Kegerator Day 3 – A Monday

Before work I sprayed the tap handles with polyurethane so they could have a chance to dry and we could put these guys together after work. That part of the plan went very well, and then we got home and started putting them together…

There were a number of steps that had to be completed in order to put the tap handles together. We started with gluing in the nuts to the hole I drilled yesterday in the bottom of the handle. This needed to be very secure as if the nuts move in a circle when I am screwing them onto the tap the project will not work. With this in mind we reached again for the gorilla glue. Jackie put a small amount in the bottom of the hole and we pushed in the nuts. At the same time we decided to use the gorilla glue to secure the chalkboards to the 1x6’s. With these weighed down and the tap handles resting, we went upstairs for dinner.

After dinner we came back down to a small mess. The gorilla glue in the tap handles expanded, as it is made to do, and was flowing out the top of the hole and onto the bottom of the tap handle. In addition, the glue had expanded under the chalkboards and ended up flowing out the sides onto the boarder of the 1x6. So instead of finishing these up, we starting scraping half cured gorilla glue off the sides of the chalkboards and tap handles. By then end of the night we with some elbow grease and a can of paint thinner we had everything looking good and hopefully usable. Jackie put on the last coat of chalkboard paint and we decided to stop before we messed anything else up!

A picture of the bolts put in with the correct glue.  Lets hope they hold!!

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"When I read about the evils of drinking I gave up reading" - Henny Youngman

Kegerator Day 2 – A Sunday

 

I am by myself for day 2, and most of the projects are, or should be, one person jobs. After a lot of internet searching we have determined that the tap handles we want are just to darn expensive and that of course we can make them....Here is the link for what were will be going for.     Tap Handles

Back from day 2 shopping trip #1 (time on receipt 1:20 pm) with a bag full of old school table legs, and various screws, bolts and nuts and chalkboard paint. After a quick analysis of the table legs it was clear that “one of these things is not like the other”, so back in the car I go.

Back from trip #2 (time on receipt 2:19 pm) with 4 more table legs and some other screws and stuff that I think might be useful in attaching a table leg to a beer tap, and another piece of wood to the top of a table leg. I was so wrong it was not even funny. My first thought on how to complete these taps was to put insert nuts into both the top of the tap handle and the piece of wood with the chalkboard. This turned out to be a complete failure because the only way I could get the tap screws in was to screw them in with pliers which completely pinched the sides not allowing anything to be screwed into them. It was time for a change of strategy and another trip to the store.

Back from trip #3 (time on receipt 4:40 pm) with new table legs and bolts.  My new strategy is to cut a hole with my new awesome drill bit, glue nuts into the hole that I create, and the use those nuts to screw onto the tap. Problem one that I encounter is that I need 2 nuts to fill the hole, so I gorilla glued two of them together and speed bump 1 was overcome. At this point I am waiting on my wife to get back from a baby shower and take some time to move my lager to the secondary fermenter.

Now the time has come to cut our chalkboard toppers so I get the guidance from the wife and go to it. This went really well, and without any mistakes ended up with 3.5 x 3.5 1x6’s and 3x3 pieces of balsa wood for the chalkboards. All we could do for the rest of the day was stain everything, paint the chalkboards and rest up for the work week and day 3.

Pictures of the semi-finished chalkboards and tap handles.  The screw on top of the handle is double sided and will hopefully hold the chalkboard top when all is said and done.

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"Fermentation may have been a greater discovery than fire" - David Rains Wallace

Kegerator Day 1 – A Saturday

 

On Thursday we stopped in to get the next round of beer supplies from How Do You Brew, on Friday we researched, on Saturday I went shopping! Jackie did a lot of the initial research including what would be the best size freezer to buy, and where we could get one. We ended up deciding between a 7, 9 or 10 cubic foot freezer, and when it was all said and done, got the 9. This will easily hold 4 corney kegs and the CO2 container, which, while not the largest option, was the best for our current house, and in reality, the biggest one that would fit down the stairs to the basement! Here is a pic of the one we ended up with.

In addition to the freezer, day one shopping trip number 1 (time on receipt – 11:27 am) also included a variety of items at Lowes such as hose clamps, silicon, casters, and a few other random items. I have detailed all my spending and where I was able to purchase everything in case anyone out there needs some references, and I will post that once we are all finished.  I am also trying to provided links so if you need something specific you can find it by clicking on the name. 

Once I got home and Steve stopped by with the beer and we were ready to start building. Our first task was to build the collar that would go around the top of the freezer. This allows us to have the faucets and shank go through the wood, avoiding the almost guaranteed outcome of me cutting through an important coolant or electrical line and ruining a new freezer. We went with 2x4's all the way around to form the base, and then 1x6's around the sides and front to hide all of the screws, the 2x4 freezer joint and gain the all important approval of the wife! It was at this point that Jackie suggestion #1 made an appearance. The request - to raise the 1x6 boarder up above the 2x4's in order to also hide the weather stripping around the freezer lid. We made some measurements, went out to cut, and then had to make trip #2 to the store because the front 1x6 was about 1/2 inch short...

Back from shopping trip #2 (time on receipt – 3:33 pm) where we had to get a surprising number of items forgotten on trip 1 including, shims, a hole saw bit for the taps, more wood and glue, we were ready to cut. We really tried to follow the measure twice and cut once mantra, and ended up having to clamp various pieces of wood to the freezer in order to get the "correct" measurements. Attempt number two was a success, and after some tense moments of not trying to pre-drill through the 1x6 we had a completed collar. At this point it was time to put the new hole saw, and our measuring skills to the test, and cut the holes for the taps. Jackie suggestion #2 showed up at this point and we followed her tap placement instructions to a tee. After literally burning our way through 2 of the 4 holes we were forced to take a break to let the drill bit cool down. We finished up the next two and everything is ready to stain. On to shopping trip #3 because the stain we have at the house is not the right color. Before we left however we took the time to glue the hell out of the casters and get those puppies attached to the base of the freezer.

Back again! (time on receipt – 6:15 pm) We are now ready to sand and stain this bad boy a beautiful red oak per another wife suggestion. The color looks great after a second coat and the day is winding down. Time to clean up, drink some beer and get ready for day 2.

Pictures of the 2x4 and 1x6 collar, the finished stained product, and the casters. 

  

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"Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love and to celebrate the good days" - Ancient Egyptian credo

The Beginning

 

For the past year and a half or two years I have been experimenting with home brewing and made up a few pretty darn good beers. The documentation is thin, but looking back I have made a brown ale, a pumpkin ale, a Christmas brew, a summer ale and a few other random concoctions which all turned out to be quite drinkable. I did however fail to write down anything on them, including how they tasted or smelled or even the alcohol content. With that, the former will be the last you hear about batches BK (before kegerator).

Over the past two weeks I have turned the switch and set myself up for some serious brewing. It all started with a simple Vienna style lager that I wanted to properly lager ferment in the fridge. So I removed a few shelves, adjusted some temperatures, and viola! I'm lager fermenting. Little did I realize that the freezer is also effected by this change in temperature and my wife was none to happy. The result, I was given an old dorm fridge and turned it into my own personal lager fridge. See a picture of this ridiculous contraption which is not allowed out of the basement below.

With this retrofit going so well my mind started to move into the kegerator realm, which is a place it moves to and from on a very frequent basis. When picking up supplies for the next batch of brew (oatmeal stout!!) we started talking to the owner about kegging beer. Seeing as how I have all the necessary equipment to do so, I was already planning on putting the lager into a keg, and the keg into my lager fridge. We were told however that one could fit upwards of 4 corney kegs into a fairly small chest freezer. When my mind moves into kegerator land it almost always ends up on converting a freezer into a kegerator, and my wife had always agreed that I could do that....in our next house. The news that you do not need a large freezer for 4 kegs however was new, and started the wheels spinning in such a way that we all knew where this would end up before we even left the store!

The revelation that I will soon have a kegerator worthy of holding 4 kegs of delicious homemade brew has prompted me to document my brewing online for the masses, or at least myself, to enjoy. I will start with the conversion of the freezer to a kegerator, then try to document the home brews batch by batch. Whenever my brother, the micro brewery aficionado comes to town we also frequent many of the local establishments, so I am sure some of those trips will be worthy of a posting.

A picture of the retrofitted lager fridge

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"Give a man a beer, and he wastes an hour, but teach a man how to brew, and he wastes a lifetime."