2 tap Cornelius Kegerator

My friend Nate and I are home brewers. It's a great hobby that results in a product you can share with friends and family. If you haven't tried brewing your own beer I strongly recommend you give it a shot.

Recently we decided that we were tired of bottle conditioning our beer ( a 1 to 2 week process that gets you carbonated beer) it's long and boring and we were sick of it. The solution? KEG IT! Kegging your beer means that instead of cleaning 36-50 bottles you clean a single keg and your liquid lines. Commercial kegs are great and all, but they are not easily re-fillable at home with your own stock. Home brewers solve this problem with Cornelius kegs. The great thing about these is their ease of use, and that their tall instead of fat. A mini-fridge used as a kegerator can often hold 2 Cornelius Kegs where it could only hold a single quarter barrel commercial keg. You end up with 2 types of beer, more volume of beer, and it tastes better too.

The downside? Pain to the pocket book. If you buy everything new your looking at between $450 and $600.

Oh ya'... you'll also be needing 10 gallons of beer =)

Step 1 Get your stuff together:

There's tons of information out there as to how to modify various mini-fridges. We're going to cover one specific fridge. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Sanyo 4912 M. We got ours at best buy, but look around and you can likely find it elsewhere also. The Key to the fridge is it's height and it's total lack of a freezer. Most mini fridges use a freezer as part of the cooling system, and if you get one with a freezer you'll likely have to bend it out of the way which may damage the cooling system and render your investment useless. Corny kegs are 25" tall and 8" in diameter (You'll need at least another 2 inches of height for disconnects and hoses), so if you can't find this mini-fridge you'll have an idea of what to look for.

Basically the plan is to remove the plastic top, reinforce the area under the plastic lid with a board to make sure the tap has a nice solid base it's on top of. And then we drill a 2 1/2 inch hole right in the center of the top (Yes towards the back is nicer, don't do it I'll get into that later). Our hole is going to go through the plastic lid, our support board, the metal top of the fridge, the foam insulation, and the plastic interior.

So total what you need:
Sanyo 4912 M Mini-fridge (the 491x line all should work)
4x 10-24 2.5" Machine screws.
4x 10-24 acorn nuts.
4x washers that are as wide as possible.
Silicone Sealant
2.5" hole saw that is rated for soft metal (don't just get a wood one)
2 tap 3" diameter chrome tower with faucets.

2x 5 gallon ball lock cornelius kegs
2x liquid ball lock disconnects (barbed or threaded, threaded will be easier to clean, but also means get extra stuff to hook your lines up)
2x gas ball lock disconnects(barbed or threaded, threaded will be easier to clean, but also means get extra stuff to hook your lines up)
5 lb CO2 tank
Dual Gage CO2 regulator
Wye splitter with 2 gas shut off valves
Lines to connect regulator to the disconnects
2x tap handles
2x ear clamps for the beer lines (depends on the hose size that comes with the tower, call the shop your ordering from for details).

All of the stuff in the 2nd group is typically found in a 2 keg refrigerator conversion kit. You can get these from multiple online suppliers. Do yourself a favor and don't order off their website. Give them a call on the phone. Most of these online suppliers are regular stores that just have a nice website to go with it. When you call you should easily be able to get a person on the phone. The 2 keg fridge conversion kits come out a lot cheaper than buying everything in parts. Call them on the phone and have them remove the shanks (these are tubes meant to go through the fridge door and connect a faucet too) and faucets. In their place have them add the chrome tower which comes with it's own faucets. Doing it this way will likely save you something between $40 and $60. Midwest Supplies did this for us and I've heard of other places doing this sort of thing for other people as well.

Comments

[g0mikese]

I've recently made a new mini fridge kegerator out of the Danby DAR440BL it's a bit tighter fit on the sides, but there are no coolant lines running along the top of the fridge (confirmed from talking to the manufacturer on the telephone, another home brewer who used this fridge, and looking at the manual for it which actually has a nice diagram of it.) so you can put the taps along the back of the fridge to make it look nicer. When using the DAR440BL you can skip all the stuff about the plastic top and putting the board into place for extra support as it doesn't have the plastic top and you'll just be flush with the metal top of the fridge. You'll also have to be really careful when using the hole saw on the top of the fridge or it'll scratch up the top. The final alteration is that you'll have to remove the plastic insert of the doorway that holds pop cans, it's to big and will prevent the door from closing properly. You can remove it by pulling the plastic stripping aside and unscrewing it from the frame. If you just screw the stripping back in the door wont seal properly, so what we did this time was use a dremel to cut out the part of the plastic insert that goes under the stripping to support it into the right shape, make sure to get it all in one piece if you can. Then re-attach the stripping to the door frame with the remains of the plastic insert in place to help it keep a tight seal and everything should be set. I'll post some photos of my new fridge if anyone wants them but you should be pretty set with just these instructions since it's not a huge modification to the plans to use this separate fridge.

[Wally Kunz]

I also just bought a DAR440BL. Great news about no cooling lines on top. I'd would also like to see photos.

Thanks from a Canadian beer fan!

[GetKombucha.com]

Super Awesome post! it inspired me to do this.. I just bought the DAR440BL and I noticed two things..

1. there is a light on the top of the fridge.. wouldn't drilling a whole mess this up?

2. can you post pics of what you did for the door stripping? I see on my door that you can pull back the stripping to unscrew the soda bottle insert thing.. but not sure if I understand what you mean by using a dremal to cut away the sides for support.

If you are ever in LA you are welcome to unlimited taps from my keg brotha!!

[docmarkc]

Nicely put together. I am envious of anyone with the organization to put one of these up. I have made several keg-orators in my time, I usually use either a full-sized fridge and put the taps in the door, or I dismember an older style fridge with cooling and expansion fins and build an entire new box out of wood and Styrofoam making what amounts to a bar with a cooling cabinet underneath and a tap tower coming out of the surface.
I recommend that the CO2 bottle be placed outside the fridge and a small hole drilled in the side to allow the CO2 line to get in. Cold liquid carbonates better, but warm CO2 expands and pressurizes better so it lasts longer. Cold CO2 will run out of pressure before you have fully run out of the gas. Also the seals in the regulators prefer to be at room temperature and to be kept dry.

[guy90]

for carbonation- I use natural methods rather then CO2

[guy90]

Great Instructable- for me, well I haven't got a large income, or a packed wallet, so I took an easy method. Search for 'soda fountain' instructables, and theres a basic system you can make using an electric two way pump. In a matchbox, take a mini fridge, load a sealed container of your choice into it, drill fit and mount a fountain pump to the top, fit the hoses, make it airtight- done!

[dsfii]

Great instructable. Question about Fast carbonation and the oxygen removal. Should you do the 40psi - oxygen purge first thing? Then leave it setting in the fridge overnight before shaking for a fast carbonation? Thanks,

[g0mikese]

That is indeed exactly what I do. Purging the O2 needs to be done immediately to prevent off flavors from oxidation. And it's MUCH easier to force carb beer (or any liquid) when it's cold.

[brawns214]

Nice, I needed something like this. Didn't know that it would be this straight forward. Also, if you hang out around colleges, students tend to get rid of a lot of mini fridges at the end of the year. I myself sold a 4-year old fridge like this for $40 when I graduated.

[g0mikese]

Yeah it's pretty straight forward. I know a guy that left the plastic lid off of his setup and made a nice stained wood one with room for his drip try. Lots of stuff you can do to customize it. The only tricky thing is making sure you don't cut any of the refrigerator's functional parts when you drill.

[nolte919]

I make my own soda (pop) and force carbonate it in a way identical to this. I tend to crank the pressure up to around 60 PSI and shake it until I hear the regulator (mostly) stop hissing. I'm wondering why it's so dangerous to leave the gas lines connected while shaking the keg. Is it just because you're using standard vinyl tubing? Because I do use braided tubing which is rated for higher pressure. I dispense the soda at 15 PSI if you're curious. Great Instructable by the way. Also, if your corney kegs don't have a pressure release valve, like mine don't. You can purge air by simply connecting the gas line, turning on the gas slowly without the lid on, let the gas run for a few seconds, and close the lid. Of course air doesn't foul soda like it fouls beer so my method might not be sufficient. Again, great Instructable.

[g0mikese]

Your method of purging air would be just fine for beer also, though I'd run it for more than a few seconds (like say 10-12). The reason I stress disconnecting the gas lines so much when force carbonating is because the line can catch on something (like your hand or your foot) and possibly injure you. if it catches on something like a chair leg it can damage the gas disconnect, or even the keg itself which is not a good thing when dealing with something pressurized. The last danger is that while shaking the keg it's easy to let liquid up into the gas line which if it reaches the regulator can damage the regulator. If your comfortable with your method go for it, but I believe in safety first. Do you make your own soda from a kit? Or are you using cared sugar water with your own added spices and flavorings?

[nolte919]

I see. You make good points. I agree that safety should always come first; a little common sense goes a long way. In my setup I use a full refrigerator, three kegs on the inside and the CO2 tank and regulator on the outside. This isolates any "vibrations" in the lines from shaking from getting to the regulator and tank because the line goes through the fridge wall. There is also a significant "uphill" portion that any liquid would have to make it through to get back to the regulator. Although you make a very good point that it's imperative to avoid liquid making it back to the regulator. Not only could it foul up the regulator but mine is mostly brass and brass (or copper) is leached by continuous contact with carbonated liquid and can make you very sick.

Also, when I shake my soda to carbonate it I'm not exactly doing a martini style shake. I simply rest the keg horizontally on my knee and roll it back and forth not more than maybe five inches. You just need to get it sloshing around and you'll hear your regulator hissing away. I've found that you don't have to kill yourself shaking.

Carbonating soda has an advantage over carbonating beer in that over-carbonation is less of a problem. It's hard for a pop to be too fizzy but an over carbonated beer will produce foam which is a major drag. Along the same thought process: I'm trying to get as much CO2 as possible into my soda, you're trying to get just the right amount of CO2 in your beer. You're method is surely more exact than mine.

If you like Cream Soda then you can make easy and ridiculously cheap soda. Cream Soda is only vanilla extract, sugar, and carbonated water. For other flavors I go to http://prairiemoon.biz/homemadesoda.html for flavor concentrates. They have something like 60 flavors. My favorite is black cherry. Just follow their mixing instructions; it's only flavor concentrate, sugar, and carbonated water.

[xrobevansx]

great job! My buddies and I homebrew too. We used the same mini fridge to make a "kegerator" under my one friends' bar. Two taps as well! Again, great job!

[Leonard Zelig]

Sweet! Can I be your friend?