Steve's Iowa State Themed Keggerator Build

Over the last year or so my home brewing hobby went from something that I did every so often to an obsession I was regularly engrossed with.  From reading books to procuring new brewing equipment to turning my laundry room into a mini beer storage facility, Ive done a lot.  My recent project is one that Ive wanted to complete for a long time but never had the money or time to do.  That is build my own keggerator.  One where I can put my kegs on tap and not need to worry about messing with a cobra tap every time I wanted some fresh home brew.  Well this Christmas I was gifted many of the necessary parts by my wonderful family and wife to make this dream a reality.  This post will take you through my build process and everything I did to take my old deep freeze from a bland, white storage container to a full blown Iowa State themed keggerator.

The original freezer...

First things first, I had to clean this bad boy out.  The surface had plenty of grit stuck to it from being used as a multipurpose table top.  I sanded down the entire surface with a fine sand paper to get the junk off and also make it so the paint would stick to it.  Otherwise my roller would just slide around and not lay an even coat of paint.  After that was finished I was able to put on my first coat of primer.  Since this was going to be ISU themed I didnt want my Cyclone red to be a Cyclone pink.  Pink is for grandmothers and sissys... not Alma Maters and home made beer.  Two coats of grey primer later I find that my deep freeze already looks 100 times better.

Already looks better, right!?

Now its time for the red!!!  Two coats of Cyclone red, courtesy of my local Home Depot, made the entire room pop.  This thing looked awesome.  I wanted to finish the project immediately after applying the second coat but was forced to wait for the next day to let the paint dry... damn wet paint...

So red!!!

The final "build" step was to add the wooden lip between the lid and the body of the freezer.  My father in law, who is an extremely handy and crafty wood worker, helped me build this lip from scratch using some scrap pine plants he had laying around his shop.  Some sanding, sawing, screwing and staining over the course of a three hour period yielded the finely crafted piece of brewing excellence you see before you today.  The installation process included unscrewing the original lid, using liquid nails to attach the lid to the lip on the top and lining the bottom of the lip with a silicon seal to mimic the original seal on the lid.  I then screwed the hinges back into the lip itself so that when you open the top the lip opens up with it.

My cat decided my keggerator was his new bed... git away cat!

Now all that remains are the guts!  Gas hoses, splitters, beer tubing, shanks and taps all needed to be screwed in and connected.  This process is actually easier than it sounds.  Once all of the clamps were tightened up nicely and connected in the proper order I was two connections away from dispensing beer from my brand new keggerator!

The final build!!!

Cyclone themed tap and Pittsburgh Penguins tap to share the spotlight!

Overall this was a fun project to work on.  But it didnt come without its frustrating moments.  My first attempt to clean the beer lines accentuated how many moving parts there actually were with this build.  The first tap flowed perfectly.  The second one, not so much.  I had cleaning fluid leaking from the tap and couldnt figure out why.  I realized after about 15 minutes of dinking around with the shank that the actual tap itself was loose.  Once that was tightened back up I was good to go.  About a week after having the beer on tap I also found that one of my clamps wasnt as tight as it could have been since it was slowly leaking beer.  Luckily I caught it before my entire keggerator filled up with five gallons of home brew.  Had that happened you would have seen me weeping on my knees in the middle of my laundry room...  But aside from those minor issues the build went flawlessly.  My first pour from my tap was filled with satisfaction.  I could have sworn the beer tasted better this way too.

If you want to know more about the specifics of the build or what I used for equipment feel free to post below or contact us through the contact page above.  Id be happy to share any information I can and help you with your build as well!