6-Tap Beer Fridge

This is the newest addition to the brewery. I replaced my old 3-faucet fridge with this one when my wife decided she wanted a new fridge for the kitchen. I didn't argue. 6-faucets, no waiting! This thing is truly a monster. Now my only problem is brewing enough beer to fill it up.

If you have any space at all, in the garage, in the basement, the living room, etc, as a homebrewer, you owe it to yourself to get a beer-only fridge and keg your beer. Those of you with kegging systems already are nodding your heads. Those of you still bottling are drooling. Once you start to keg, you will never go back.

One of the biggest advantages of kegging in my opinion is that it only takes about 2 days max to carbonate beer once it comes out of the secondary. No more priming sugar. Force carbonation rules! Not to mention the fact cleaning one keg is a hell of a lot easier than cleaning 50 bottles.

Scoring a fridge is easier than you think. Check the classifieds, talk you your friends, go to garage sales. Sometimes, people give refrigerators away and all you have to do it show up and haul it away. The even better news is that refrigerators are one of the most reliable things on the planet. My last fridge was made in 1960 and worked flawlessly until the day I sold it.

As you can see, I installed 6 beer faucets on the front. These are Vent-Matic faucets. If you haven't read about "forward sealing" faucets, just ask anyone who owns them. They Rock! I used to own the traditional type and was never really happy with them. If you don't tap a beer after a couple of days, the handles will stick. Plus, they get really dirty and require cleaning with brushes and Q-tips to get all the gunk out. The design on the forward sealing faucets makes them much cleaner and they never stick. I mean never. I can go on vacation for 2 weeks and come back and they pour like the did on the day I left. Personally, I don't even remove them to clean them. I just flush each line with Beer Line Cleaner (BLC) every time a keg blows out. Definitely worth the money.

I also designed a nifty gas manifold inside the fridge. I used the push-connect fittings for each keg and have a valve on each one. I really like this because I only have to install gas lines on the kegs I am actually using. If a spot is empty, I just close the valve and disconnect the hose. I also have a main shut-off valve on the outside of the fridge so I can isolate the entire manifold and disconnect the CO2 tank and use it for other things like shake carbonation or CO2 purging. To get the CO2 through the wall of the fridge, I used a 1/4" NPT pipe nipple through the wall and sealed it with rubber grommets on the inside and outside.

On the liquid side, I used 1/4" flare fittings instead of the traditional barb fittings (go figure). As I have previously mentioned, the barb fittings are a pain and are not meant to be taken apart. Everything, and I mean everything, in your system will have to be taken apart and cleaned someday. You will be glad you used these when that time comes. These fittings screw together without any sealant or Teflon tape and can be readily disassembled using only an open end wrench. I went with all stainless steel for these because I read an article on the evils of post-fermented beer in contact with brass or copper. I'm not sure if everything is as bad as the article says, but since I was going whole hog anyway, I went whole hog.

Here is a complete write up on the entire project!

A Word About Temperature Controllers

There are products on the market that turn virtually any refrigerator into a very accurate fermentation chamber. They do this by disabling the refrigerator's thermostat and make use of a separately controlled thermostat supplied with the unit. These are great - BUT - your fridge's freezer compartment will no longer function as a freezer. I use my freezer compartment for hop storage and keeping glasses ice cold. I also use the freezer to freeze ice jugs for use in my Fermentation Chiller. I did not want to give up the functionality of my freezer compartment. Before you decide to use a temperature controller, consider the all the aspects. In fact, if you are considering a temperature controller specifically for fermentation, check out my page on the Fermentation Chiller where I list a few reasons to keep beer in the fridge, and wort in the Fermentation Chiller.