Kegerator Upgrade Part 1: Buying a Chest Freezer

For several months (pretty much all summer) we’ve been talking about wanting to move the kegerator inside. The outside kegerator didn’t have the greatest seal on the doors and would have a lot of condensation on the outside when it was humid (which is all the time here in NC). Also, the taps and drip tray would get moldy if not cleaned on a regular basis. Overall, having a kegerator outside just wasn’t ideal in this hot and humid climate.  I have been nonchalantly browsing Craig’s List for a while looking for a good deal on a kegerator, but after discussing it with Elise, we both decided that a new, clean, and energy efficient freezer would be the way to go; especially if it was going to live inside.

We decided that we would list our old kegerator on Craig’s List, and if it sold, would use that money towards a new unit. I posted on a Tuesday, and over the following weekend, we were able to sell it for $330. For a fridge with 3 taps, my 5-lb CO2 tank and regulator, and a 4-way manifold, I think I could have gotten a little more than what I ended up getting, but the most important part was that we had some money to go towards a new unit. I still have the 20-lb CO2 tank, but it was nice having the extra small tank in the garage to use when filling kegs. I’ll keep looking for used tanks online and get one when I find a good deal.

Since we were upgrading in equipment, I also wanted to upgrade in the number of taps.  We had 3 before, so that meant going to 4 or 5. Because we wanted to have that many taps, a fairly large sized chest freezer would be needed, something in the +14 cubic foot range. Elise happened to be looking online at Lowe’s one day and found a 14.8 cubic ft chest freezer that was marked down $150, and since there was only 1 left, we pulled the trigger and bought it!

What will follow is our account of making the chest freezer into our own personal kegerator. In order to make this process easier to read and follow, I’m planning to post in smaller portions instead of one giant, long post.

Reminder: This is not going to be posted to correlate where we are in the project.

It’s already done. It looks awesome. 

Enjoy!