Appliancist has recently showcased these two refrigerators which, should they somehow be combined into a unified device, could meet nearly all my mind-altering beverage needs: the first is a model from Whirlpool that has a built-in espresso and coffee maker; the other is the ASKO “HomePub,” which includes a beer tap. I would call one half “morning” and the other “evening”; which side was which would be left as an extremely easy exercise for the increasingly irritated reader.
(Yes, I know all about kegerators—I’m planning on building one soon!—but it’s nice to have a clean all-in-one unit. That said, I’d probably never actually buy these things. Like home theater components, I prefer having discrete, easy-to-swap pieces.)
Whirlpool Espresso refrigerator – with integrated coffee maker [Appliancist]
ASKO refrigerator – HomePub fridge freezer [Appliancist]
Joel, are you building a kegerator for your homebrew? I’m going to be working on a cornelius kegerator soon – if you feel blogging on your construction I know at least one person who would be interested
Homebrew is part of the plan, although I’ll probably buy corny kegs from people that will sell them, too. I’m going to try to base my plans around a chest freezer — I tried finding the guy who did what I want to do, but can’t find them at the moment — but finding a properly-sized freezer here in NYC without buying a new one has slowed me down. But I’m about to redo my whole damn living room/kitchen room, so it’ll happen soonish. Before the end of the year, probably. I will definitely blog it!
While doing research for a new fridge I found that water/ice dispensers sometimes create service problems. A generally reliable (and expensive) appliance becomes a bit less reliable with the addition on these options.
oxox
The homebrew fridge look suspiciously like one that sat in the living room of the apartment my husband shared with three other guys in college.
With all the moving, they ended up with a spare refrigerator, so they put it in the living room, drilled a hole in the door and installed a tapper from somebody’s brother who was a delivery driver for one of the big breweries.
Theirs didn’t have the neato shelf/spillcatcher, but it poured more than its share of suds….
Generally speaking, you’re asking for trouble when you buy these “all in one” appliances. For one thing, they never mention the additional cleaning that you need to do to keep all that stuff working. And if one component breaks, the whole system goes down while you get it repaired (although in this case the bevvie dispensers are probably modular).
And what if you decide in six months’s time that you want to use a different coffee maker? You’re basically stuck with this one for the life of the fridge, unless you don’t mind letting it go dormant while you buy the new one (which would be kind of stupid).
I’ve always been against this kind of thing, even way back when I was a teenager buying my first sound system. Friends had “all in one” kits but I went with components. When I wanted to change one part (e.g., get a better CD player) I didn’t have to toss the whole shebang.
Same thing with those combination TV/DVD players. WTF? What if you want a bigger TV, or if the DVD player starts skipping?
It would be nice if the kegerator had a built in LCD screen. You know, for watching sports etc…