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Kegorator Rebuild

Towards the end of last summer we had two solid weeks of very hot weather.  Normal here in the northeast we will get two or three days in a row of oppressive humid heat, followed by a little breather.  But last summer that two week stretch had my old chest freezer running pretty hard. So hard I think the compressor burnt out.

Things are starting to warm up again and with that its time to get the draft lines flowing again.
Time to jump into a kegorator rebuild.

I have been using a standard upright fridge since last fall to keep kegs cold. I’ve been pouring beer with cobra/picnic taps. With the warmer spring weather I decided to get my faucets and drip trays moved from the old chest freezer over to the fridge.

Now using a fridge isn’t my favorite way to do a kegorator. But this way I can get beer flowing and not spend any extra money on a replacement fridge. (Funneling money to the brew stand build is my current priority.)

Simply put I dove into this project and it went much smoother than I expected. I thought I’d have some trouble with the way the inside of the door was molded, but that turned out to not be a problem at all. I got all four faucets nicely positioned on the door of the fridge.

I converted an upright once before many years ago. For that build I actually removed the plastic molded shelving from inside the door and replaced the insulation with pink foam core board. Worked well. But I do like the ability to keep the door shelves to temporarily hold hops and yeast as I near brew days.

My next steps will be to plumb the tubing onto the shanks. Clean out the lines and faucets with line cleaner. Lastly, hook it all up, test for leaks and let the system balance out for good clean pours. I hope to put up a follow up video to this one when I get those final touches done in the next week or so.

BREW ON!

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4 Comments

  1. Just curious, what would have been your ideal build?

  2. Great post. I picked up a $50 fridge a couple weeks ago and it works like a champ. I’ll be doing this same project next month. Fingers crossed.

  3. What a coincidence, I’m in the process of rebuilding my kegerator also. Look for a post on my brew blog soon.

  4. Hey Matt
    My ideal build would be to go back to a chest freezer. Preferable large one that can hold eight kegs at once. I’d build it out with the same 4 lines, but I’d add a fifth dedicated stout line as well. I’d also put a CO2 port on the outside so I could store the tank exterior to the unit. (Most regulators aren’t really meant for long term cold storage.) I’d use the larger freezer so I could have a couple beers cold storing while waiting to finish up the other kegs on tap at the time.
    I like the chest freezer better because its more energy efficient. I also find it easier to deal with the tubing and changing kegs around.

    I went with this set up because its what I had. I don’t expect the current fridge to last to long because its old already. Next unit will be the bigger chest freezer for sure.

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