This is a step by step guide to build a home kegerator
that will hold a full size 1/2 barrel keg, a pony keg or one of the tall
slender draft kegs. A draft beer kegerator is a great home
project that can be completed in less than one day. These instructions will
help you convert your used refrigerator into a home draft kegerator. The same conversion can
be done for two of the tall slender kegs by mounting two taps through the
door and splitting the CO2 line with a tee.
Beer dispensers have been made from just about all
types of refrigerators and freezers over the years. The ideal candidate for
a home draft kegerator is an old unused refrigerator. These instructions
show you how to mount the beer tap through the door. The faucet can also be
mounted through the side of the fridge wall. Just make sure that the
refrigerator is unplugged before drilling any holes through the side.

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These instructions will guide you
through converting a full size refrigerator into a completely self contained
kegerator for draft beer.
When, done, everything will be
completely self contained, including the CO2 tank. |

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This project stared out as a typical
home refrigerator with removable shelves and a drawer in the bottom.
Notice the one lonely 6 pack of Guinness? At least my Son
has good taste! |

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Start the conversion by pulling out
all of the shelves and then pull out tray in the bottom.
Most refrigerators will have a
sloped back like this one has. The sloped back will prevent you from
sitting a keg directly on the refrigerator floor. |

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The solution is to build a raised
shelf across the bottom. We built this one from a couple of pieces of
scrap 1X6 boards. You can also build a shelf from a 2X4 and plywood and
in some refrigerators, you can just put a milk crate in the bottom & set
the keg on top of the milk crate. |

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Here's a picture of a full size
draft keg sitting on our shelf. As you can see, it fits great. |

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The next step is deciding where to
mount the beer faucet. This is
a good example of where not to mount your beer faucet. If we were to
mount it here then I would knock the beer faucet open every time I tried
to open the freezer. You need
to mount your beer faucet even lower if you plan to install a taller
commercial tap handle. |

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Inside door shelves are other
features that you need to consider when locating the beer faucet.
You can cut out the inner door liner
and replace it with a sheet of plywood but this can turn into a major
project because once the liner is out, you'll find that there is not
much in there to mount a sheet of plywood to.
We did not want to cut out the inner
liner so we located the beer faucet below the egg tray. We used a tape
measure to mark the center of the door with a sharpie marker. |

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Drilling a hole from the inside
first guarantees that you none of the door liner features get in your
way. |

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Another picture showing the drill
bit through the outside. The hole is nicely centered because of the
careful measuring we did earlier. |

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You will need a 7/8" drill bit to
drill the hole through the door for the beer shank.
This picture is of the end of the
beer shank against a 7/8" drill bit.
It's likely that you will not find a
metal drilling bit this size at your local home improvement store. But the steel in the door is relatively
thin and you can drill through with a good wood bit providing you go slow
& lubricate the bit to keep it from getting too hot. |

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Here we are starting to drill from
the outside. Use the hole you
drilled from the inside as a guide and take your time.
Once you break through the outside, just keep going and
drill through the inside. But don't push on the inside door panel too
hard or you'll crack the panel. |

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Here's a picture of the beer faucet & shank assembly that we installed.
The parts of the assembly (from left to right) are: Hose barb (may be
attached with a nut or fixed)
Retaining nut
Beer shank (long threaded section)
Decorative plastic flange
Faucet nut
Beer faucet
Tap handle |

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The door lining is very thin and
flimsy and it will need reinforcing to hold up against the tap handle
being pulled all the time.
Drill the same size hole through a
piece of wood to use as a backing inside the door. We made our
reinforcement from another piece of the same 1X6 we used to build the
self earlier.
Once the board is drilled, remove
the hose barb (if attached with a nut) and the retaining nut and thread
the beer shank through the refrigerator door from the outside.
Slide the reinforcing board over the
beer shank, screw the retaining nut back on and tighten.
If the beer shank came with a hose
barb that was attached with a nut, re-assemble it to the shank. |

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Attach one end of the beer line to the hose barb and clamp. It helps to
soak the end of the beer line in very hot water first to soften it up.
Note: We use Oetiker clamps in our kits and the picture shows is
crimping a clamp with an Oetiker tool. A medium size pair of wire
cutters or nail nippers works just as. You can also use stainless steel
screw type hose clamps, available from your local auto parts store. |

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Screw the 1/4" hose barb, beer nut & beer washer onto the Sankey coupler
output. Attach the other end of the beer line to the hose barb.
Note: Our kits come with 6' of beer line. Don't cut the line even
though it is obviously too long! 6' is the correct beer line length to
help prevent foaming. |

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Now attach one end of the 3/8" or 5/16" (either will work) CO2 line to
the gas in of the Sankey coupler. |

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Here is a picture of the keg coupler
with both lines attached. The CO2 goes in from the side and the beer
comes straight out the top. |

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Go ahead & tap an empty keg and
place it in the refrigerator.
Notice that we coiled up the extra
beer line and laid it on top of the keg. It's critical that you keep the
beer line 6 feet long to help prevent foaming! |

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Place the CO2 tank and regulator in
the back corner of the refrigerator.
Measure the CO2 line and cut off the
excess, leaving plenty of slack so that you can pull the CO2 tank out to
get filled later. |

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Attach the CO2 line to the regulator
output. |

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There's even room for a 20 pound CO2
tank in the refrigerator! |

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The completed kegerator.
Now, if I could just get my friends
to donate a keg of beer.......... |