezer was just plain ****. Someone had tried repainting it by hand, and failed. There's no way Rex was going to be able to get a painted finish He was happy to have on display. Rex also wanted to avoid having it look like a slab of white (or any other colour) in the corner of the room.

The material choice wasn't so hard; The black and silver/grey work with the Jarrah and a few other items in the room and appart from that it was a matter of 'Go on, take the chance, try something different...'

 

[bignath]

Nice one Rex,

bignath likes it.

 

[Tanga]

You guys have been spending waaaaay too much time on facebook.

 

[shonks69]

Nice work.
I did it the tight arse way and only bought the shut off Tee and a couple
of JG tees from that. As soon as I hooked it up back flow from a new charged keg flowed up the gas line into the 1/2 full keg what a mess.

The next day I did the right thing but a little different went to 6mm water filter line to fit the quick release fitting.

Where did you get the JG beer connect for the back of the draught tap?

Hi
You should try putting your check valves at the disconnect ends of your gas lines (closest to the keg) this will stop beer back flowing up your gas lines stopping it at the disconnect fitting if back pressured.

Cheers
John

 

[bonj]

Bonj wonders why everyone is referring to themselves in third person.

 

[cdbrown]

Noticed that I hadn't put my bar in here yet. It's not quite finished but is definitely operational. I'll be removing the top shelf and replacing it with jarrah boards back my marine ply. Will do the same for the bar top as well. Will also replace the front liner boards with proper mitred jarrah liner boards. Just need to get some time to head to the salvage yards to get all the jarrah. Will also be installing a double laundry trough at the back of the room for cleaning fermenters and such and am thinking of mounting the two beer engines against the back wall rather than on the bar to free up some realestate.

The bar

Keezer with collar installed

Fits 8 kegs nicely

Need to also try and get the arcade machine up and running

 

[BeerStein]

Hey cdbrown,nice bar! Look forward to seeing the mods. That freezer looks like the size I am after, any chance of make model and dimensions?

Cheers

 

[cdbrown]

Hey cdbrown,nice bar! Look forward to seeing the mods. That freezer looks like the size I am after, any chance of make model and dimensions?

Cheers

Sure thing mate - will get them for you when I get home in about 4hrs.

 

[head]

OK, I finally finished my bar in time for Australia Day. A couple of little things to go like gas struts but good to go for now. Here are some pics as the process unfolded. I now present Kevin the Kegerator Mk II.



Here is the base of the chest freezer. I originally opted for 4 castors but in the second phase of building I threw the other 4 on. Very happy I did.




Here you can see the bottom side pieces of timber being pre drilled as well as one of the support brackets I used to attach the timber to the base. The brackets are made of 0.060" stainless sheet. Overkill yes, but happy that I went in that direction. Even though I hate working with stainless. The timber that I used for the bar top and skirting is River Oak/Swamp Oak. Apparently a part of the Malleluka family.




OK, here we can see the chest freezer in place on the trolley with the skirting boards fitted. The gas line can also be seen going in through the drain hole.




Here is where I threw some vertical supports in on the recomendation of MHB and a couple of other guys. Eventually I want to have gas struts fitted as the lid is a 2 man lift presently and the wood around the top wouldn't be able to handle the stress. I threw some dirty big baton screws in place. I think they were 120mm long. I also drilled some holes in the bottom of the support posts to feed the gas line through and keep it out of harms way.




OK, we are starting to look damn sexy now. I have the corrugated iron fitted. The hardwood trim on top is to help support the stainless capping/flashing that you can see in pic 2. Only the top of the corrugated iron is fixed in place with screws as the bottom slotted nicely into the gap between the skirting and the trolley.




Here is a shot of the bar top temporarily fitted. We wanted to see what it was going to look like complete. Here the top has only one coat of laquer applied.




Here I have applied a sheet of stainless, in the 0.040" range to the underside of the lid to give a little more support and rigidity from the underside. Before the timber top was fitted the fontsa came through nicely and I didn't take the timber thickess into account when I planned this. Hence image 1 and 2 here show that it is a little hard to fit the securing nut. Image 3 shows the aftermath of about 2 hours of stitch drilling and routing. But, it works.




Getting close to the end Goal now. The bar top is fitted, Fonts are fitted, kegs are in place and the beer lines are all connected. This may look messy but compared to how I had this all set up before, this is neat. The gas manifold has been a big bonus. You can also see here my 2 secondary regs. I have 200 Kpa being fed into the kegerator for the soda water and this is then sent to the 2 secondaries. One feeds 70 Kpa to the manifold and leaves the other free to do differing carbonation levels for specialty beers that I may wish to play with.




Here we have my bar, ready to go. All up I think I gave it about 6 coats of laquer. Feast Watsons High Gloss Floor Coat. I will probably give it a buff with an orbital polisher in about 1 month. You can also see the natural inclusions in the timber slab that extend through the whole thickness. For these I have used Glass Coat to fill them. I am very happy with the finished product.




Now for the taps. The handles of the 6 taps on the left are made from Mango wood. I will say that the parent tree is 50 yrs old, but that is being conservative. It would have to be 100 yrs I guess from it's size. The handles were turned from 2 branch pieces, and the degree of difference that each handle displays is really cool. The handles of the last 4 are made from Camphor Laurel. The taps themselves are Perlick Perls and Andale Florytes. I may even change the 4 Florytes out eventually for more Perls.

This was a big project for me considering before this I had not done wood work for 17 years. I had a couple of mates who gave me a big hand.

 

[argon]

yeah it's ok i guess.





holy crap that's friggin' awesome!!!!! :super:

 

[goomboogo]

head, you need more taps.

 

[Brewindo]

G'day All,

Here is my keg set up I assembled from odds and ends. Wood panel on fridge is teak, left handle is spun up out of ebony and the right is pine, I also have cocnut wood ones as well if the mood or beer suits. Sorry the pics aren't the best (iphone)

Cheers...

 

[cdbrown]

Hey cdbrown,nice bar! Look forward to seeing the mods. That freezer looks like the size I am after, any chance of make model and dimensions?

Cheers

Fisher & Paykel H360 Freezer
109cm wide, 65 deep, 90 tall. Collar is about 19cm tall

 

[MarkBastard]

This thread just keeps on giving! Well done head and brewindo.