Picked up a 7.1 cu. ft chest freezer to turn into a keezer. Wondering what y’all would have done differently if you were to do your keezer build over again. For instance, would you rather have spent the time/money on a tower or is the collar still working OK (the drip try seems like a pain). I see some people have made towers out of iron pipe and PVC. seems like it would be a nice alternative to a $450 four-tap tower.
Awesome man! I love keezer builds and look forward to seeing what you do!
I’m a big fan of the collar. If you don’t have everything on day 1, you can punch through new holes whenever you want. I also like the look of it. Not meaning a nice tower isn’t great too. Just a preference.
For my drip tray, I ordered some of those super strong rare earth magnets and attached them to the back of the tray with epoxy. Then just stick it on the keezer. Whenever it needs cleaned I just pull it off and wash it in the sink. Works great and has almost no issues. The only problem is there are some scratches in the paint where the magnets stick to the keezer. But that’s not something I care about at all.
The only thing I wish was different about my keezer is that it was big enough for another keg (holds 3). It wasn’t an option at the time though. I bought the chest freezer from a friend really cheap. So it’s what I got.
You can see mine here if you’re interested: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=33771.0
I’m the same as Joe. Collar over tower and I use magnets to hold my drip tray as well.
I recently bought a converted pin lock keg (converted to ball lock) and discovered that the pin lock kegs are 3" shorter than the ball lock kegs. This lead to the realization that if I had used wider lumber for the collar I could fit the pin lock on the hump… maybe two of them if I moved the CO2 tank outside the keezer.
Looks great! Thanks for the magnet idea, hadn’t thought of that.
Thanks for the pin lock info. I dug up an NB article on it after you mentioned it (Ball Lock Kegs Vs. Pin Lock Kegs).
I am kind of leaning towards the tower but have to do some measuring yet. I’m in kind of a tight space and I think I’ll be knocking the drip tray off the front every time I walk by it.
I don’t have a keezer, but the kegerator i bought has metal pipe as the tower. It is not the best look, but I kinda dig it. Gives it that DIY look.
Keezer is in my future, but for now I am trying to save some cash. Good luck on your build.
I’ve seen a few of those and like the look. A few people have used PVC pipe for that too. Getting the lid open seems to be the biggest problem people have with the towers. It looks like the commercial versions have the tower all the forward so you can open the lid more fully while the thing is against a wall.
Good luck with your keezer. I’ve gotten like 10 years out of my kegerator and had it when I started homebrewing. Bottling looks tedious and not sure I would have stuck with it if not for being able to just keg it.
Surely you meant to type DIY, but it did make me smile this morning, thinking “Drinking Under the Influence”
My advice is to have a wide dip tray. I wish I could put a growler on mine.
12 years ago I built a keezer from a freezer by putting the wood band around the perimeter like others. But that is where I deviated.
I installed a 4" PVC pipe with a 2" PVC concentric pipe inside it. At the keezer, I had a 4x2 concentric adapter that blew air down the 2" pipe (Dayton blower). At the business end, I had a 4" toilet flange with the tower on top of the counter. The 2" pipe stopped about 2-3" from the flange. The beer lines ran down the 2" pipe.
The cold air from keezer blew down the 2" pipe shilling the beer lines the whole way. At the end, the air turned 180 degrees and ran back to the keezer via the annulus of the concentric pipes.
Worked very well. Sold that house and it conveyed.
Was going to to post pictures but appears no option to do so.
Sometimes practicality is more important than preference or cost so look at the big picture before making your decision. My Keezer faces a high traffic area so it was a no brainer to go with a tower rather than having the faucets and drip tray sticking out where they would constantly be bumped into. With that decided, it was just a matter of finding a chest freezer with a strong enough top to handle a tower and deep enough to use ball locks in.