Portable Keg Refrigerators

Portable keg refrigerators are very handy for the home brewer's picnic and backyard BBQ party. The easiest way to accommodate the occurrence of fresh, cold flowing home brew on-the-go is the modified beer cooler, but small keg refrigerators can also get the job done, and with less elbow grease. A small keg beer refrigerator is ideal for any event at which plug in power is in supply, and removes the fuss of refilling a modified beer cooler with ice.

Small, portable kegerators are available on the commercial market, but by using compact kegs and a freezer or fridge that is half sized or smaller, a keg beer refrigerator can be made in just a couple of hours in your garage. By using a kegerator conversion kit, you can easily transform a small fridge into a portable keg refrigerator. Buying online or at your local homebrew supply store is the option for you if you just can't wait to have your home brew on tap! But building your own keg refrigerator can be a fun aspect of the brewing hobby.

There are a number of different designs for making a keg refrigerator. I will go into two of them here: the top lid freezer and the front door freezer. In either case, you will need some tools to accomplish the job. A drill with a one-inch hole saw bit will be needed to drill the hole for the draft spigot shank. The spigot shank is a tube that your beer line will go through before it reaches the draft spigot. You will also need wrenches for tightening the spigot and shank assembly onto your keg beer refrigerator, and maybe a saw if you are building onto a top lid unit, as this design calls for a collar that fits in between the top and lid of the keg beer refrigerator. Either design you decide to go with will necessitate a handcart or dolly in order to transport the keg refrigerator, making it portable.

Most hardware needed for the building of the keg beer refrigerator will come from the kegerator conversion kit that you buy. These are available from a number of sources directly online, and a web search for "keg refrigerator conversion kit" or "kegerator conversion kit" will get you many results. It is always recommended to buy direct from the manufacturer to ensure that you are buying from a legitimate website.

Make sure you find the right refrigerator for your needs before you start. For a portable system, you want a small, lightweight unit that is no bigger that your smallest keg. Using a three-gallon keg is ideal for this kind of set up, but a five-gallon keg will, of course, keep the party going longer! Small and lighter weight CO2 canisters are available in aluminum for easy portability for your keg beer refrigerator. A strap-on harness is recommended for your CO2 tank on a portable system.

When making a portable keg beer refrigerator from a front door refrigerator, remember that you will have to avoid the coolant lines when drilling through the top. If you are having trouble identifying where these coolant lines are, you should take care and remove the paneling of the fridge or freezer until you can see the lines. Another concern when building this kind of "kegerator" is that you will need to mount a tower on top for your draft spigots. Some companies make trays, which include a tower, and a spill tray in their design, and these cover the whole top of the keg refrigerator.

The difference between a swing door and a top lid fridge or freezer is that for the top lid model, you will need to build a collar out of 2x4s, which your draft spigots will be mounted on. This design requires a little more carpentry work, and of course you will have to mount the lid on top of the wood collar for portability purposes. Be careful of the hinges on these kinds of freezers, though - some are spring loaded. For this kind of model, you will also have to side mount a drip tray, if you want to have one, being careful once again to avoid damaging the coolant lines.

With these tips, it shouldn't take you very long before you are enjoying your own home brewed beer at home, during picnics, and certainly at other backyard functions.