Kegerators...

[brewsparks86]

Hey all, looking to build myself a kegerator soon...any suggestions and or reccommendations for types of fridges/cooling units, mounting, and what not? I've seen the typical mini-fridge with the tap out the top...but I also like the door mount ones. What are the perks of each?

[beerking]

1. The door mount usually has more space, for more kegs and for a few bottles or for yeast storage.
2. Most door mount kegerators are converted refrigerators, with the attendant freezer on top, which means room to store your hops.
3. Many half height refrigerators have coils in the top. Cut one of these while installing the tower and you have one very large paperweight. Make sure you know where the coils are BEFORE you cut...preferably before you acquire the unit.
4. Mini-fridge models fit in many more places, like under your bar!
5. My Danby kegerator (mini-fridge sized) can hold 3 cornies, or 3 Sanke 1/6 BBL kegs (although I only have the plumbing set up for one Sanke).
6. As a GENERAL rule, the larger refrigerators can last longer than the small ones.

HTH!

[brewsparks86]

Thanks for that...pretty solid info there. I would definitely not enjoy a large, unusable paperweight. I'm also wondering what the benefit of using a conical fermentor as opposed to a bucket or other standard fermentor. I've seen them around, noticed they are quite pricey, but figure they must do something important (I know they are used in our local breweries) that can't be achieved with other units.

[Mill Rat]

Conicals let you dump the trub and expended yeast without having to siphon to another vessel.

[nelstrodomus]

I'm a fan of the keezer set up, mostly due to the cost effectiveness. I don't have a collar on mine, but a SS triple tap tower. It's more of a hassle to move beer in and out, but it's really not that bad as long as you have the keezer on larger high quality caster wheels to easily move it away from the wall, but I also have a 25 year old back.

I bought my freezer from craigslist for $100, and it fits 4 kegs without a collar, 6 with a collar, which in my opinion is great. Nothing better than killing a keg and having a freshy right next to it ready to go.

To solve the foam issues I used to get with my tower, I built an exhaust face that blows cold air directly into the tower, and I haven't seen foam since, it's great.

[nelstrodomus]

Conicals let you dump the trub and expended yeast without having to siphon to another vessel.


My understanding of the conical is that it looks pretty and you can dump trub, but the expense of them makes them rather unnecessary when money can better be put into controlling fermentation temps and buying more grain.

The reason the commercial brewers use conicals is pressure at the bottom of the cone where all of the dropped out yeast/trub goes. When you have 30-50' of beer sitting on top of this yeast, you're asking for exploded (or is it imploded?) yeast cells and all kinds of off flavors in the beer. Having the conical allows them to remove the yeast (especially for reuse) and mitigate any off flavor issues due to lysis of the yeast cells.

My 2 cents, others will certainly disagree. Buy more kegs and cut the tops off them and ferment in those, stainless will last forever if taken care of.