So I finally finished up the two projects that I’ve been working on. The first project I was the kegerator. Since I no longer bottle up beer I needed a nice way to dispencce beer. After a little bit of ccpnvinving my wife agreed to let me use out secondary garage fridge for the cconversion. This is a pretty nice fridge. Amana 22 cubic foot stainless steel bottom-freezer model. Other than the few dings and dents on the stainless steel this thing runs great.

I removed the water filter and water line that ran to the exterior on the back. The gas lines were the same diameter so I ran them back through the holes. This allows me to keep a 20 pound CO2 tank externally allowing for more fridge space internally.

Two holes were drilled out of the side for each tap and a drip tray attached to finish the project.

I also removed the ice maker to make extra room in the freezer.

The second project was converting an old chest freezer into a nice fermentation chamber. To begin the freezer itself was a freebie. The only catch was that I had to come pick it up …. it weighs a ton. This thing is about 40 years old and pretty beat up. I managed to bring it back home and clean the hell out of it. Even after a couple of days cleaning and bleaching and scrubbing it still looked beat up, but it did work and it was clean!

Not only clean but quite large. This is more than enough space to hold several carboys or corny kegs. However it was just not as deep as I would like. I then decided to add a spacer on top. I wasn’t interested in how it looked (at the time) but just wanted something functional.

Using a Johnson Controller, I now have a fully functioning fermentation chamber. But it looked so bad! I had an older Ikea kitchen counter that I used as a garage workbench. The butcher block top was removed and attached to the freezer lid. Next I lined the inside of the freezer with (mylar?) insulation and aluminum foil tape.

With a two coats of chalkboard paint and a little bit of finishing wood I was able to finally bring this project to an end. I never intended to do this project…but I am glad I did. It truly was a lot of fun transforming the old freezer into a somewhat presentable fermentation chamber.