How to build a Keggarator

This is story of how my husband built our newest fixture in our house. And I have to say it is awesome. 

There  comes a time in the life of many an aspiring homebrewer when he or she becomes fed up with washing, rinsing, filling, and capping dozens of bottles of beer, only to open, drink, wash, rinse....repeat.  Don't get me wrong here; the bottle is a fine means of beverage storage and transport...it is the process that I have found to become mind numbing, knee breaking, and time consuming. 

I decided it was high time to start kegging my beer.  All the great breweries do it anyways, right?  Considering I wanted my kegerator to become a permanent household fixture, I knew that this endeavor would be both expensive and complicated.  

To begin this quest, I researched the different types of kegerators and drafting systems available, both commercially built or custom made.  Every kegerator has the same minimal components:  a temperature controlled refrigeration box, a CO2 tank with a pressure regulator, gas lines with gas disconnects, beverage lines with beverage disconnects, and faucet assemblies.  The 2 most important considerations for purchasing or building a kegerator are the type of kegerator and the number of kegs it will be able to handle.  The first thing to consider is the type of kegerator; one where the beer is delivered to a draft tower coming out of the kegerator top, or one with faucets coming directly out of the front of the kegerator.  Each one has various advantages.  I decided to build my own kegerator out of a chest freezer, with the faucet assemblies coming out of the front.  Next, one must determine how many kegs the kegerator will service, as this will dictate the size of the kegerator.  I wanted to have the capacity to maintain 4 kegs and keep the CO2 tank inside the refrigeration box, so I purchased a Frigidaire chest freezer model LFFE09M5HWL (outer dimensions 21  3/4" x 41 1/4"x32"), which has enough room in it for a 5 lb CO2 tank and 4 Corny kegs.  

Rather than drilling holes for the beer shanks in the side of the freezer, I designed a wooden collar to fit on top of the freezer, into which the shank holes would be drilled.  I used cherry wood 2x4s (keep in mind a 2x4 is REALLY a 1 3/4" x 3 1/2"...but this was sufficient for my collar) that I purchase from a local lumber store.   I had the cherry wood mitre-cut at the corners, and had the shank holes drilled 4" apart at the right of the front section.  I stained the wood with a walnut stain/polyurythane finish.  About 2 coats was sufficient to get the rich walnut color I wanted.  

Once the finish dried, I drilled holes for the metal right-angle braces in each piece, glued the pieces together and affixed the braces.  The collar being completed, I detached the lid of the chest freezer and drilled holes in the rear board of the collar to attach the lid hinges to.  To my pleasant surprise, the weight of the cherry lid was sufficient to handle opening and closing of the lid with ease.  I then decided where I wanted my gas manifold to hang, and drilled the holes for that.  Installing the shanks required a little sanding of the shank-holes, since some of the finish dripped inside.  

The lid attached, the mount for the manifold set up, and the shanks and faucets installed and the collar is complete!  The next task was to seal the collar to the freezer.  This was accomplished using silicone sealant.  I ran a thick bead of silicone all the way around the freezer top perimeter where the collar would contact, placed the collar on, and proceeded to seal any cracks or crevices either in the collar itself or where the collar meets the freezer. 

After letting the silicone set overnight, I filled the CO2 tank, put in one of my kegs, plugged the freezer into the thermostat, put the temperature probe in the freezer, and waited for the beer to chill!  Cheers!

 We currently have two beers on tap. An Imperial Russian Stout and an Imperial Pumpkin Ale. I think we are going to be in trouble.

Brew Day Sunday

I am going to let you in on a little secret; I love beer! I know it is a real surprise, but you will soon discover that I can bring almost every conversation back to beer and so on.

My husband and I have been avid home brewers for past 4 years with our first batch of beer brewed in the kitchen of our first house and eventually have moved to all grain brewing and with our brand new keggarator we are making it a point to have ice cold beer on tap all the time.

Yesterday, we did one of my favorite things, Brew Day Sundays. The beer we brewed is a clone of the Three Floyds’ American Pale Wheat Ale Gumball Head.

I found the recipe on Brew365, but here is a quick overview of the ingredients.

Grain Bill:

·      6 lbs Wheat Malt

·      5 lbs 2-Row

·      1 lb Caravienne Malt

Hop Schedule:

·      ¼ oz Amarlilo-1^st Wort Hop

·      ¼ oz Amarlilo-60 Mins

·      ½ oz Amarlilo-15 Mins

·      1.25 oz Amarlilo-5 Mins

·      1 oz Amarlilo-1 Min

·      1.5 oz Amarlilo-Dry Hop

Here is a picture of me making hops bags out of cheese cloth

We started off by heating 4 gallons of water to 170˚F to use in our Mash Tun. Mashing is the process in which we are converting the starches in the grain into sugars. These sugars are eventually going to be converted to alcohol when we pitch the yeast. I wanted to hit a temperate of 153˚F and was taking into account that when I added my grain that the temperate would drop. We ended up mashing at 154˚F for one hour.

We ended up with about 2.5 gallons of wort. Then we heated 4 gallons of water to boiling to sparge with. Sparging is the process of washing the grain to flush out all the remaining sugars. We sparged for 10 minutes and then drained the rest of the wort. We were able to pull off another 4 gallons of wort to start boiling with. Also the recipe called for 1^st Wort Hopping, this means that I added hops into the pot as I was added the hot liquor. I will add the rest of the hops as soon as the wort begins to boil.

 Here is the sparging process at work. It looks and smell like oatmeal.

Next we brought the beer to boil and added to the hops according to the schedule above. It is really best to use hop bags that way you don’t have a lot of hop trub (particles of hops). 

After the boil is over, you want to cool the beer as quickly as possible. We do that by using an immersion cooler. We run cold water though a copper coil that sits in the beer. 

After the beer is cool you need to be careful about sanitization.

 I like to whip up a bucket of Star San and use that to sanitize my carboy.

After transferring the beer, I pitched the yeast. I used an American Ale Yeast Blend from White Labs and then tucked my beer away to begin the fermentation process.

Soon our beer will be move to our keggarator and be ready to drink in just 4-6 weeks.

Brewing is a great hobby and a lot of fun. Plus it is so much fun drinking something that you have made.
If you have any questions, or are curious about the home brewing process, feel free to ask.

Next time I will go though the details about how we built our keggerator. Another fun do it yourself project.

Guilty Pleasures

So let's begin by talking about guilty pleasures. We all have them, don't deny it. I have many different types of guilty pleasures from bad science fiction movies to dancing around my house to Madonna when my husband goes to work. It is the little things that make us laugh and feel good about ourselves.
I recently read an interview from a famous Chef who runs a restaurant that I have never even heard of or doubt that I will ever go to eat at and a list of his favorite food related guilty pleasures.  I call my self a foodie but I am in it more for the food then the celebrity, but don't be fooled I do have a favorite chef or two.
I just wanted to make a list of my food related guilty pleasures and maybe see if I am not the only crazy one out their with some weird guilty food pleasures.

• Grilled Cheese sandwiches and Campbell's Tomato Soup. 
• Nothing melts better than good ole American cheese.
• Snicker's Ice Cream bars
• During the heat of the summer nothing is better then pulling out a frozen snickers bar and cooling off. Better yet, deep fry that sucker. OMG! I am in love.
• Deep fried Oreos drizzled with chocolate.
• I do love a lot of fried foods, what can I say, I am from the South. I had these at a chocolate festival and they were amazing. I have yet to reproduce them at home because if I did I would be in so much trouble. 
• McDonald's Chicken McNuggets
• I know. I know. McDonald's food is supposed to be awful and gross. But I have to say that a perfect chicken nugget dipped in sweet and sour sauce is my version of comfort food to the extreme. I recently saw an article on what chicken nuggets are made of and sadly will most likely never have any more, but I did enjoy them for a while. 
• Pizza
• This might seem pretty simple but pizza can be so much more. I love going to a new city and trying a local pizza place. It can tell you so much about the atmosphere of the town, the people and the flavors. People can be extremely loyal to that pizza joint and if you want to blend in opt for some pizza instead of a corporate food chain. One of my favorite finds this year was in Washington DC at a place called MatchStick. Plus at these local places you find the best beer selections as well. Below is Founder's Double Trouble IPA served in wine goblets. This ended up being a perfect way to serve this beer.

These are just a few of my guilty pleasures when it comes to food. And I know there is not anything particularly healthy on this list and I have known people whose idea of a guilty pleasure food was a bowl full of peas. I am not one of those people. Sorry.
But like all things in moderation is the best. And some of these foods I can't remember the last time I had one such a a deep fried Oreo or a snickers ice cream bar.
So these are my guilty pleasures. Anyone want to add anything to the list?