Extending a fridge for a keggorator

[Kev888]

Right, after much faffing around failing to get a chest freezer I'm now going to make one. Or more accurately, I'm going to build a bigger chest-freezer type box around a fridge. By <cough> pure coincidence it seems that the kitchen needs a new fridge so i can use the old one in a more important beery role

I reckon if I extended the fridge using high quality insulation that was twice the thickness of the original fridge's, then I could get to twice the size without degrading its performance. But actually by 'size' it is wall area rather than volume that matters, and double the wall area can mean more than double the volume. Also, as I'll be looking at around 12c rather than fridge temperatures, the heat loss will be less anyway, so I could go further yet without over-stressing the fridge. In terms of energy loss, maybe 3 or 4 times the volume of the original would not be completely unreasonable..

Hmm, i can see whats going to happen here though... yet another unfeasibly large creation.. Thankfully (in a way) celotex is expensive stuff, so it may stand a chance of ending up being smaller than my garage...

Cheers
Kev

[GrowlingDogBeer]

How about refrigerating the pit in your garage and turning it into a mini cellar.

Actually, if you put a nice insulated roof on it, and put the chilling part of a fridge inside and the rest outside the pit.......

[Kev888]

Superb idea!! Perhaps not so convenient for serving (and having to move the car at the end of a keg possibly a bit risky for its paint work too.. ) but it could well be great for storing beer, maybe even without any form of cooling. I'd considered it for fermenting in but its a bit damp/mouldy smelling and doesn't have the headroom for the conical so i went off that idea, but for sealed cornies and bottles... Oh No, I can see myself making another trip to Norm at this rate.. Right, evaluate it first, I need several hot days in a row and a thermometer...

Mmm, so maybe my keggorator doesn't quite need to be the size of a warehouse after all then; I can imagine wanting 'at most' say a stout, a bitter, an IPA, a wheat of some kind and maybe the latest experimental brew (the 'guest' ) on at once. Oh, and plus a second of each for when the first goes off. So an absolute maximum of 10 cornies even in my wildest dreams... for now.

Thats sort of large chest-freezer type of size; should be quite achievable without buying shares in celotex..

Thanks - this is getting better and better
Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Well heres a very rough plan of the initial concept for the 'keg-enormo-ator' - based around that most aesthetic bench mark, the 8' by 4' sheet (although its only 3/4 of a sheet wide):


Quite a lot of head space, so I may reduce it or else introduce some removable baskets for bottles. its got a surface area of about 6.5 square meters, as opposed to about 2.5 squ m for the original fridge, so its around 2.5x more; with double the insulation and a warmer internal temperature I 'think' it should be okay.. Though I'll need a fan to circulate the air I guess

Cheers
Kev

[boingy]

Bloke question:

Q: What's better than an inspection pit in your garage?
A: An inspection pit full of beer in your garage.

[GrowlingDogBeer]

How many cornies have you got?

I have just got to 8 and realised its a problem and time to join the CBA (Corny Buyers Anonymous)

Does look impressive though, can't wait to see the build.

[Kev888]

Bloke question:
Q: What's better than an inspection pit in your garage?
A: An inspection pit full of beer in your garage.

Very true! At the moment there's still space in the garage for the brewing rig and the car, but i can see it'll only be a matter of time before the car becomes homeless!! In this last year or so I seem to have been invaded by a growing army of plastic bins and mango tubs..

How many cornies have you got?
I have just got to 8 and realised its a problem and time to join the CBA (Corny Buyers Anonymous)
Does look impressive though, can't wait to see the build.

Ah well, I've been collecting them for a bit longer, and they do seem to call to each other.. It was the increase in batch size that did it; it means less frequent brewing so I can now fit the smaller number of brew days in without feeling guilty (I'm enjoying it again!), but as i'm not actually drinking any faster it also means the need to store more beer and for longer..

With serving and conditioning it seems to need at least two batches at different stages. So if each batch is a 4-cornie brew length thats 8 cornies... I'm just about managing to have two types on the go at once with the 14 I have rather than 16 cornies. The way I persuaded myself this far is that of all brewing-related things cornies have to be amongst the best value - if I needed to then I'm sure i could sell them for not a great deal less than they cost me and get years of use out of them for almost nothing..

That said I'm aspiring to have more types on the go, so unless I win the lottery I'm either going to have to start making some smaller batches or accept that there'll be periods when some types aren't 'on'.

Anywho, just been to wickes to get some 50mm celotex - they had one sheet that was about 50mm and the rest were about 40mm or less; they weren't sure if they'd been sent the wrong stuff or if there was a quality control problem at the manufacturers..

Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Well I've been struggling to spare any time (as usual), but it has progressed a bit. I built the frame and started to fit the celotex:

Buying the celotex was expensive; I keep telling myself it'll save running costs for years to come..

There are a couple of alterations from my concept drawing: I discovered the height at the front was too high to lean over easily, so I made the lid sloped down at the front to a lower lip. I also incorporated some extra horizontal rails above cornie height, which I'll use to support some sort of crates or baskets for bottles. And i added some extra horizontal battons to support the floor and lid better.

Think I may have to get some gas-lifts from the scrap yard or some other mechanism (e.g. a stick!) for keeping the lid open - at the mo you need the thing several inches away from the wall to let the lid fall back far enough for gravity to keep it open. I'll probably also get some parliament hinges so it'll hinge from the very top and again need less clearance from the wall.

Cheers
kev

[NOZ]

That is impressive mate!

Thats how it would look in my head before i made it.

This is what it would look once completed

as you can see my carpentry skills vastly outsine yours.

[Kev888]

Heh heh! I did consider trying to make proper joints, like Jim did on his work of art, but in the end I chickened out and went for 6" screws..

Cheers
kev

[Hogarth]

That looks great, Keg. Excellent work.

EDIT: Um, sorry, I meant Kev. I got cornies on the brain.

[Wolfy]

Since not one person has questioned the 'need' to refrigerate 12x cornies at one time ... I guess I had better not ether.

[far9410]

its all a question of thirst

[Kev888]

Since not one person has questioned the 'need' to refrigerate 12x cornies at one time ... I guess I had better not ether.

Heh-heh! I always seem to need more cornies, somehow...

But yes you're quite correct. In practice I will probably have 'up to' four types of beer to choose from at once, and even should I have two cornies of each type (one dispensing and one ready to change to or carbonating) thats still only eight. So I may not even cut the top off the fridge initially, just keep that as an option should it be needed in the future - I have aspirations to make smaller batches of test/special recipes, so potentially there could also be some additional beers to keep long term in either cornies or bottles.

Clearly my problem is that I don't drink it fast enough..

Cheers
Kev

[Kev888]

Well the home-made chest freezer is progressing; slowly, but at least its progressing. I finished celotexing (should have taken out shares in foil tape!) and then covered the ply floor and about 3" up the walls with a thick plastic sheet as a flood-containing measure. Then sealed in the fridge with squirty-foam and more tape, after cutting its top off:

Its definately a 'functional' look at the mo!

I wired up a TC-10 and set it to 12c last night. Its taking an age to lower the temperature, after a day its brought the internal temperature by 6c down to 18c - but then the beer was an unpleasant 24c when it went in and the ambient temperature is around 33c at the mo so maybe its too early to say if I've been over-ambitious or not; its still dropping anyway and i've not yet introduced any fans to blow the cool air about so fingers crossed. At least the beer is already a lot more pleasant!

Next is to clad the exterior and sort out some permanently fixed taps. I can see myself wanting some sort of gas distribution board too. In the longer term I may try to make it look smarter by cladding with pseudo drawer fronts or wood panelling or something, but for now its going to be 6mm ply

Cheers
kev