Edyoomacate me on Kegerators

Some of you folks have to have one...

Buy or build? If buy, does the one they have at Wally World work well enough? Otherwise, any particular setups you like over the others? If you have one, was it worth it? Any other words of wisdom?

The 4-600 hundred dollar ones you find at Home Depots and Walmarts are much less energy efficient than a standard fridge, if my memory serves me right.

Check out the projects section of homebrewtalk.com for some great Kegerator advice and build inspiration, also look up Keezer(kegs in chest freezers). If you have the room, I say go full size top freezer fridge, that way you can still use said freezer to store food and other stuff. Basically, take out shelves, build a bottom platform, and get a conversion kit from any of the beer stores or source them locally depending on your needs.

I have a buddy who did the following:

Standard deep freezer - the kind that look like a fridge on its side.
Remove door, and hinges from body
build 2x6 frame that fits on the outer face of the body, where the door would seal
attach to the face using RTV gasket material
Attach original hinges and door to the 2x6 frame
Insulate 2x6 frame with 1/2" polystyrene sheet (blue or pink stuff) foundation insulation
cut holes in 2x6 frame for taps
wire up a restaurant grade walk-in refrigerator thermostat (available online) to cycle on/off the freezers cooling compressor (to keep it 40° or thereabouts without freezing)

This is not his, but looks almost exactly the same ('cept his taps are on the long face). Should give you a pretty good idea.

His kegerator has room for about 4 full sized kegs, or many half barrels (tall and narrow kind). If you do it right, you can return it to a regular freezer by removing the frame, RTV and thermostat, and re-installing the door.

its pretty nice.

I took a Frigidaire side-by-side fridge/freezer and installed a 2 tap setup. It can hold 1 half and 1 sextel (or other combos) at the same time and a pretty sizable amount of salmon and deer meat in the freezer.

I used it for a while and did some summer parties and it is really fantastic to have really good beer fresh like that but... it sits mostly unused in my basement because if I left a keg in it all the time I'd be a giant fat drunk. Come get it out of my way - $500 near Scranton PA.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I took a Frigidaire side-by-side fridge/freezer and installed a 2 tap setup. It can hold 1 half and 1 sextel (or other combos) at the same time and a pretty sizable amount of salmon and deer meat in the freezer. I used it for a while and did some summer parties and it is really fantastic to have really good beer fresh like that but... it sits mostly unused in my basement because if I left a keg in it all the time I'd be a giant fat drunk. Come get it out of my way - $500 near Scranton PA.

Too far for me.

I wondered about the keg all the time--would the beer go bad, or would I get fat, but I figure that I average about 5 beers a week as is. We'll call 20 a month. A 5 gallon keg would get me about 53 12oz. beers, or 40 pints--2 months worth of beer. Beer should stay "fresh" for 2 months, right?

Oh, also, I suppose that I should mention an important fact: I'm 5 months out of college, still live on/really close to campus, my girlfriend is in grad school there, and my current-soon-to-be-ex roommate is still in college. If it starts to go bad, I'd be able to get a few folks together and kill it.

First, are you looking at storing commercially available kegs, or thinking of kegging home brew?

Having a small fridge that will hold a couple of pony kegs makes home brewing SO much easier. You don't even realize how much time goes into bottling and carbonating until you don't have to do it. It's pretty easy to rig up one of the medium size fridges to hold a couple of pony kegs, and you can put your grassroots skills to work rigging up the taps, or just leave some cheap ones attached to the kegs.

A keg didn't seem to stay fresh for more than a month or so. Have a monthly small Kill and Fill keg changing party and you should be good to go.

fromeast2west wrote: First, are you looking at storing commercially available kegs, or thinking of kegging home brew? Having a small fridge that will hold a couple of pony kegs makes home brewing SO much easier. You don't even realize how much time goes into bottling and carbonating until you don't have to do it. It's pretty easy to rig up one of the medium size fridges to hold a couple of pony kegs, and you can put your grassroots skills to work rigging up the taps, or just leave some cheap ones attached to the kegs.

Commercially available for now--there is a new liquor store coming in that can get pretty much anything, so it wouldn't be for the piss beers. Alternatively, there is a brewery in town that will fill a keg for you. I'm not sure if they have some of their own that you can buy/rent or not.

That being said, I would eventually like to try homebrewing, but its not in the cards right now.