So I finally got around to it and got to work on my keezer. Surprisingly simple to do (I am not a handy person) and really had a good time with this. Trying to figure out how to post a pic so they may or may not be included below (suggestions if you can’t see them?). Going to have four taps going hopefully soon (big brew week ahead). The design was taken off the web and I have to say was incredibly straight forward and easy to do. A couple of questions:
For temp control I have a Johnson digital thermostat controller with the temp probe coming through the wood. I have seen a lot of other people place the temp probe in a bottle of water- I tried this but there was always a big delay in equalization of the temps and at times the ambient temp would be close to freezing while the water bottle was still above 45 degrees. Is this ideal or is it better to simply have the probe sensing the ambient and true air temp inside the keezer.
This finally gives me some temp control to pursue some lager brews. I will have room for a carboy for primary fermentation and lagering. Is there any problem with respect to the other beers on tap in increasing and decreasing the temp over a period of weeks between 35 and 55 degrees to allow for proper fermentation and lagering of future brews? Outside of not being able to always have very cold beer all the time (which may not be a bad thing for some of the beers) could there be any other problems?
I still need to install a 4 sided manifold to split the CO2 tank across all taps but other than that its coming along well.
To post a pic you’ll need to utilize a pic hosting site like flickr, photobucket or tinypic. Then download your pictures and copy them to the forum via an image link (the “picture frame” window above the winking smiley face).
Great…Thanks a lot. now I need to do my collar all over again :P
Nice build. I actually need to do mine over because
A. It looks like crap
B. It’s about 1 in short of allowing me to put a corny on the hump
C. Why the hell not
Depending on how you did it, you might get away with just adding a 2x2 to it, that will give you enough room to put a keg on the compressor. Then you can cover the how mess with a nice wide board that makes it look like a single piece.
Tom & Ibru…both good suggestions. I may just end up building a new collar because I have to buy a mitre saw for some other house projects and will want to just cut stuff up.
In certain homebrewing circles, those little kegs are called “Scotties” ( the BN Army guys know what I’m talking about )
I used 2x8 for the collar that rests on the cooler rim and faced it with 2x10, looks sharp and easily hold 4 cornies, I think I may even have room to finagle one more mini-keg if I decided to add a stout faucet or something. Fun and rewarding project.
