After my old kegerator died I knew I wasn’t going to be able to replace it as cheaply as I acquired it, (i.e. free), so I decided I should spend some time researching my options to find the best possible solution to my needs.
When I started all really knew was I wanted a four tap kegerator; everything else was fair game, though I knew also really wanted some kind of temperature controlled fermentation chamber. For years I had been putting my fermenter under the stairs, occasionally using a wet t-shirt to try and cool it a little below room temperature with varying degrees of success.
I also had a few challenges. First was space. Like most, I don’t have a dedicated brewing space, but rather a few feet of shelving in the back of the garage where I store my equipment when not in use. Second, I didn’t want to break the bank, hobbies shouldn’t be painful.
After clearing some space, I decided two basic refrigerators fitted with temperature controllers would fit in my garage and meet my needs, one as a kegerator and one as a fermentation chamber, but they would also bust the budget.
While waiting optimistically naively for a sudden increase in disposable income I continued to research, and came across a post by Mylo Fiore on the now defunct Wort-O-Matic website for his ‘Mother of All Fermentation Chillers’ build. Basically, he built a fermentation chamber on top of a keezer and used some computer fans to draw cold air form the keezer and cool the chamber. (The original article can be found on the Internet Archive here.)
This was the solution I had been looking for! By combining the keezer and fermentation chamber solved by space and cost problems all at once. Plus I liked the idea of having something a little unique.
By waiting for a sale, I was able to get a 7 cu. ft. chest freezer for about $165 which fit into both my budget and garage very nicely. Testing showed I could indeed fit four corny kegs if I left enough space to set one on the compressor ‘hump’. As Mylo’s original build was for a keezer double that size, I would have to adapt my design and build accordingly.
Next Time: Starting the Build.