Once I decided to build a Guinness kegerator I started shopping for parts. I had the following goals in mind:
- Be able to serve a fantastic pint of Guinness with adjustments available for all of the important variables.
- Be able to fit a half keg.
- Match the black and gold colors of the Guinness logo as much as possible.
- Be as easy as possible to clean.
After my first keg, I added some additional requirements
- Be able to track how much beer is left.
- Be able to easily change out parts in order to facilitate testing e.g. different faucets.
Here’s a list of what I ended up purchasing and what category it falls into. Afterwards, there’s additional details about why I purchased these specific products.
| Item | Category |
| Refrigerator | Required |
| Matte Black Draft Tower | Required |
| Stout Faucet | Required |
| U Coupler | Required |
| Gas Cylinder – sourced from local shop | Required |
| Nitrogen Regulator | Required |
| 6 feet Gas Line | Required |
| 2 x Hose Clamps | Required |
| Duotight Fitting for Coupler | Required |
| Cleaning System | Technically optional but not really |
| Gas Line Tape | Optional though you will probably need it to ensure there are no leaks |
| Draft Tower Cooler | Optional |
| Duotight Ball Valve | Optional |
| Brush Caps | Optional |
| Flow Meter | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| 2 x Additional Duotight Fittings | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| Additional 5.5 feet of EVABarrier Tubing | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| Raspberry Pi | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| Micro SD Card | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| USB Cable | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| Jumper Wires | Optional – for monitoring consumption |
| Rust-Oleum Primer | Optional – Cosmetic |
| Rust-Oleum Metallic Gold Spray Paint | Optional – Cosmetic |
| Guinness Harp Magnet | Optional – Cosmetic |
| Lovely Day for a Guinness Bar Mat | Optional – Cosmetic |
| Tap Handle | Optional – Cosmetic |
The required items are things that you will need if you want to pour Guinness. You don’t need the same draft tower that I have but you do need a draft tower. The keg consumption items are part of a system I designed to help me keep track of how much beer is left in keg. More on that later. And the cosmetic category is just some items I purchased to customize the look of my kegerator.
Now for a long winded explanation of why I purchased these specific items:
First up, the fridge. My requirements here were a digital temperature adjustment and that it mostly be black in color. I ended up going with the Kegco 24″ Wide Black Digital Kegerator from Beverage Factory. I briefly looking into buying a standard fridge and doing the work to turn it into a kegerator. But the financials just did not make sense. First off, if you want to serve half kegs, then you need a relatively large fridge. I used the filters on websites like Lowes and Home Depot but could not find anything as cheap as the Kegco cabinet. As a bonus, the Kegco fridge comes with the holes for the tower and the gas lines pre drilled as well as metallic piping that fits around the perimeter of the top of the fridge.
Next, I needed a tower. The only black tower I could find was this one from Komos. You can generally find it at any website that sells brewing equipment. It came with the tower, the shank, some tubing, duotight fittings, and a faucet wrench. The tower is a little annoying to work with. It’s hard to run tubing and the black paint is very delicate. I’ve scraped some of the paint on the black plastic piece that attaches to the faucet. But replacement shanks are relatively cheap and a black marker works in a pinch to cover up small scuffs on the plastic.
I ended up buying a lot of faucets. (More info on why here.) Ultimately, I installed this black and gold faucet from Ads2. Micro Matic makes a similar looking faucet but Micro Matic is also the only manufacturer to warn that their stout faucet should not be pulled more than 45 degrees. This might be true of all nitro faucets but everything else being equal, I decided to go with the black and gold faucet that didn’t come with a warning.
The coupler is what “taps” the keg. Different kegs require different couplers. If you want to pour Guinness then you need a U coupler. From what I read, both Micro Matic and Tap Rite make well made couplers. I ended up buying this one from Micro Matic. There were some cheaper options available but I could not confirm that they were constructed with stainless steel to transfer less off flavors to the beer.
Obviously you need gas to pressurize the system and force beer to go opposite the way that gravity wants it to go. I purchased a gas canister from Morebeer but the shop where I get it filled would only fill their own cylinders. So that was a waste. If you’re planning a kegerator then I’d recommend calling your local shop before you spend the money on a new tank. Make sure that they have the blend of gas you want (I use 75/25), that it is food grade, and ask if they will fill a cylinder that you bring in or if you need to buy the cylinder from them.
Along with the gas cylinder, you also need a nitrogen regulator. Like with the coupler, I read good things about both the Micro Matic and Tap Rite regulators. Since I was already placing an order with Micro Matic for the coupler, I also ordered the Micro Matic Premium regulator. Along with the regulator, you’ll probably also want some plumbers tape. I ran through my first tank of gas very quickly because there was a leak that I could not find. I tightened everything as much as I could but all I needed was some tape around the threads that connect the cylinder to the regulator. I ended up getting Blue Monster Gas Guard. It’s expensive for tape. But I figure it will last forever and it saves you money by not having to replace a cylinder every few weeks even if you’re not pouring beer.
So that’s all of the major items: A fridge to store the beer and a tower and faucet to go on top, the coupler to tap the keg, and the nitrogen cylinder and regulator. Now we need plastic tubing and fittings to tie everything together. There are two separate lines: a gas line and a beer line. The draft tower that I purchased came with EVABarrier double wall tubing. But if yours doesn’t then you will want to purchase at least 5 feet of it (or some other tubing to run from the faucet shank to your coupler). You’ll also need a fitting to connect the beer line to the coupler. I used this one from Duotight.
For the gas line, I went with the Ultra Barrier Gas PVC free tubing. The gas line and beer line are easy to tell apart from their diameters but the red line adds another visual difference. I also picked up a few hose clamps. You only need two – one for the regulator end and one for the coupler end – but they are so cheap that it doesn’t hurt to have extra.
You’ll also want to sort out how you’ll clean your lines. Technically this isn’t required just to pour your first beer but if you want everything to taste its best then you’ll want to regularly clean your lines. I clean them after each keg kicks. I ordered this hand pump system along with my fridge. There are other systems that you can just tap like a keg and run cleaner through. But they are much more expensive. This comes with enough cleaner to make 16 gallons which ought to last a while. And when it’s gone you just have to order more cleaner.
Once you have all of that, you just need to source a blend of 25% CO2 / 75% Nitrogen, source a keg and you’re good to go. But there were some other items that I added that I’d highly recommend. And some that are more optional.
First up is this draft tower cooler. It pushes cool air from the bottom of the fridge up the tower so that the temperature is more homogenous throughout the kegerator. It does add a noticeable noise though so you may not want this if you have the kegerator in your bedroom.
Next up on the optional list is a DuoTight ball valve. I run this right off the coupler. In other words, there’s the coupler, a small length of beer line, then the ball valve, then another length of beer line. My hope was that I could use this to turn the beer off and change a faucet, or some other part of the kegerator. But when you shut off the beer you also shut off the gas and are therefore unable to easily purge the line. Though you could detach the line at the faucet side of the ball valve and use gravity to drain what is in the line. I’ve mainly kept it installed as it is useful in case I ever need to quickly shut off the beer. Or instruct someone on how to quickly shut off the beer.
Another optional item is these brush caps. Before my first beer of the day I remove the brush and soak it in some warm water and (usually) some sanitizer. Then, after I’ve poured my last beer for the night I put the cap back. Eventually the brush gets quite brittle and I toss it for a fresh one. The intended use case is to keep bugs out of outdoor kegerators. But the brushes are cheap enough that I don’t mind using them on my indoor kegerator for a little extra peace of mind and to help contain drips.
Next up, for those with a bit of software development and electronic engineering skills: I added a flow meter to my kegerator. Specifically, I got this one, two additional DuoTight Fittings for into and out of the flow meter, and another 5.5 foot length of EVABarrier tubing. Now from the coupler I have a small length of tubing to the ball valve, then a large length of tubing to the flow meter, then another large length of tubing to the faucet shank. I connected the flow meter to a Raspberry Pi (note, that the Raspberry Pi linked here also needs a Micro SD card.). I connected the two with this USB cable and some jumper wires:
| Flow Meter | USB |
| Red | Red |
| Black | Black |
| Yellow | White |
You can also solder the flow meter to the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi but I wanted to keep my Raspberry Pi on the outside of the kegerator which meant the jumper cables were just a little easier to work with. It also makes things easier to change if I ever need to replace the flow meter or the Raspberry Pi.
I may make a post describing how this works in more detail. There is a python script on the Raspberry Pi that reads the USB data every ten seconds. Most of the time it finds nothing. But when it finds some data it prints that to a CSV and sends it to a web page. This data is stored in a My SQL database which allows me to keep track of my consumption in some fun ways.
Now for the cosmetic stuff. I purchased gold spray paint and primer so that I can paint the silver piping gold to more closely match the faucet. I added a Harp magnet from the Guinness store. This was purchased before I removed the KegCo sticker from the fridge. I was worried that it might leave some residue that I would need to cover up. It didn’t, so I was able to move the magnet more to the center. I bought a Guinness Tap Handle off Etsy. I purchased both the small and large but decided that I like the small one better. Finally, I was gifted a “Lovely Day for a Guinness” Bar Mat.
I think that’s everything. While you don’t have to buy all the same products that I did, if you enjoy a great pint of Guinness then I highly recommend building your own kegerator. If you do, then I think you can pour Guinness just as good as what you can get in Ireland.