On many home brewers wish lists is a Brew fridge / kegregator or fermentation chamber.
I for one have been one of those brewers, and I also know for one that you can drive your wife nuts going back and forth in deciding do you actually need one, rather than just wanting one!
I had all the parts to my keg setup already - Keg ✓ Keg Taps ✓ Co2 Canister ✓ Various lengths of 3/8" inch tubing ✓ All I really needed was a way to constantly keep the temperature, I was struggling to keep up with keeping 2 kegs chilled as water bottles in my cool brewing bag were defrosting too quickly and the temperature was fluctuating by about 7 degrees. Our main fridge/freezer was also struggling to freeze 8L of water in 2l bottles too.
So with abit of birthday money I bought a Beko fridge, one that could cope with the ambient temperatures that an outhouse/garage has.
Currently I have fridge magnets from the main fridge and a calendar to mark F1 dates and brew days. I'm looking at doing fridge magnets of the keg/tap labels to show what's on tap. Eventually I'll have a magnet chalk board but at the moment I like the randomness of the decoratations and the keg/tap labels will look really good once I print them off on magnet paper.
Now for the important inside.
I have 2 perlick 650s flow control taps, the one with the wooden handle is a newer model and seems better, has an extra gasket inside the tap and the flow handle is peiced together better.
I have a three way John guest splitter from my co2 canister, two tubes feed kegs and one spare to purge any bottles or growlers.
Each of the 3/8" tubing have a flow control cut off close to the spilter, useful when I only want to focus on 1 of the outlets. At the end of each tube is a quick release/push fit connector, making it easier for maintenance/cleaning.
The co2 canister lives outside the fridge so I can monitor the pressure easier.
I also use my inkbird temp controller so that the fridge is only on when it needs to be, saving electricity. It holds the temperature well however when I open it in this heat it quickly rises a few degrees but chills back down just as quick.
All seems pretty good and a solution to my problems, especially when I had the taps and didn't want to drill the fridge door to put proper shank taps in to make a proper kegregator.
Hopefully this gives some pointers for other brewers if you've been thinking of doing the same steps.
Until next time...... Happy brewing
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