It feels like you’re not a serious home brewer unless you’ve got at least one kegerator in your house.  I recently converted an old fridge.  This is my story.

My brilliant tap line management system: Velcro and empty sixers.

Function over form: line management done wrong. It gets a little crusty in there after a party, too.

When I bought my new refrigerator for the kitchen, I promoted my old one to the important task of keeping my kegs nice and cold.  Ever since, I’ve been meaning to update the party taps to a through-the-door faucet system.  In the meantime, I’ve been struggling on how to wrangle four Corny kegs and a CO₂ bottle into not making a mess.

I replaced the refrigerator’s original drawer shelf with a reinforced piece of 3/8″ plywood supported by the original shelf supports. There isn’t enough room on the wooden shelf in the fridge for the CO₂ bottle when the door is closed because the molded shelf on the door takes up too much room.  I ended up balancing the bottle on the door shelf, and propping it up with a six pack of empty bottles.  I gave up laying the party taps on top of their kegs because they always fell off.  I just tuck them under the strip of Velcro I screwed to the door insert that supports the CO₂ bottle.  I am always afraid the taps will get pinched open in the door as it swings shut.  Friends and family gifted me with funds toward “my next beer project,” so it seemed like a good time to gift myself an upgrade.

I decided to go with four Perlick 525ss stainless faucets and chrome plated shank assemblies.  I’ll be using low-profile ball tap handles since this is an over-under fridge, and the door is only about 55″ high.  The taps’ placement near the top of the door has the shanks bore right through the molded door features, so that insert has got to go.  Eliminating the lower door shelves should will also make more room on the main shelf for the CO₂ bottle and hopefully help clean up the spaghetti mess of gas lines.

Removing the rubber gasket reveals the molding retainer rails

I removed the door from the refrigerator frame and used a flat screwdriver to pry back the rubber gasket starting from of the corners.  Once it pops off, it exposes the rail that holds the gasket and the door insert in place.  I just peeled off the gasket and set it aside to reinstall later.  I did take the opportunity to clean it up really well, too. The insert is held in place by the screws as well, and is easily removed when the rails are detached.

The molded door insert lifts right off with the rails removed.

I have a 4×8′ sheet of Fiber Reinforced Panel (FRP) from an earlier fermenter cabinet project.  I laid the molded door insert over it as a template to trace the outline and the screw holes.  FRP is messy to cut with any kind of saw, and melts if you try to cut it with a grinding wheel.  It seems easiest to just score it with a utility knife and crack it.  Be careful if you decide to do this because it leaves a ragged edge that will leave fiberglass shards all over your hands if you bump or rub it.  I wrapped the edge of mine with white electrical tape, but that step is probably completely unnecessary. I used a 1/4″ drill bit to knock out the holes where marked and tidied up the corners a bit.

FRP installed in place of the molded door insert with the shiny side out.

I lined up the FRP back on the door and reinstalled the rails.  The FRP has a polished, stippled texture that should make clean up much easier than before.  With the molded features removed, there is a lot more space inside the refrigerator for the CO₂ bottle.

At last, I gave the door gasket a good scrub with Oxyclean and detergent, and reinstalled it on the rails.  I think the warm water softened up the gasket a little too much at first because the gasket wouldn’t seat well at first.  Once it cooled down and firmed up, it seemed to snap into place over the rails more firmly.  I ran a bead of white caulking around the inside of the gasket where it doesn’t quite meet the FRP.  Of course, with the door insert removed the refrigerator light doesn’t turn off anymore when the door is closed.  I partially unscrewed the bulb for now, but will probably fit a small bumper at the top of the door to compress the switch.

There was really nothing to do with the party taps.  I didn’t like laying them on top of the kegs because they’ve tended to slip and fall off.  As often as not the tap handle catches on something and opens the tap.  The faucets and shanks are still on order, so I needed to do something in the meantime.  I drilled a small pilot hole in the FRP at a place I expect to either have a tap shank poke through the door, or be covered by a reinforcing plate.  I drove a small screw into the pilot hole and hung a loop of Velcro to act as a tap hanger until my faucets arrive.

More room for the bottle on the shelf, but still nothing else to do with the party taps