Thursday, November 09, 2006

Building the kegerator: finding the parts

It has now been a few weeks since I installed the taps on the refrigerator, effectively making it a kegerator. I'm very happy with it so far and it has worked very well.

There are three kegs connected, serving a Witbier, a Christmas beer and an Oatmeal Stout. The fourth tap will have to wait a little as I'm missing a gas quick disconnect. I don't know why it got lost. The flow rate and carbonation levels seem to be quite alright, except that I seem to be having a leaky keg leaving the Witbier a bit low in carbonation. I tend to close the CO2 tank when the kegerator is not in use, just so that I don't end up with an empty tank without wanting to. I'll have to take a closer look at the keg to give it a better seal. A little lubricant and a tighter lid might help.

Much of the challenge of designing it has been to get hold of all the necessary pieces so that it would actually work. Below you'll find a list of all the components that I used. I bought the equipment from MoreBeer and Brewers Discount.

MoreBeer:

1xD1413 - Drip Tray - 13" Wall Mount$49.00
1xD1810 - Gas Manifold - 4 Way$47.50
12 ftD1704 - Beverage Line (5/16 in. ID)$7.20
16 ftD1700 - Beverage Line (3/16 in. ID)$8.00
1xH550 - Beer & Gas Line QD Set - In-line W/ Shut-off$13.95

Brewers Discount:

4xShank Assembly with 4 1/8" Shank$118.00
4xBL010-QD Gas 1/4" MFL$15.00
4xBL010-1-QD Liquid 1/4" MFL$15.00
9xH011-Swivel Nut and Stem 1/4"$14.85

Total cost: USD 288.50 (plus shipping and VAT)

Hopefully the list is helpful and that it might help you get started on your own kegerator.

Update: After rechecking the setup I realize that it is a ninth swivel-nut and stem that I am missing, and not a gas-in quick disconnect. The reason is that I had to use one to connect the gas line to the CO2 regulator. I've updated the costs above accordingly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not exactly sure what your set up is but the least expensive (cheapest) commercial-grade kegerator parts I have found were at www.kegcowboy.com
I started to try and get a regulator here - a tank here etc. then I saw the kegcowboy price and I was like - why make this any harder than it has to be? They sent me a kit that was already together - I just drilled a hole and was done. NICE First night I had it going two girls from down the street were passing by and decided that they would spend the rest of the night (literally) in our garage drinking with us. First time they ever stopped.

Anonymous said...

Oh I think that kit I got from www.kegcowboy.com was $157 and included everything including a tank!!! They had another kegerator without a tank for $90.