EQUIPMENT SPOTLIGHT: Building a Keezer

This month I thought we could shift gears and talk about a project you can do at home, have a lot of fun, and serve up your tasty homebrewed creations. So, you’re ready to graduate from bottling everything and start serving keg beer at home, but are wondering how people can have multiple taps of beer? One cost effective and quick way is to build your own keezer.

So, just what the heck is a keezer.? In simple terms a keezer is a freezer that has been converted to refrigerate and serve beers. Cool idea, right? Well, here are some guidelines to build your own keezer.

Step 1: Plan your build

You will need to decide the following before you get going. First of all, how many kegs will you be serving and will you plan to expand in the future? This will determine the size of your chest freezer, number of faucets, shanks, lines, and fittings you will need. Will the unit be going inside or outside like a garage? You might think who cares? But it is quite important to get a garage-ready unit if it will be outside, especially in this Texas heat. Feel free to ask me how I know over a cold beer.

Step 2: Source your parts

Now that you have determined what kind of unit you want to build, it’s time to source and secure the components. You will need the following parts to build and run the unit:

• A chest freezer.
• A temperature controller that basically tells your unit that is designed to be a freezer to behave like a refrigerator. This unit works by plugging the freezer into the controller and the controller into the wall. A temperature probe goes down inside the keezer and turns your unit off and on to meet a preset temp.
• On the gas side you will need a CO2tank, regulator, splitter to accommodate the number of kegs you will be serving, gas fittings for the number of kegs you’re serving, and a gas line.
• On the liquid side, for the number of taps you plan to build for, you will need faucets, shanks, liquid line, liquid fittings, and plenty of line to shank the fittings.
• Lastly, enough wood to go around the perimeter of the freezer to create a collar. We will talk more about this in the next step.

Step 3: Build the collar

For this step you will need to remove the chest freezer lid and build a rectangle wood collar on top of the freezer. Then, reattach the lid on top of the collar. This can be made of 2’x4’s or any type of lumber really. You need to do this step because you can’t drill holes in a chest freezer for your beer faucets. Refrigerant lines are running throughout the sides of the freezer. And if you puncture one, you’ve destroyed it. The wood collar allows you to drill holes for your faucet shanks without hitting refrigerant lines and adds height for keg clearance to your kegerator. Once you cut the boards to make the collar, use metal corner brackets to hold the boards together. You might also use some weatherstrip to go between the bottom of the collar and the freezer. The top will seal with the freezer lid. After the collar is built you can reattach the freezer hinges to the collar and drill enough holes for the number of shanks/taps.

Step 4: Assembly

Now it’s time to put your creation together. First, put the shanks in the holes you drilled in the collar and tighten. Next, attach beer line to the shanks using beer nuts. Each beer line will need a liquid fitting attached as well. For the gas side, attach your splitter to the back wall of the collar, run a gas line to your regulator, and attach your regulator to yourCO2 bottle. Then, run a gas line from every port on the splitter and attach a gas fitting to each line. On the outside attach a faucet to each shank using a faucet wrench.

Step 5: Party time

Turn your temperature controller on and set to your desired serving temp. Set your regulator to 10-12 PSI for serving. Hook up your kegs to the gas and liquid connections and throw a party to break in your new toy! You can also bottle all your award-winning beers straight from the tap!

Note these systems need balance so considerations like PSI, and line length can be important to keep foaming at a min.

Remember you can be as simple with your design or as detailed as you like based on your skill level, but the main thing is functionality. A good keezer build can make life better for you but a bad build can do quite the opposite. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but the main thing is to have fun!

Cheers!

— Jarrett Long, Club Treasurer