In my quest avoid bottling I decided to keg.  With that decision done I needed to find a home for them.  There are a bunch of options out there but I decided to build a keezer, which is a modified chest freezer.  I needed something I could place in my living room that would look as nice as possible for my fiance who was gracious enough to let me proceed.

I started with two taps but drilled four holes.  I soon upgraded to four taps.  I used a dual regulator so I could use one for high pressure force carbonating or for something like a hefeweizen.  I spent some extra money to purchase a black freezer and stained the collar to make it look as nice as possible.  Like the fermentation chamber I used a Johnson A419 temperature control.  I found that a well sized hole in the top of a used WhiteLabs yeast vile which is then filled with water and plugged with the temperature probe from the A419 works nicely to add some thermal mass to the probe.  I also added a old 120mm PC fan connected to an old cell phone charger to move air around, and a large box of silica beads for moisture control.

Details of the Build:

Kenmore 8.8cu foot chest freezer.  I built the collar out of 1×8 poplar.  I stained it and glued in some foam for insulation.  I attached some custom aluminum brackets to the original mounts for the hinges and used that to secure the collar to the top of the freezer.  I also ran a bead of silicon between the chest freezer and collar to help seal it.  The lid was then attached to the collar.  The seal on the lid seals to the stained wood collar just fine.

20# Reconditioned CO2 Tank.  Don’t bother buying new.  Steel tanks last almost forever.  My cylinder entered service in 1957.  It has a new valve, fresh coat of paint and hydro test.

Dual CO2 Regulator.  One feeds up to four kegs via a distribution block.  I also plan on adding a hose and valve to the end of the block to be used for purging carboys with CO2.  The remaining I use for beer that needs higher carbonation and for force carbonation and purging kegs before racking.

SS Perlick faucets.  Stick to forward sealing taps.  They wont gum up like the standard beer faucets.

Bev-Seal Ultra liquid lines.  Since my beer may sit in the lines for a long time these lines although hard to work with wont leave a funky taste in the beer.  I use about 12 feet of line per tap.  This lets me run 10.5 PSI of pressure and have enough resistance to avoid a foamy pour.

The fermentation chamber just has a temperature control on it.  It is a much cheaper 7cu foot Holiday freezer.  It will hold two 6 gallon carboys.