spiderwrangler wrote:Congrats on the Xmas kegging stuff... my holidays have been beer free so far...
Good chance I'll get something from my wife's sister and brother-in-law though... he's a guy that recognizes and appreciates good beer, but drinks shit beer on a day to day basis...
+1 to the kegging system. After filling the 4th or 5th keg you'll never believe you used to bottle.
Polish those puppies up & show them off. I've recently been going through mine & scrubbing the daylights out of them with Bar Keeper's Friend. It's even gentle enough to clean up the rubber as long as you rinse really really well.
I've been building a new keezer myself. I searched through tons of photos, videos, threads, write-ups & articles. There's a lot of great ideas & beautiful works of art out there & even more ways to go about it. I just compiled all the ideas & features I liked best from everything I saw; came up with a few new ones of my own in the process. I'm taking my time with mine, mostly cause I enjoy doing the project as much as I'll like the finished result, but I'm also on a tight budget. I did put a collar on it so I don't have to keep opening the lid to use a picnic tap, but she's got a long way to go. I plan on posting pics of each step, but it's pretty boring so far - I'll put them up when I make some decent progress on it.
In the meantime, I would suggest a Google search on: Keezer, Keezer build, Irish coffin, keezer collar ... Keezer on pic search will start you on multiple trails. A lot of the hits will have more links in them, especially the forum threads - follow 'em & you'll start getting all sorts of ideas. Also, if you can get a freezer on the cheap, a temp controller is fairly affordable & I built my collar in a day with only a pair of screwdrivers, a 12" finishing cut hand saw & a tape measure. A power drill/screwdriver could cut that down to a couple hours. I had a couple 2x4's & the screws already, so mine only cost $12 for the 1x6. It's going to be hidden eventually so I went on the cheap - if you were going to stick with a collar style you might want to invest a little more in nicer lumber, but a cheap one can at least get you up & running right away.
I'll start you out: Here's a fellow BN'r whose build gave me a couple ideas. Beautiful build.
http://s390.beta.photobucket.com/user/manwithbeers/media/Keezer/IMG_3232.jpg.html?sort=4&o=10Good luck, happy hunting & enjoy those kegs!