Anyway... Just figured I'd post some pics of my kegerator, bottle storage, lagering fridge, and general brewery space...
First the kegerator... I bought a huge chest freezer on Craig's list for $50 - it was such a bitch to get it down the steps to my basement, but well worth taking the both the freezer door and house door off to get it down there. It easily holds eight kegs with plenty of room for another 1 or 2 (don't think I'll ever need that much on tap). What's great is that it provides even more room for a bit of hop storage and some overflow bottle storage. I got the tap handles from taphandles.com and the 2 SS drip trays, perlick faucets, shanks, tail pieces, and other liquid hardware from Northern Brewer (gotta take care of the advertisers for the Jamil Show!!!). I used a drill press to drill through the drip trays (wow, was that a pain in the ass!!!). The gas starts with a 40 lb tank, micromatic regulators (1 primary and 5 secondary). Each of the secondary regulators has a Y adapter with ball valves attached (with integrated check valves). A couple of feet of gas line takes each of those to the brass nipples with hose barbs on either side (used to transfer through the wood collar without having to run the gas line directly through). Then a few feet of gas line to the swivel nut attachment on each of the QDs attached to the kegs. Each of the taps is hooked to the kegs with 6 feet of beer line (I've read that I should have more, but 6 ft seems to be working fine for me while serving at around 10 psi).
The kegerator collar is built from 2x10s with a little cabinet grade ply on the front. I glazed it all with several coats of epoxy to make sure no water could make its way to the wood - actually, I could probably throw the collar into the bay (Chesapeak Bay) and it would probably float for YEARS!! I also lined the inside with some R10 foam insulation to reduce the heat transfer through the wood - I hope that helps. After I finished all that, I noticed that the lid wasn't sealing very well, so I got some drilled iron from Home Depot and screwed that into the front edge of the collar to pull the magnetic surround down when the lid is closed - that did the trick!
I was having a problem with CO2 leaks between the regulators and the kegs. After ruling out the connections from the tank to the regulators, I started looking at the Y adapters and ball valves. I then noticed that the ball valves didn't have integrated check valves (although that's what I ordered). So I had to hassle with the company to get them to honor the original purchase without charging me for return shipping. Once I got the new ball valves, I disconnected everything from the regulators and started from scratch. I wrapped the hell out of every connection with teflon tape... Finally I found that a couple of the Y adapters threads to the regulator adapter were significantly "blown" - I guess from over-tightening - so I replaced all the Y adapters and that fixed it.
The vertical freezer to the left of the kegerator is my lagering fridge... I've only made one lager so far and haven't had a chance to drink it yet, so who knows if this was a big waste of space or not. I got it free from a friend who borrowed my skiis (I blew out my ACL twice - lacrosse - so I don't know that I'll ever ask for the skiis back), so this better be worth it. I have the german pils on tap, but won't draw off of it until after it's aged a bit more in the kegerator.
The other vertical freezer to the right of the kegerator is my bottle storage... It's dwindling quite quickly given that I switched to kegging several months ago, so maybe, if my lager turns out alright, it will become another lagering fridge.
Oh yeah, all three of the freezers (kegerator, lagering, and bottle storage) are on Johnson A419 temp controllers to keep them within 1 degree of the set point.
The yellow muck bucket in the bottom center of the wide shot is the container I use to keep my fermenters off of the cement floor and provide a bit of overflow protection should a yeast decide to pop the top off (I've had that happen twice so far!!!).
Does anybody see any possible problems or have any recommendations!!!???
Nice setup! I also hate you.
