Freezer + Kegs = Keezer!

After months of looking at a lot of keezer threads over at Hombrewtalk.com I finally took the plunge and decided to build one of my own. I decided to go with a collar rather than a tower because I didn't want to deal with cutting through the lid of the freezer. I received a lot of inspiration from this design. The addition of a door on the front of the keezer gives the benefits of the tower with the convenience of a collar. The door minimizes the additional height a keg must be lifted in order to get it into the keezer.

I found a killer deal on kegs on Craigslist. Then ordered a custom kit from KegConnections. I have a dual regulator with one leading to a 3-way manifold for the taps. This gives me four CO₂ lines so I can carbonate a keg while having 3 others tapped. This way I will have a keg ready to go when one blows. The freezer is a 9 cubic feet Frigidaire that I got from Lowes. It can hold 6 kegs with plenty of space for the CO₂ tank.

I apparently forgot to take pictures in the beginning of the build so you'll just have to imagine the first few steps. First I built a base collar out of cedar 2x2s. It is probably good that I don't have pictures of this because my cuts were not pretty and required quite a bit of touch up. After I had the base collar, I built 3/4 of the upper collar out of cedar 2x6s. I put the back wall and sides together then glued the base collar and upper collar together with liquid nails.

Once I had the rigid portion of the collar built, I drilled out the holes for the taps and added the door to the collar. I carved out a portion of the side wall to hide the hinge of the door. It gives the keezer a slightly cleaner look.

Door slightly open

The door has a slight sag when fully open, but that is expected. I did have a problem with the door staying shut. I added a latch to keep the door pressed against the foam tape to minimize air leaks. I added the foam tape on both edges of the door to help keep the freezer more efficient.

Door latch

I attached the collar to the top of the freezer with silicone. I then started installing the hardware. This step actually gave me some problems. The faucet on the far right just did not want to sit properly. This resulted in me spraying sanitizer all over the front of the keezer because it was coming out of the sides of the faucet. After taking it apart and putting it together a few times, I finally got it to sit properly.

Starting to look like a keezer.

I reattached the keezer lid by putting the hinges onto the collar. I then installed the temperature controller into the keezer. I cut the main power to the freezer and wired the controller in to turn it on and off in order to keep the freezer above freezing. Surprisingly, this was probably the easiest part of the whole build. I was expecting issues with the controller.

Keezer!

I had two kegs ready to go into the keezer. The Caribou Slobber and vanilla stout. After a few days of waiting I was finally able to pour some beer!

mmm beer...

I had the double brew day to get the keezer filled at full capacity. The pale ale should be a quick finisher. It will be great to have all three taps pouring. Let me know if you have questions or want more pictures of anything!