DIY Kegerator: From Ordinary Fridge to Extraordinary Beer Station
Hi, guys, how are we doing? Glen here from the The BeardyMan Craft Beers Channel. Thanks very much for joining me on another episode.
Now, for many homebrewers, the options that are available to them for storing their beers after fermentation are either to bottle the beers or to keg the beer. Now, there are a few pros and cons for either method. I’m not going to get into that now.
This video is about the DIY kegerator I put together last year. I had some kegs, I needed a fridge, and I had one of those paper cups that I was pouring my beer into. I thought, for a little bit more, I could get this fridge here and upgrade.
So, let’s look at here in Ireland, for a little bit more of an investment, something like this.
So, this video is basically just showing you guys how I put this together for a very small project. In total, it cost around 130-140 euros. The kegerators here in Ireland and in Europe are probably 400-500, maybe 600 euros.
So, cut out the crap, forget that price, watch this video, come look at how I did it, and hopefully, you can do it too.
The first thing that I needed to do was to mark out four holes for where the apparatus is going to fit. I wanted a hole approximately two centimeters for the beer lines and then three smaller holes for the tower’s screws.
Once the holes were made, I was then able to run the beer line through the main hole and then connect the two lines to the corny keg black disconnects with those small Jubilee clips.
Each sort of beer line cost around three euros for each tap, and then the gas and beer disconnects for the kegs cost about 15 euros for the two sets from Aliexpress.
This standard conversion kit comes with a single tap tower and everything needed to connect to a keg, except the c02 tank.
Then I connected the beer lines to the tap sources and then tightened them up with Jubilee clips. Another hole, approximately two centimeters, was drilled on the side of the fridge to allow for the two gas lines. These are the two grey disconnects for those two gas lines.
Now for the tower, these towers normally come with a base rubber ring which I used for marking out the holes earlier on. I then dropped this over the older beer lines and then over the pre-drilled holes.
The tower came with an inner insulation shoe which basically slides up the inside. I then ran the two outer beer lines up through the center of the tower and then pulled them out from the top again. I fixed the tower over the rubber ring, making sure then that all the holes were aligned.
For fixing the tower in place, I used three long threaded bolts, three washers, and three nuts which I purchased for around 50 cents in the local DIY store. Each of the long threaded bolts was then slipped down through the holes of the tower base and down into the pre-drilled holes in the fridge.
Now, I needed to ensure that the threaded bolts were long enough to protrude from the holes inside of the fridge. So, getting the correct size bolts is very important. Then it was a simple case of placing the washers over the threaded bolts and screwing on the nut.
Now, you can see here that I’ve only used three threaded bolts as a fourth bolt just wasn’t possible due to the position of the tower. But that’s absolutely fine as three bolts are more than enough to keep this tower steady.
I didn’t just hand tighten the nut as much as possible. I used a screwdriver to hold the threaded bolt in place while I tightened the nut from inside the fridge.
I was then able to lower the tower base cover which conceals the bolt heads nicely. Now for the beer tap faucets themselves, these came with a lock nut which I screwed down to the base of the faucet.
The tap faucets cost approximately 18 euros and that was from Aliexpress at the time. There is also a black plastic flange which is very good for concealing that hole on the actual tower itself.
I inserted the faucet shank through that hole to connect with the hose barb tap connector which I attached to the beer lines earlier. Holding the inside nut of the hose barb connector, I was then able to hand tighten the tap faucet.
This particular tap faucet also came with one of those tightening wrenches and these are very handy as I wanted to ensure that the connections are really tight to avoid any unwanted leaks.
I then hand tightened the outer lock nut up against the black plastic flange and then following that, I used the wrench again just to ensure a nice tight connection. Same deal then for the second tap.
On with the black rubber inner ring, connect the hose barb tap connector with the faucet shank, tighten up my outer lock nut against the black plastic flange, and then use the wrench to secure a nice tight connection once again.
Here’s a view of those connections. There’s probably other ways these can be connected but this is my solution. The chrome beer tower came with a top inner circular foam insulator which I placed over my inner connections. Then it was just a case of popping on the top tower lid and then locking it down securely onto the chrome effect beer tap decal holder.
The base of the decal holder is connected with two screws to allow you to connect them over the faucet lever collar. I designed each of the beer labels on my laptop, printed them off, stuck on clear vinyl over the face of them, and then cut them to size with scissors.
Taking the decal holder in one hand, I placed it upside down over the faucet lever collar and connected the base of the decal holder and screwed it loosely into place. I then spin the decal holder around upright at a slight angle and then tighten those screws.
All that’s left to do now is to connect the black corny keg disconnects to the inlet post for each of your kegs, place your kegs into your new kegerator, add your beer tray (I got this one from Aliexpress for 15 euros), and voila!
So guys, essentially that’s all that’s required to put together one of these DIY kegerators. You have your decals, you have your 2 taps, your beer faucets, your tower, and your tray all connected to the lines and slid down into your keg.
You’ll obviously have your CO2 cylinder either inside or outside which will connect the gas line to your inlet posts on top of your kegs.
This is really not more to it. As you can see, the finish on this DIY kegerator is a lovely matte jet black vinyl which I got from one of the local sign makers. I measured up the top and the front and cut it down to size and slowly took my time to stick it on.
It can be slightly complicated but it worked out really well for me in the end. I just sprayed both sides of the refrigerator or kegerator black.
That’s really it, guys. I hope you enjoyed watching the video.