I finally decided to take the leap and upgrade to a real kegerator. My trusty cobra taps served me well (pun intended) for 4 years but after seeing some of the kegerators on here, I got a little kegerator envy. So here’s how it went:First I researched the snot out of it like I do most things and ended up ordering perlicks, 4†stainless shanks, ¼†Stainless MFL connectors, ¼†Stainless barbed swivel nuts, neoprene washers, flared nylon washers, a 4-way gas distributor, and 45’ of foam-free 3/16†bev line. And here it is, the day happiness arrived:
Looking inside my kegerator also explained my motivation. A mess of gas and serving lines, taps, and really annoying beer drip stains. Having to always put the cobra tap back inside invariably some would drip making this scene.:
Here’s where I started. I won’t cover building a collar as others have already done that very well. I chose cedar for mine. One thing to remember is to seal the wood before washing anything! As you’ll see later I accidentally got it wet causing some streaks. Now I am going to have to sand it down and re-finish but oh well.
Measure twice, cut once. First I measured the full width of the collar as I decided I wanted them evenly spaced. Since I was installing 5, I would have 6 spaces total so divide the total by 6. I put masking tape across the top for marking it up:
I ended up with some fine math and each hole would have to be 6†and 19/32nds apart.
By personal preference I decided how far down the face of the collar I wanted each tap, I chose 3†from the top and drew a line along the bottom edge of my square:
Then I lengthened the square, lined it up with the top mark and marked the drilling spot:
Time to drill. Always drill a pilot first!!
Then I got out the 7/8†hole saw and finished the job:
Everything all drilled. Here you can see my error with the water stains.
