chest freezer

5 Articles

Over Engineered Kegerator Is Glorious

December 13, 2013 by 12 Comments

keger

When [Joey] decided to build a kegerator, he didn’t skimp. No commercial unit or simple kit would do. [Joey] wanted complete temperature monitoring, with a tap on the kegerator itself and a cooled tap remotely mounted at his bar. He started with a box freezer, which was a bit short for his purposes. Not a problem, as [Joey] cut an extended collar for the freezer from HDPE on his shopbot. The new collar gives mounting points for the beer lines, gas lines, as well as all the electronics.

Temperature control is handled by a commercial controller, however temperature monitoring is another thing altogether. An Arduino sits in a custom aluminum case on the outside of the kegerator. The Arduino reports temperature, beer type and also controls the cooling system for the beer lines. The cooling system alone is incredible. [Joey] designed everything in CAD and cut the parts out on his shopbot. Two fans sit in an aluminum air box. One fan is used to push cold air out from the freezer around the beer line. A second fan pulls air back in, keeping the kegerator/line/tap air system a (relatively) closed loop. The entire line set is insulated with 2″ fiberglass flex duct.

Temperature data and trend graphs can be monitored on the web, and [Joey] is using a Raspberry Pi to create a wall mounted status screen for his bar room. We love this build! [Joey] we’d buy you a beer, but it seems like you’ve got that covered already!

Chest Freezer Kegerator Conversion Has Six Beers On Tap

June 25, 2013 by 17 Comments

keg-freezer-conversion

Drawing a pitcher of frosty cold beer out of your own keg fridge is a liberating feeling which [Danodemano2] can enjoy all the time since he pulled off this 6-tap chest freezer conversion. You won’t have to kill yourself to get it done, this image shows the custom cuff sitting between the chest freezer body and lid which is where all the added hardware is anchored.

Chest freezers are popular because they’re efficient. And let’s face it, if you’re going to devote an appliance to storing cold beer you better make certain it doesn’t drive up utility bills. That’s the reason for the rigid foam insulation around the ring, with the spray foam to ensure energy isn’t lost around the openings in the wooden frame.

This design goes above and beyond the functionality from the last offering we looked at. That one had a pretty nice tile job, but the finished wood contrasts the black freezer very nicely on this one. It’s the PC fan used for circulation and the properly terminated wiring that we really like. The one thing we wonder about is the feasibility of fitting all six corneilus kegs and the carbon dioxide tank into this beast.

[via Reddit]

Building A Kegerator With Visual Style

April 16, 2013 by 15 Comments

Let’s face it, most kegerator builds go something like this: acquire old refrigerator, drill hole for tap, profit. But [GiveMeMyNickelback] recently had the opportunity to do better and he delivered. Above you can see the stylish chest freezer mod that serves up six beers on tap.

Chest freezers are perfect for these builds as their top door design helps keep the cold air inside to boost the efficiency. The trick is to modify them without messing up the insulating properties of the appliance housing. [GMMN’s] approach is a common one, build a cuff to go in between the lid and the body of the freezer. He started by building a wooden box open at both the top and the bottom. Many would have stopped there but to bring the bling he tiled the sides and front of that cuff, leaving an empty spot for the shank of each tap. With that taken care of he glued insulation to the inside of the cuff, and added weather-stripping to the bottom to seal with the top of the case. He used the holes from the lid hinge brackets to attach his add-on so that the freeze can be converted back to stock without any sign of his alterations.

We’d love to see a Bluetooth or Wifi add-on that monitors the beer volume in each keg.

[via Reddit]

5-keg Tap System Treats Your Home Brew Right

September 6, 2012 by 8 Comments

One of the biggest expenses when moving to a kegging system for your homebrew beer is finding a way to keep it cold. [Sanchmo] took a traditional route of using a chest freezer, but a bit of extra effort made the ordinary looking appliance into a 5 tap showpiece in his livingroom.

Home brewing is most often done in five gallon batches, so Cornelius kegs (for soda) work perfectly. The chest freezer used here has plenty of room for five of them and a canister of carbon dioxide.  A temperature controller (something along these lines) turns the freezer into a refrigerator. But to make it beautiful [Sanchmo] hit the wood shop pretty hard. He screwed a sheet of plywood to the lid and then trimmed it out, along with a tower to hold the taps. This was further accented with the inclusion of some LEDs for effect.

We did find one word of warning in the Reddit discussion. It’s possible that the original metal housing of the freezer is used as a heat sink which is now covered in wood paneling. We’re not sure if this is true of this particular model or not, but some investigation is warranted if you’re thinking of building your own.

Chest Freezer Temperature Controller

November 5, 2010 by 11 Comments

[Mikey Sklar] finds himself in need of a temperature regulated refrigerator for fermenting foods like yogurt, kimchi, bread, and beer. After some testing he found that by building his own controller he can get a chest freezer to outperform an upright refrigerator at this task by 2-to-1.

The controller is based around an ATmega48. It includes a remote temperature sensors which you can see connected to the lower left header in the image above. On the back of the board there’s a relay used to switch the freezer’s power on and off. [Mikey] is selling a kit but the hardware and software for the project are both open source so build it yourself if you have the know-how.

A chest freezer is a great place to store Cornelius kegs… we’ll keep our eyes open for one.