Recently I made a big change in my sanitation process for the kegerator and I’ve been very happy with the results. For the first 10 of so 1/6 barrels I religiously ran a powder based sanitizer and rinse through the beer lines between each keg. Recently I replaced the beer line for added length. I was battling the occasional funky floater or blockage in the faucet spout. I would wash the faucet and coupler with hot soapy water when I cleaned out the line. That wasn’t enough. My floater/blockage issues were not excessive, but I wanted to totally eliminate them.

I picked up some Star San from Northern Brewer. The guy working the counter at the store gave me a great idea and it’s been very helpful. I take half an oz of the Star San and add it to a gallon of distilled water. This keeps it stable for longer periods of time. If the mixture starts to look cloudy, it’s no longer good. Star San is safe and doesn’t require rinsing. I now soak the faucet and coupler parts in the solution. I also run a little bit through the line after my powder cleaner run through. I find that it really does help keep the funk out. Also, I keep a small spritzing bottle next to my tower and at the end of every night I give 3 sprays up the faucet. Because it’s no-rinse that is all I have to do.

After a dozen 1/6 barrel kegs I knew my co2 pressure was a little low. Normally the gauge was 500 psi. Before this last keg went in it was a little lower and after the keg was empty the co2 bottle was reading really low. However there was still gas in the bottle. The bottle is stamped with the empty weight on it and using a shipping scale I could verify it was nearly empty.

The markings on the bottle also are good for determining the manufacturing date. Every 5 years the bottle needs to pass a hydrostatic test to be recertified, so knowing when it was made comes in handy – especially if you are buying it second hand.

This info comes from here, they also made the bottle that I use for my kegerator.

Speaking of line, I took this opportunity to replace the line. I use 3/16″ beer line which has a flow resistance is 3 psi/foot. I went with a longer line that allows for more slack, giving easier movement of the keg, but also requires a change to my co2 setting. Between running a nice cool temperature (between 34 and 36* F) and a low co2 setting (6 psi) I barely have any foaming issues. I also used copper tubing to help route the beer line, and it does bring a little off the cool temperature up into the tower.

In order to reduce foaming you want to try to keep the tap pressure between 0 and 1 psi. The length of the beer line will play a key role in your co2 regulator setting. My original beer line was 5 feet long and the faucet is about 2 feet above the bottom of the copper tube. The pressure will loose 0.5 psi for every vertical foot it travels.

6 psi (-1 for keg pressure) (-1.5 for height [3 feet / 2]) / 5 feet * 3 psi resistance

3.5 / 15 = 0.23 psi tap pressure

I stepped up to 7 feet of line and bumped my regulator pressure up to 9 psi …

6.5 / 21 = 0.31 psi tap pressure

At these tap pressures the beer has a smooth and somewhat slow flow and yields a perfect 1″ of head on a properly poured pint.

I had picked up an old computer from a friend and installed it and had it running on my home network. My NT4 server that was soon loaded with Win2k was more useful at the time so the RHL box faded away. Surprisingly, 14 years later the disc still works and I created a VM from it. It doesn’t recognize the VMware NIC so there is not much that the VM can be used for, but it was just interesting to briefly ‘go back in time’.

I also had a 1/4″ sheet of gloss black acrylic plastic cut to match the inside door panel. I drilled holes to match the mount points with a drill press and replaced replaced the inside door panel with it. The original inside door panel protruded into the fridge and also activated the light assembly. This new panel gave it a sleek look and more space inside the fridge. I had removed the bulb so it was not constantly on.

There was enough room to easily fit a 1/6th Keg which is about 5.25 gallons (42 pints). I had ordered a 1/6th Keg of Sam Adams Summer Ale as my first test keg so it was ready when my project was completed.

I had purchased a custom conversion kit from beveragefactory.com. Their customer service was top notch, I highly recommend them. I upgraded the tower to a 3″ Stainless Steel version and chose a Perlick 525SS faucet and lowboy coupler. After it arrived I filled up the co2 tank at a local liquor store and picked up some 1/2″ copper tubing to run the beer line through.

After putting the fridge back together I carefully measured for the center and the best place to drill. I knew this particular model did not have freon lines in the top, but you can easily render a mini fridge useless if you drill without any research or planning. I used a 3/4″ drill bit and slowly drilles through the plastic, wood, metal, insulation, and metal layers. After measuring and testing the length I placed the beer line in the copper tube and set the tower on the top running the line into the fridge. I used the copper pipe to conduct the cold temperatures as high as possible up into the tower. It also helps to stabilize the co2 tank on the small shelf in the back of the fridge.

Once everything was set I measured what seemed to feel like 100 times for each of the four holes to mount the tower securely. I can say with out a doubt the tower is perfectly center and facing exactly forward.

Prior to picking up the Keg I had the kegerator powered on and down to temperature. I placed the keg inside it immediately and let it sit overnight to settle. The Perlick lowboy coupler is a little weird and I learned the hard way how the beer valve opens and closes. Once I nailed down the functionality of it, tapping the keg was a piece of cake.

The largest issues I ran into were dialing in the perfect temperature and co2 pressure. I’ve found the co2 pressure is best around 7psi. The temperature was too hard to dial in with the built in controller. I ended up picking up a Johnson Controls a419 digital controller from the local Northern Brewer store. The temperature stays consistently between 31F and 33F.

Next year I’m thinking of going for the EX401 (Deployment & Systems Management) exam which would put me within one exam of the RHCDS. I’m also going to refresh my Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) for OS X 10.7 and also take the exams for the Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT).

Warning: This tutorial is for someone with Linux experience, be careful when deleting and moving files.

We can install sshmenu from yum (Fedora) with a simple:

# yum -y install sshmenu gnome-applet-sshmenu

Install Dropbox and add a folder called Home or Terminal, whatever will remind you to not mess with those files.  We can then move certain files to that folder and symbolically link them back to the Dropbox.

$ cd ~
$ mv .sshmenu Dropbox/Terminal/
$ ln -s Dropbox/Terminal/.sshmenu .sshmenu
$ mv .gconf/apps/gnome-terminal Dropbox/Terminal/
$ ln -s Dropbox/Terminal/gnome-terminal .gconf/apps/gnome-terminal
$ cd /etc/gconf/schemas
$ mv gnome.terminal.schemas ~/Dropbox/Terminal
$ ln -s ~/Dropbox/Terminal gnome.terminal.schemas gnome.terminal.schemas

You can see that we are taking three major things: .sshmenu, the gnome-terminal profiles, and the gnome terminal schemas. On each additional machine you can install sshmenu and dropbox, move these three files/folders, and symbolically link the files from your dropbox. Log out and back in, and your gnome-terminal should be sync’ed up.