The Brass Monkey Brewpub: keezer

The Brass Monkey is now fully functional! The keezer is working beautifully, as is the newly installed recycled draft tower and faucets. I even found a ledge boxed up in the corner of the garage that looks great on the wall. Now I must turn to aesthetics, because the TV and shelving unit it sits on is UGLY and the lighting is rather poor. (If you've been to visit lately, the Clapper experiment was a failure. My poor Clapper was much too eager to please, and was constantly registering anything from the blip of a nintendo game to my own voice as a clap. Therefore, throughout a conversation the lights would repeatedly turn off or on. I knew there had to be some defect in the genius of the Clap!)

Here are some pics to show off the new space.

What I thought would be one of the harder tasks in building my home bar turned out to be pretty easy in the end. The collar that needed to be built for the keezer (that's right, "keg" + "freezer" = "keezer" for the mathematically inclined) has come together nicely, once again aided by my dad's woodworking skills.

As you can see, the reason for the collar is so that one doesn't need to drill a hole in the side of his freezer. That may or may not even be possible, given the fact that the sides are normally full of the coolant tubing, but either way it's much better to just build a little collar.

Due to the fact that it'll be cold inside, and there's some condensation, I chose a beautiful redwood for this project. Redwood apparently doesn't shrink or expand as much as other woods when it gets wet, plus it looks rad.

Here you can see the whole inside setup. The hole on the left is for the beer lines to go out and up into the draft tower. The CO2 tank is hooked up to the distributor on the right, which then distributes pressure to the kegs.

To finish off the collar, I need two more things: a thick coat of polyurethane and some weather stripping to attach the collar to the keezer. In the photo of the distributor above, you can see the weather stripping caulk I used to stop the gap and affix the collar. A lot of people who make one of these collars are using liquid nails or some other super sticky substance. I'm lucky to have been given some better advice. This weather stripping stuff is slightly sticky and super pliable, even in extreme cold. That means that it makes a nice, air-tight seal, but can also be removed if need be. Here's what I'm talking about: