I finally made the plunge into the world of draft beer at home today. I'm now the proud new owner of a Danby half barrel kegerator. (It was a bit of a saga to actually get the damn thing since I drive a very small car, all of my room-mates drive smaller cars and my parents, whose truck I ultimately used to transport said kegerator, have a habit of leaving town whenever I actually had the free time to go pick this thing up.)
It actually took a while for me to decide exactly which approach (buy and convert or build your own) to take on this endeavor, but it ultimately made sense to go with a commercial model for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's really not all that cheap to build one yourself unless you start with a cheapo fridge or freezer. (i.e. garage sale / craigslist type material.) Secondly, the commercial guys come with the Sankey tap as an added bonus. Lastly, I was able to get a significant discount on the Danby :)
The next dilemma was how to actually set the thing up so I run Cornelius kegs the majority of the time, but could still easily take advantage of the Sankey tap in the dire case that there simply wasn't any homebrew available. I kicked around a number of solutions before I actually noticed a very simple one that'll work well hopefully. Note: I haven't actually received these parts and assembled the finished product yet, so this isn't a definitive solution just yet.
You can buy all of the hardware necessary to run a 5 gallon Cornelius keg with 1/4" MPT (no clue what that stands for) screw on fittings. Northern Brewer (and I'm sure others) sell a 'Tail Piece w/ 1/4" MFL' [part K027] two of which, in coordination with a two beer nuts and neoprene washers, should screw right onto the Sankey tap. If everything goes according to plan, once all of the hardware shows up and I do a little surgery, it'll be painless to swap out the Cornelius fittings for the Sankey tap. More to follow on this one. I'll post a parts list and some pictures once it's done.
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