How to make a kegerator

I haven't updated this site in a long time, but hope to soon. In the meantime, you should learn how to make a kegerator.

The making of a kegerator

I built my kegerator using a Sanyo 4910M mini-fridge. This model is perfect for adding a draft tower to since it does not have a freezer compartment, and is siz ed perfectly to fit two 5 gallon cornelius (soda) kegs. I used these instructions and Chad Dickerson's excellent photo how-to guide.

I decided to make my conversion a little more involved than just drilling a hole and installing a tower. I replaced the plastic top that comes with the fridge with a 2'x2' piece of 1/2" plywood. I'm going to use copper flashing (used for valley areas in roofing) to cover the plywood, hopefully making a nice looking small bar top. Later on when I add a larger bar the fridge will already have a nice looking top and I won't need to change that. As the copper ages it will look very cool. For a full series of pictures and info go to http://www.railsback.com/kegerator.html. Here's the final result:

Near miss

So, thanks to a most excellent find at a local industrial surplus supply (junk) store, I scored a bunch of extra corny kegs, and started using them as secondary fermentors. The main reason for this was to end the pain in the ass known as siphoning, and just use co2 to push the beer from secondary fermenting keg to a serving keg. This is easy enough to do -- just take a three foot piece of tubing, and connect OUT black disconnects to both ends, like the ones you have attached to your faucet. Keep em in place with a couple of hose clamps, and you have a jumper.

Attach the jumper to both kegs' beer out posts. Put a bit of gas in the keg you want to move the beer from, and pop the lid off the serving keg to be and viola, the magic of physics moves the beer from point A to point B.

Today was the day I was going to move an IPA I had in secondary to a serving keg. So, I connected the jumper, and for some unknown reason, I hit the release valve on the secondary fermenting keg, where the beer was. Beer shot out through the release valve. That thing was under some serious pressure.

Since I don't use a hydrometer (so kill me), I must have transfered the beer into secondary before fermentation was complete. Since the keg was sealed, the pressure in that keg just grew and grew. In fact, when I connected the jumper, half the keg moved to the serving keg with no additional CO2 at all!

Hate to think what would have happened if I had waited another week. .I'm guessing one serious, messy IPA keg explosion. Which would have been a real shame, because preliminary tastings indicate that IPA is going to be damn good in about two to three weeks.

Keg disasters and the humble poppet valve

After eight days in primary, I racked my Colonial Honey Porter over to the serving keg (skipping the secondary fermentation phase). I cranked up the pressure to 12 PSI and set my temperature controller down to 38 degrees, then went to bed.

Mistake.

When I woke up the next morning, the smell of flat beer wafted up from the kitchen as I descended the stairs. Much to my horror, there was beer all over the floor, and the source was my kegerator -- just under a gallon of my precious Colonial Honey Porter had leaked from my keg overnight. The old saying urges us not to cry over spilt milk, but spilt home brew? That's an entirely different story.

The interesting thing is that the regulator on the CO2 tank showed that the keg was still pressurized -- whatever leak I had was slow and steady, but just enough to dispense almost a gallon in small drips as I slept. I guessed that there was a leak in the OUT valve on my corny keg. I turned the pressure off, cleaned up the spilled beer, and dissambled the valve. The poppet valve wasn't set quite right, so I reseated it and put everything back together. No more leaks after that, thank goodness.

Morals of the story:

• If you can help it, don't keg your beer and go straight to bed. Anything can happen.
• Make sure that your valves are assembled properly with no leaks.

The new Sanyo 4911 (and alternatives)

When I first decided to build a kegerator, everywhere I looked fellow home brewers were recommending the Sanyo 4910 (or, more precisely, the Sanyo 4910M). Right at that time, it appeared that the Sanyo 4910 was being phased out, so I rushed to my local Best Buy and got one of the last few on the shelves. The kegerator turned out great and I was wishing I had picked up another 4910 to do lagering. The faux brushed metal door, though actually plastic, looks really nice.

For those who want to carry on the Sanyo 4910 kegerator tradition, I'm pleased to report that Sanyo has released the Sanyo 4911 (pictured at right). According to a discussion over at the Northern Brewer forum, the 4911 is exactly the same at the 4910, except the inside is black plastic instead of white, which sounds pretty cool. They are on sale right now at Best Buy for $159.99.

If you don't have a Best Buy in your area, Sears has a two models that will work -- both have the exact same dimensions and interior as the equivalent Sanyo models (and are probably made by Sanyo). For a Sanyo 4910 or 4911 clone with the nice metal door, there's the Stainless Steel Kenmore Elite. Despite the name, it looks like the Sanyo, which does not have a real stainless steel door, though it can pass as one from a short distance. This one is currently on sale for $179.99.

The Black Kenmore Elite will also work, but won't look as sexy in your kitchen as the others. From what I can see in the picture on the Sears site, the inside looks exactly the same as the Sanyo. It's currently on sale for $159.99, but appears to be out-of-stock.

For all three, my photo-illustrated step-by-step instructions should give you the information you need to build your own kegerator.

Serious force carbonation

Recently, I made a couple of batches on a very tight schedule for a friend's party and needed three solid days of force carbonation for the beer to be ready -- and absolutely no less. I transported my kegerator over to his house and set up the CO2 at about 12 PSI. In the past, 3 days at this level yields solid carbonation (longer is always better, of course).

I had to leave town for two of those three days, and when I returned, the pressure gauge on the regulator was at zero, and the beer was flat! The party was only seven hours away and I had flat beer. A frantic Google search led me to HomeBrew.com and this page, which provided an "impatient method" for force carbonation:

1) Follow step 1 through 3 from the patient method

2) Set your regulator to its highest setting or 60 psi (whatever comes first), pressurize your keg through the black beverage fitting until you hear/feel the flow of gas stop, disconnect the gas (this is important-you don't want beer flowing into your gas line) and shake your keg vigorously for 5 minutes.

3) Repeat step 2 until:

a) your beer will receive no more carbonation at this pressure setting.
b) Your testicles drop down to your ankles.
c) You die of a massive heart attack.

Obviously this method should only be used as a last resort. Even if it doesn't cause you grievous bodily harm it leads to rough handling of your precious homebrew and uncertain carbonation levels.

Fortunately, I stopped at 3(a) above, and though I was racked with uncertainty, the beer turned out great. All was well, as these happy beer drinkers could attest.

How full is that keg?

Any moderately serious home brewer ends up going the kegging route after a few too many sessions of bottle washing, and inevitably, the first kegging experience ends in disappointment -- not because the beer is bad, but because the keg runs out sooner than you could imagine. A keg has about 50 beers in it, and in your early home-brewing excitement, you tend to invite 10 or so beer-loving friends over a few nights a week. The math doesn't look good. The next thing you know, the brew is all gone and you hear the collective groans of your friends as the last vestiges of foam sputter out of your keg. It's an ugly sound -- I've been there.

Kevin Railsback points to a site with a method to figure this out ahead of time. You won't prevent the inevitable disappointment, but at least you'll have some advance warning.

Carbonation tables

This is a really handy tool when you need to figure out how much to crank up the pressure when you're force carbonating a keg.

There are some other cool tools worth checking out.

How to make a kegerator

It's not as hard as you think -- check this out to see how I did it (with the welcome help of friends!)