Noob at kegging

[Erik The Anglophile]

I have been brewing for a bit over a year, by no means an expert but I think I can say I know what I am doing at least by now. I am though getting tired vof bottling, and plan to make the jump to kegging.
Mostly intend for British style house ales to be kegged, stronger beers will still be bottled.


Anyways, I have started planning for a kegerator to be built form our old kitchen fridge, and have some questions to clarify a few things.
Will use 18 and 12L kegs, I have some good condition used ones I will buy, gonna buy 3-4 of each right away since I am most likely gonna want some spares to condition beers to be put in the fridge once one keg is empty.
My thought is to use reinforced pvc tubes and hose tighteners for the gas, and PE tubes and John Guest connectors for the beer lines.

I Will prime the kegs and condition for a few weeks, use a bottle priming calculator and prime to 1.6 vol co2 then put them in the fridge kept at 11c and hook up gas once the keg is chilled and let it sit for a few days before starting to pour. 0.5 bar serving pressure is what I should aim for,correct? This to get a little faux cask feel.

I have been looking at using 3/16 tubing mainly, apart from small bits of 3/8 at the tap and keg post, 2 meters should be a good lenght if I have understood correctly?

And the layout of the kegerator itself: My though is to rip out most of the interior and build a plywood shelf, to keep the kegs kinda in the middle of the fridge (fridge is about 155cm tall) and then drill the holes for the taps about 10cm above where the top of the keg will be, to minimise rise. Am I thinking correctly here?
And then use an UT-300 thermostat with the probe in the fridge to control the temp inside, I plan on using 2 computer chassi fans to get some airflow and even temperature on the inside, doing this, can I let the temp sensor hang freely in the fridge or should I tape it to a small glas of water or the like?
I have been reading and doing some homework, but these things I wanted some input on. Thankful for any advice.
Cheers and brew on!

 

[Erik The Anglophile]

Anyone got any input?

 

[ChilledGecko]

Hi Erik,
I've built a keezer, so the process will be similar.
I found you end up maxing out the available space, so don't stress too much around positioning of the kegs. Just get 'em in there!
A key component is the beer line, you need thin (3/16 or similar) and enough of it to give you a decent pour at the taps. You can always shorten the line, it's harder to lengthen it...
I tend to aim for 10psi in the keg unless there is a particular reason for anything different. I've not yet brewed any beer that needed deviating from 10psi.
The fan idea, I did this with my keezer, not convinced it made a big difference at the end of the day and in a fridge it will take up valuable real estate.
My temperature sensor I tend to jam it on the top of one of the keg lids, there is a loop on mine that I can lay the sensor through.

Have fun building it

 

[ChilledGecko]

Just found my original write up thread for the keezer, may be some info in there you can use...
Keezer build

 

[Erik The Anglophile]

That's a neat build, but not sure the specs of it translates to mine, as I intend to both serve the beer at higher temps and at lower levels of carbonation (ie lower serving pressure) that is why I figured I might get away with about 2 meters of beer lines.

 

[Moe]

Hi,
I use 3/16 beer line, but you don’t need to use any 3/8 on the beer side, you can buy 3/16 to 3/8 stem connectors.

I use 2m of 3/16 gas line. The pour is a touch slow but I don’t get any fobbing. You can trim down your beer line in increments until you get the right pour if you need to.

I use 3/8 line and JG connectors for the gas side too.

Check your gas regulator will allow low pressure, some don’t go down to cask levels.

I don’t use an external thermostat for my kegerator as I just use the fridge thermostat to keep it at 12C. However I use an ink bird for my fermentation fridge and it does the job perfect. You can set whatever temp you like and it keeps it within 0.5C. For this i put the probe into the beer via a thermowell. If you hang your sensor freely it will monitor and control the air temp which will likely swing a lot more than the actual beer temp. I’d recommend taping your probe to the outside of one of the kegs with a bit of sponge or similar to insulate it. Or putting it in a container of water should do a similar job.



I got most of my stuff from brewkegtap.com, it’s a great website: they have all you need at a good price and customer service amd delivery is excellent.

 

[Erik The Anglophile]

Thank you, I looked at using hose adapters because 3/16 stem adapters seem hard to come by here (Sweden). And the thermostat is because the built in thermostat in the fridge is rather unreliable and causes some hefty temp swings.
The compressor and cooling element works perfectly fine though.
I'll start with a bit over 2m 3/16 and trim down a bit if need be.
Wish me luck!