The Beer Freezer

Having looked around a bit on the internet I decided to go with building a collar and putting taps through that instead of pulling out my old 5 tap tower. This means that the lines stay colder, and I don't have a giant heavy lid thats a pain to hold up when putting kegs in or out of the freezer. Part of the agreement for having the freezer in the living room is that it had to fit and it had to look nice. So we started looking for a nice freezer to use as a base. In the end we decided on the 7.2 cubic foot fridgidaire available at Lowes. This freezer, while small, can comfortably hold a 10lb C02 tank and 5 cornelius kegs or 3 kegs and a carboy (for lagering). The space efficiency of this freezer is largely due to the fact that it has one of the smallest compressor humps of any of the freezers, this adds space for at least one and maybe two more kegs. The C02 bottle fits tidly on top of the compressor bump.

I realize that there is some concern about putting a skin around a freezer like this, but I think its ok in this case for several reasons. First off it doesn't run very often to keep it cold enough for beer so the odds of it overheating are pretty slim. Secondly I intentionally left some gaps around the bottom and vent holes to the back. I know it doesn't look like it in the pictures below, but the rear trim actually springs out a little from the sides and provides a pretty good vent gap. Finally I'm running it inside the house, not in a hot garage so that should help lower the thermal load a fair bit. I've had this running in the house for several years now with no problems so knock on wood.

Parts

Construction

The basic idea was to build a rectangular collar, then fasten that to the top of the main freezer body for the top. On the bottom of the freezer I built a frame from some 2x3's I had around the shop and screwed some locking casters onto that. The collar was glued and screwed together then sanded smooth and finished with a water based poly before attaching it to the freezer. To fasten down the top I put two beads of silicon around the top of the freezer and also screwed the hinges for the top into both one of the old screw holes in the main freezer body as well as the new collar itself. I then used 1/4x2 inch strips of hardwood (poplar - yeah I know but its cheap) to tie the collar and the bottom together across the freezer body. This helps hold the collar on as well as provid a base for the skin I'll put on later. Also in the picture on the right you can see the six hard drive magnets (rare earth magnets salvaged from old hard drives) I glued onto the freezer with construction adhesive to allow the drip tray to be stuck on like magic. These were carefully positioned right below where the taps will go.
Here are some closeup pictures of the collar and the base. You can see the reinforcing blocks in the corner of the collar and the lap joints and locking wheels I used for the base.
After I put the skin on. This was carefully cut to fit and then glued and stapled to the strips I had fastened to the collar and base earlier. I also used some bar clamps and a few pieces of wood to pull it into place so that I'd have a nice snug fit. I left a hole around the compressor vent and trimmed that up later.
To cover up the corners I glued together some 1x2 hemlock to make an L shaped trim piece. I then cut it to length, routed the corners round and stained it cherry. Not shown here is the rear trim pieces, these I didn't bother making into L's since you really can't see the back, instead I just used a single flat piece, but routed and stained it the same.
The top facing had to be trimmed to fit between the edge trim and routed to lap over the mahogany facing. I know it looks crooked - bit its actually not, thats just an optical illusion.
Here are a couple of close ups of the top side trim.
Here I'm showing the glue up for the front top facing. Notice the routed out bottom (at the top of the picture) and the silicon caulk around the pre-drilled tap holes. The holes would be later used as guides to drill the holes in the main collar. On the right is a picture of one of the rear trim pieces mentioned above. Also you might notice that the handle for the lid is missing here. This was removed to allow the lid to be trimmed to match the rest of the freezer. I plugged all the holes left behind with plumbers putty.
Here I'm doing the rough dry fit for the top trim that will cover the top of the freezer. This was made by cutting a dado as wide as the mahogany facing is thick just inset from the edge about 1/8 of an inch on some 3" hemlock boards (ripped to just fit), and then the corners are simple 45 cuts butted together. This was then all glued together after I had stained the edges to match the rest of the trim. This left a slight lip (3/32 after sanding)around the top of the freezer, but hides the rough edge of the mahogany quite well without a lot of trouble. On the rear of the lid cover I had to make some cutouts and do a little chiseling around the hinges since they stick out on the back.
At this point the freezer itself was pretty much done. To finish it up I sanded it and then put 5 coats of the same water based poly I used for the collar on all of the trim and facing pieces. I also ran an extra bead of caulk around between the collar and the top trim on the inside so nothing could run behind it.
Now we start hauling out the hardware. Since freezers tend to run just a smidge colder than we'd want to store beer, I have a johnson controls temperature regulator. Basically it has a temperature probe and a shutoff. You plug the freezer into it, put the probe inside the freezer and it regulates the temperature for you. I've had this one for about 10 years, you can get fancy new ones for around $50-75 dollars now days.
My snifty new Ventmatic taps. One tap fully dissassembled on the left, and all four taken apart for cleaning on the right. These are a major upgrade from my old taps, they are all stainless and are forward sealing so the mechanism never dries out. No more stuck taps.
The four way C02 manifold with and without the tank hooked up. This is held on by two wood screws that I snipped the head off (with the dremel) and threaded to take some nuts I had in the scrap bin. The wood screw part was then screwed into the wood leaving the bolt like threads sticking out. This makes it easy to remove the whole assembly for cleaning or maintenance if I need to. Notice the hook above the tank, there is a small (but strong) line tied to that to keep the tank from tipping over. You don't want an unfortunate tank accident.
The inside of the freezer. Notice the small compressor hump, it fits the 10lb co2 cylinder nicely. The temperature probe coming into the freezer. A little more silicon caulk keeps it from moving, and air leaks to a minimum.
All four taps installed, unfortunatelly without handles; I have yet to finish making those. Once they are done I'll post a picture or two. Finally the finished freezer in its resting place. Yeah the tray is a little crooked - its held on with the magnets mentioned above so its easy to adjust or take off and clean.