A couple months back I kicked off a brew of a Belgian saison, thinking to keg half the batch and bottle the rest. When bottling day came I realized that the fridge in our new place couldn’t accommodate the keg. I’d had it in my head for a while now that a kegerator would be a fun project, and this was the perfect excuse. After quite a lot of reading I ordered the Danby DAR044A4BDD-3 from Amazon (Danby DAR044A4BDD-3 Compact All Refrigerator, 4.4 Cubic Feet, Black) and picked up a pile of parts (tower, taps, shanks, dual-port CO2 regulator, tap handles, hose, hose clamps, ball-lock disconnects) from my local home-brew shop. At this point I began to suspect that buying a commercially made kegerator would’ve only been marginally more expensive, but there was fun to be had in the process.
The first step was preparing the door, since two kegs and a 5lb CO2 tank could fit only if we made the door flat. The door is only held on by a couple screws, and once it was off, the gasket was pulled off, then a hobby knife and dremel were used to cut the hard plastic free. A good bit of mess was generated while leveling out the insulating foam, I’d recommend an N45 mask for that bit. A piece of erasable white board material was picked up from Home Depot for a couple bucks and then cut down to 17 3/4” x 28 1/2”, just large enough to fit inside the gasket. The exposed insulating foam was covered with overlapping stripes of aluminum tape to prevent any condensation from getting into the insulation of the door, the whiteboard and gasket were placed, and the door was finally re-attached.
Two holes had to be put into the fridge, a 2” diameter hole on the top for the tower, and a smaller one near the bottom for routing cables in and out of the cooled volume. The second is only really necessary since I also wanted to use the fridge as a temperature controlled fermentation chamber for my next batch (an Irish Red), but has been useful for monitoring the temp as a kegerator too. Before drilling the first hole, the light fixture had to be moved out of the way. A couple screws hold it in place, and once they're removed it just dangles from a cable and can be taped out of the way. Measured on the top of the fridge, the center point of the hole sits at 13 3/4” from the front edge, and 10 3/8” from the left (or right) edge. I was paranoid about hitting any condenser lines when drilling into the fridge, so I borrowed an IR viewer from the lab and confirmed that this model has no condenser lines in roof. The spot I picked also managed to avoid electrical lines, which is also pretty important.
A 2” hole saw was used to (carefully) cut through, then the edges of the exposed metal were filed down. Strips of aluminum tape were fed through the hole and folded over to seal the insulation from humidity. With plenty of paranoia of ending up with a moldy kegerator, I went ahead and applied two layers of tape. For the hole at the bottom, I chose a spot in the left corner of the raised “shelf” that appeared unobstructed on the underside of the fridge, coming out well clear of the compressor. I used a 1 1/2" hole saw, again filed the edges, and fit it with a small length of PVC pipe, chosen after I’d confirmed that all the plugs I’d be routing through there would fit (temperature probe, ferm wrap heater, tower fan power). Around the edges where the pipe met the plastic (both top and bottom) I piped in a good bead of shower sealant, which took a surprisingly long time to cure but has since held up quite well.
I ended up using the fridge in this state (sans actual tower) for two weeks as a fermentation chamber for my Irish Red. I did apply a bit of aluminum foil to both sides of the tower-hole with duct tape to prevent moist air from entering the volume, and wedged a crumpled-up ball of foil into the void to reduce convection and radiation across that gap. Once that brew finished, I shifted it into full kegerator mode and attached the tower. None of the anchoring holes gave me much trouble, but I did have to hunt down very long bolts that could reach the interior, and some matching wing-nuts that I could hand tighten by hand. I switched on the tower fan I’d bought and realized in short order that my tower was under-insulated - condensation immediately formed on the top! I cut down a bit of rubber-foam pipe insulation and shoved it into the tower, which worked well.
I’ve still only attached one of the taps, and (after a bit of calculation) settled on close to 20 feet of beverage line and a medium setting on the flow-control tap to produce a low-foam pint every time. I did end up ordering a (surprisingly expensive) drip tray with a 3” diameter cut-out for the tower, as the taps certainly do drip for a couple seconds every time I pull a pint. I may post an update when I get the second keg set up, but until then I’m loving having a fresh red ale on tap.
Prost!