One thing to note is that while I did buy a lot of new parts, I had a 20lb CO2 tank and most of my ball valves already from my previous kegerator.  Here is a quick overview of my costs:

• Freezer – $220
• 4way manifold (also prevents backflow) $61
• Refrigerator Thermostat $58
• 4 Perlick taps (used on ebay) $113
• 4  four inch shanks with barbs attached $58
• 13″ Drip tray $50
• Odds and ends hoses $35
• two ball locks (remember, I already had 3 beers on tap so I had some parts)
• Mat for the floor of the freezer $9

For anyone familiar with kegging and beer flow, I used 3/16 hose at 5″ for each tap to minimize foamy beer.  Here is how I came up with this:

1. Beer line temp: 38-40f
2. Keg pressure (psi): 12-15
3. volumes of CO2: 2-3 on most beers
4. beer line ID: 3/16
5. Rise to tap: 1′
6. beer line temp: cold

Here is how it works out: 5 ‘ Length = 12psi(1′rise x.5)-1)/R (line resistance)=2

I know it’s a little confusing, but if you Google line resistance/ beer line length, there are a lot of great resources.  Every situation is unique so I don’t want anyone to think they should just copy what I’m doing.

To finish the whole thing off I painted it with white extra-glossy indoor/outdoor paint.  I had considered finishing the wood and doing some fancy stuff, but at the end of the day, it was a few weeks worth of work already and I didn’t feel that the extra effort was going to increase my satisfaction with the whole thing.  The extra glossy is a must because beer WILL SPILL and you want a slick surface.

If you add in wood and about a million trips to the hardware store, I had close to $600 wrapped up into this project (including the $220 for the freezer).  But, in the end, I have this:

And here is the video on how it all came together.

Broken tap hammer

 I am not sure if “hammer” is the correct terminology (nor am I sure about any of the terms listed below, but it’s what I call the parts), but the part of the tap faucet that hooks to the tap handle and makes the beer flow broke on one of my taps.  This was without a doubt an unexpected occurrence, but it did happen. 

It all started when I wanted to clean my tap faucet out because I had not used it in a while.  I started by trying to remove the tap handle from the faucet and tap handle would not budge.  Initially I was concerned that the tap handle would break (not fully grasping the potential of the faucet breaking) and I took it gentle.  After a while I realized that it was not going to budge so I started to hoss the “cap” (as seen in my makeshift diagram below) in the opposite direction of the tap handle (that is directly connected to the hammer) and eventually it started to turn.  Not good.

Overview of terms

Once the hammer was spinning, I knew something was wrong.  From that point I had to focus on getting the cap away from the faucet to get inside and see what was up.  Sure enough as you can see from the picture at the top, I broke the end of the hammer that hooks into the stopper.  I also damaged the stopper to a point of no return as well.

The good news is that the parts for this (especially in bronze) were cheap.  I was able to fix my tap for around $12 at my LHBS.  As much as the Internet is great, you can’t beat going into a place with your parts and putting things together to make sure everything fits! 

So now its back to flowing with new parts and all is well on the keggerator front! 

Cheers.

It’s Alive!

So after this weekend’s fight with my tap setup over getting to my sump pump, I decided to make some changes.  Initially I was concerned about making this move.  I was worried that I would get into it and realize that it was a bad idea, or that it was not possible, or that I would break something.  But alas I was the recipient of a late Christmas miracle.

As you may remember, originally this was a corner piece of a counter top from my in-laws house after a renovation.  The inspiration was my thought that I could make good use of the space above my sump pump that was otherwise useless.  Since this weekend’s decision to make my changes, I came up with the idea to cut off the side of the counter top that did not have the tap system attached to it.  After further thought, I came up with the idea to use that part of the counter top as a wheeled base for the kegged and tapped part.

That’s when Tappenstein was born! 

As you can see from the picture above, it’s a pretty simple design, the mini-fridge provides the cold for the corney kegs, the tap is mounted to the counter top.  There is a computer fan on the inside of the fridge to circulate the cold and the CO2 is held outside of the system.

I picked up some wheels, two swiveling with breaks and two fixed, and mounted them to the cut-off piece of counter top with nuts and bolts.  I had to add some support to make sure that the newly made cart didn’t break, but it was good to go.

One of the parts of this that I thought was going to be a problem was getting the tap system up onto the cart with out breaking the system or my back.  It went surprisingly smoothly and I had it centered on the cart in a matter of a few short minutes.

As you can see from the image above, the wheeled cart is centered under the original tap box and now, not only is my sump pump accessible, but I can also wheel my kegs around the basement!  Whats more, the whole project took me about 4 hours and cost $22 ($12 for wheels and $10 for nuts, bolts and washers).  I have to say that I am surprised that it went as smoothly as it did.  These projects usually have some kind of hiccups in the process that slows me down.

Moving forward, I have thought about running some nice stained plywood around the sides and over the top to close things up.  I thought this might be a good way to close things up and give it a nice finish.

Cheers!

On to the future. My father had a mini fridge that he was willing to donate to the cause, so I decided to give this design another shot. After reading a few kegerator ideas on Adam’s blog, I saw this idea where the fridge has the door removed and a fan inside it to circulate the air. After some measurements and a little planning, I decided this was the way to go moving forward.

In the process of taking apart the kegerator, I was able to explore some of the issues that I had had with it, like the fact that it only fit 2 kegs and the tap I hod could work 3 beers. In making room on the sidewall for the new dorm fridge, I was able to make some adjustments to make space for the 3rd keg.

Now three kegs fit into the kegerator. After a lot of time sealing and taping, I have the kegerator down to a steady 47f. I am not sure if the fridge is running constantly, but when I was testing it, it got down to 39f and was kicking on and off so I feel pretty good about the potential for this one.

Finally, because I did not have to mount the fridge on the top of the box, I was able to move the tap back and utilize one of the holes that the fridge used before. This will allow me to have a bar runner on there so that I’m not dripping into a bucket. I know what you’re thinking, I decided to avoid the drip tray and go for the bar runner because of the price difference, I am getting a bar runner for $6 with shipping, a drip tray that is big enough for 3 taps is over $50. Plus standing beer stinks no matter what’s holding it. IMHO anyway.

In other news, as I’ve been mentioning on Twitter, our 100qt cooler came in and it was WELL worth the $38 (with shipping) I paid. These things go for over $100 and this one was listed as “used”, but it looks pretty new to me. The size difference is pretty staggering – Look at the other two mash tuns I was using next to it.

I placed a “wanted” ad up on Craigslist offering $10-$15 per keg for soda kegs. Initially I considered trying to trade beer for kegs, but quickly realized that that was not kosher with ATF so halted that. I got a response in the first few days with someone offering 10 to 15 kegs if I was interested. I told him I would take 10 and he asked for $120. Shown below is what I got.

I really lucked out because these kegs were in very good shape. They all still had remnants of soda in them, but for $12 a piece that’s what you get.

Tonight I cracked them all open and freed them of the sweet carbonated monster of soda. I started by dumping and rinsing each of them out, sure to keep like caps with one another (some get bent and only create a good seal with the keg they were bent with). After talking with Nick and doing a little research, I decided to give bleach a chance. I used 1.5 cups of bleach per 2 gallons of water on four of the kegs. The other six kegs I used one gallon of one step

My hope is to get a better idea of which is going to work better in the future. However, already bleach and I did not get off to a good start as I think I got some on my good jeans.

Per Nick’s suggestion, I pressurized all of them with the cleaning solution in there and I am going to shake them up once or twice a day for the next few days. In the meantime I am going to get some gaskets for the nipples, but not the large cap for the top as I don’t think those matter as much. When I get to changing the gaskets, I am going to take all of them apart and clean them out thoroughly.

***UPDATE – After the messages from Trout I went home and dumped all the bleach filled kegs. They were fine and all the soda smells were gone so no harm no foul. The ones that I used one-step with did not work. They still stunk of soda so I made up some of the beer line cleaning solution that I got from Ed a while back and used that for the six kegs that had the One-Step. It worked like a champ! All smells were gone and they are airing out as we speak. It makes the beer line cleaning solution the most desirable solution because it’s quick (don’t soak it over night because it’s capable of stripping chrome and stainless) it’s meant for drinking and it’s not all that corrosive to the hands or clothes. Win win in my book.

This made for a good night – The bad news is that I think my mini-fridge finally died. I talked to my father and he has an old dorm fridge at the house they are not using that he said I could have so I will be onto other project, but old brown fridge will me missed…