Beer Forum

Just finished this bad boy. Pretty stoked! Holds 8 cornies with room to spare. Now all I need is more room to ferment...

How did you determine if there were cooling coils in the locations that you drilled through the box? I know someone that tried that, hit the coils and ruined the freezer (wah wah).

NateBrews wrote:How did you determine if there were cooling coils in the locations that you drilled through the box? I know someone that tried that, hit the coils and ruined the freezer (wah wah).

Exactly why I built a collar on mine. There's some trick online about using flour or cornmeal but it was easier to build the collar and it allowed me to put in 2 additional cornies (7.2 cu ft chest freezer)

I was pretty rudimentary about it and had to be comfortable knowing I was risking creating a very large paper weight! I looked at the schematic to get a rough idea about where the lines were and knew they ran on the interior wall so I plugged it in and felt the lining for the areas that turned cold the quickest. I knew they ran horizontally so I made my best determination of where they were located. I had about 31/2 inches of wall depth to work with so I decided I was safe to poke a hole through the front wall. I used 3/16th bit to make the hole then probed around the insulation for any obstructions. When I found none, I used a 1" hole saw and again punched just through the front wall. After cleaning out the insulation and determining there were no lines in the way, I finished the hole through the interior wall. I followed the same process for the rest of the holes for the shanks and one for our Co2 line. My balls shrunk a bit after I made those holes and didn't want to push my luck with screws so I decided to epoxy a short piece of 2X4 on the interior back wall to mount my manifold. Worked like a charm and it still runs, thank you baby Jesus!

J.Brew wrote:I was pretty rudimentary about it and had to be comfortable knowing I was risking creating a very large paper weight! I looked at the schematic to get a rough idea about where the lines were and knew they ran on the interior wall so I plugged it in and felt the lining for the areas that turned cold the quickest. I knew they ran horizontally so I made my best determination of where they were located. I had about 31/2 inches of wall depth to work with so I decided I was safe to poke a hole through the front wall. I used 3/16th bit to make the hole then probed around the insulation for any obstructions. When I found none, I used a 1" hole saw and again punched just through the front wall. After cleaning out the insulation and determining there were no lines in the way, I finished the hole through the interior wall. I followed the same process for the rest of the holes for the shanks and one for our Co2 line. My balls shrunk a bit after I made those holes and didn't want to push my luck with screws so I decided to epoxy a short piece of 2X4 on the interior back wall to mount my manifold. Worked like a charm and it still runs, thank you baby Jesus!

Looks like it worked for you. How old is the freezer?

Brand new. Got it from Sears. Ballsy huh? Danger is my middle name...

Which freezer is that? It looks a lot like the one that I got from sears. It might be useful to know that there are no coils there.

It's the Kenmore 12512 15.6 cu. ft. Chest Freezer which happens to be on sale right now for $200 less than I got it for!
http://www.sears.com/kenmore-16-cu-ft-c ... ockType=G2
I'd be happy to send you measurements if you need them.