Tag Archives: kegerator

DIY Black Iron Pipe Draft Tower final build list

Final Update

As a second update to my first post on this draft tower, the iron pipe draft tower has been completed! There is a link below to an amazon cart if you just want to jump down and see the parts.

This tower is exactly what you need to turn a dorm fridge or a chest freezer into a stylish kegerator. It’s all built out of parts you can get from amazon, and it’s really easy to assemble.

Here’s the front view. The distance from the bottom of the faucet to the top of the counter is around 10″ If you want a taller tower, swap out the pipe nipple for a longer one.

front

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Black Iron Pipe Draft Tower UPDATE

Update

As an update to my first post in this draft tower, the iron pipe has arrived! As you can see in my rough test-fit in the kitchen this thing will look pretty badass when it is completed. I went for an 8″ pipe on the riser where the original seems to have a much larger one. I may end up swapping that out if I get a tall drip tray, but it’s pretty much perfect as-is.

Here are all of the pieces of the tower at amazon.

Faucets

As I expected, the long shank faucets didn’t work out very well. I have since bought two of these shorter shanks and we’ll see how they fit.
short shank draft tower
I’m planning on losing the chrome collar if possible. I love the idea of having the nice shiny chrome faucet coming right out of the black metal pipe. Nice contrast.

DIY Black Iron Pipe Draft Tower

I saw this draught tower on pinterest and I knew I HAD to build one.

IronPipeTowerHI

It totally matches my style in almost every way. Black, industrial, rugged. Did I mention that BEER COMES OUT OF IT?!? They are selling them on etsy for $285 with faucets and glycol lines, but I’m the kind of guy who never wants to spend money buying something I could conceivably build it myself, so I started pricing out pieces from amazon. You can see on the tee that it’s a 2″ tee, so I designed everything else with 2″ black iron pipe.

I haven’t found prices to be significantly better at HD or Lowes vs amazon, and I like being able to get it all from one place as opposed to a bunch of different vendors so I spec’d out the first round at amazon
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The cheapest way to get started kegging

What’s the cheapest way to get started kegging?

It’s a thought in a lot of homebrewers minds. There is a lot of conflicting info out there about kegging. Regulators, 5 lb vs 20 lb co2 tanks, keezers, cornies and more!
Here is a simple breakdown of the absolute minimum you need in order to stop botting as soon as possible. Afterwards I’ll talk a little bit more about the downsides of a minimalistic setup like this, and offer up more solutions.

The absolute most basic kegging setup you can get is:

Total ___ $126

With this setup you have to carbonate in your keg the same way you would normally do in your bottles – by adding priming sugar when you rack it into the keg. It’s actually even easier because you don’t have to worry about mixing it.

You’ll next attach your co2 dispenser to your gas side and give it a burst of air to set the seal on the corny. Take the gas connector off (and take the beer dispenser off as well if it was connected.)
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