Keep or return Nostalgia KRS-2100

[DonnieZ]

Good Evening and Merry Christmas,

My awesome wife bought me a kegerator for Christmas. I've been stating for a long time that I've wanted one not only to dispense my favorite craft brews, but also to convert to dispense homebrew as I've decided I'm just done with bottling.

She picked up the Nostalgia KRS-2100 from Wal-Mart. I've got some reservations about this unit, so I'm soliciting the advice of those who may have been down this path in the past. I'm considering this unit, or the Igloo 6.0CF Kegerator that's also sold by Wal-Mart. I did have this unit on my Amazon wishlist, but only because it was the cheapest guy on the block.

My goals:
Dispense one 5 gallon (1/6th bbl) and one Cornelius keg simultaneously.
Decent life out of the unit itself.
Minimal hassle.
Quality components.

My reservations come with the Nostalgia unit in that during assembly, it just looked kind of cheap. This may come from the fact that it's the cheapest guy on the block, but some of the components just have a cheap feel, specifically the draft tower/faucet, sanke coupler, and the regulator. I'm also not a huge fan of the curved door styling. The unit is assembled and cooling. Baring anything blowing up, it should be ready for me to pick up a commercial keg and get the Co2 tank filled tomorrow.

Really, the only reason I'm leaning toward the Igloo is that it is more appealing to my eye, looking more like a conventional fridge than the rounded door on the Nostalgia. I'm also concerned about the capacity of the Nostalgia to hold both the 1/6th bbl and a 5 gallon Cornelius keg Anyone know if both kegs will fit? How hard was the draft tower conversion? The Nostalgia has a twist-lock draft tower, it seems somewhat proprietary.

If the unit will do everything I need it to and can be expected to last at least 4-5 years, I'll hang on to it. If anyone has had any experience with this unit, I'd like to hear so, good, bad, or ugly. Obviously the kid in me wants to go out and get a keg so I can be ready for NFL Week 17, but I'd order the other unit if there's something seriously wrong with the Nostalgia. I'd like to make a decision by tomorrow, so I'd appreciate any quick responses!

Thanks,
- Don

 

[natefrog255]

I'm looking at this unit as well. Seems like reviews are all over the board...

 

[DonnieZ]

Sorry for just getting back to this.. Got the inbox notification and I wanted to reply after having this for a few months.

All in all, if you're looking for something to sit in your dining room (my situation, since we live in a condo) or man cave (desired situation..) to dispense beer, this isn't a terrible choice.

The Good:

Cheap - Good product for it's price point.

Noise - Relatively quiet for a mini fridge.

Cooling - Keeps your beer cold, and at well above the "coldest" setting keeps my beer about 38 degrees.

Casters - Has casters if you want to use them!

The Bad (Or "less desirable qualities"):

Looks - It looks a little weird with it's curved door, but at this price range you can't be a beggar.

Cooling - Uses what I describe as a "Chill Plate" in the back, instead of refrigerant lines running throughout the device.
Obviously cheaper to design and produce, but I think other fridges with refrigerant lines running throughout are probably better. The chill plate collects frost FAST. I will probably defrost this every time I swap out the commercial keg.

The Draft System- The draft system itself is mediocre - It's definitely bottom of the barrel parts. The faucet is rear sealing, and when I had DFH 90 on tap, it stuck if I didn't use it for more than a day or so. It got to the point where I would have to sometimes give the tap handle a few very swift blows from back to front to unstick the draft valve from it's seat. However, I guess this behavior is to be expected with any rear sealing faucet.

The draft tower fastens to the kegerator by inserting it 90 degrees off center, and then twist-locking it into place. This is kind of a neat feature, but provides no real long term benefit (How often do you take the draft tower off?

Foaming - This is the big issue. Since the draft tower is made of thin metal, insulated poorly, and comes with only a 5 foot run of 1/4" beer line, foaming is a big issue with this kegerator. Now, I hear that foaming is an issue with a LOT of kegerators, so it's not unique to this unit, but the issues I had fine tuning the foaming kind of sucked the fun out of having it for couple of weeks.

Your first pour of the day will always be foamy, as the beer in the lines, the lines themselves, and the faucet are warmer than the beer coming out of the keg, so all the CO2 wants to rush out of the beer once it touches the warmer parts of the beer path. Since it's just me drinking out of the tap most of the time, it doesn't really get run constantly and the beer path warms up just enough between beers to cause some foaming by the time I'm ready for my next draw. When I hosted Superbowl and swapped out the DFH 90 with Miller Lite to appease the masses, my sister in law who pours beer professionally figured out that if it runs constantly, you get a perfect pour every time since the beer is keeping the workings at the same temperature as the beer.

Again, this issue isn't unique to this kegerator, but it does exist. I resolved it partly by making a "Fan box" that blew cold air from the bottom of the kegerator up through the draft tower using some bilge hose.

Floorpeice - Due to the design of the kegerator being "rounded" in front, to put a conventional half/quarter barrel inside, you have to use this floor peice that raises the keg about 3/4", so that the front door will close. Not a huge deal, but does make for a very tight fit for a full height keg with room for the Sanke coupler on top.

Included 2.5lb tank - I know quarters are cramped inside, but really? 2.5lbs? It's small and nobody around here swaps them. It costs the same as a 5lb tank to get filled. A 5# tank fits with one keg just fine, but needs a new strap to keep it secured to the side. (Mine just kind of sits in there..)

Included Regulator - Dual gauges (Serving pressure, and reserve pressure), of questionable quality, and difficult to adjust pressure. Once your pressure is set though, you usually don't have to adjust it all that much, so I can't really take off a lot of points for that.

All in all, I'm so happy my wife went the extra mile and got this for me for Christmas after all my hinting throughout the year

However, I did end up doing some major surgery on the unit about a month or so ago - I converted this bad boy to a dual tap unit, with provisions for one Sanke coupler and one ball lock keg coupler. I ended up buying a 3" double faucet draft tower, two Perlick 525SS faucets, and a new Taprite dual body regulator. I can now serve a 1/6th bbl Sanke keg, a 5G Corny, and I can still keep a 5 pound tank with dual body regulator and my homemade draft tower cooling unit all inside the refrigerator. I'm not gonna lie, it's a damn tight fit and you have to have things positioned just right, but it does work.

For me, this is perfect. I can have a keg of my favorite commercial brew, and a keg of homebrew on tap at all times. It would probably work a little better if you converted this to two ball locks to be able to serve two kegs of homebrew as I think the Cornys will fit a bit better. I will say though if you don't have a kegerator and you want to server dual taps and do it the "right" way (Nice faucets and a dual body regulator), I don't know if I'd recommend this unit (or any pre-bought kegerator..)

So far in the conversion I've spent $130 on a dual body regulator and $160 on the SS draft tower with dual SS Perlick faucets. The draft tower was about the best deal I could find for such an item with the dual faucets, and I could have done better on the regulator but I wanted to give my LHBS guy some business - I like local business. However, already I'm at $300 worth of stuff to convert to serving Homebrew, and that's not counting the items I already had from Beverage Factory for the kegging setup in the first place (CO2 line, Ball Lock Keg, Ball lock quick disconnects, etc..) The only thing this has on a keezer conversion is that it looks more appropriate in the dining room than a small chest freezer. Since I already have a chest freezer, it would have been way cheaper to just convert that than buy this kegerator and re-convert it. The only thing that's original on it aside from the refrigerator itself is the Sanke coupler.

I know this has been a winded review, but I wanted you to know what you might be getting into from a home brewer's perspective. Most of the reviews online don't seem to come from home brewers

 

[pvpeacock]

DonnieZ: Thanks for the post. How did the new tower connect to the fridge? I just bought one of these and am waiting for my first batch of homebrew to finish fermenting/conditioning so I can keg it and try it out. Once I bought it, I realized that I should have bought one with a dual tap, so I am considering modifying mine as well. I just was curious how a new dual tower would be attached. Thanks.

 

[DonnieZ]

The good thing about this having the chill plate is that I couldn't detect any refrigerant lines going through the top. Therefore, I drilled through the top and used bolts, washers and lock nuts to hold the new tower on top.

One thing to will likely have to do is to move the chill plate in order to drill through the top without drilling through the chill plate itself and letting out all the refrigerant goodness. I simply let it get to room temperature, removed the four screws that held it in place and carefully pulled it forward to clear the area where the bolts securing the new draft tower will rest. Once the new tower was in place, I carefully moved the chill plate back into place and secured it with the screws I had taken out. I did have to slightly bend the top of the chill plate more than it eas from the factory to ensure clearance of the new bolt protruding through.

You want to be really careful moving the chill plate as to not stress the lines, so they don't crack immediately or eventually.

I have pictures I can post if you're interested, I just can't post them from the iPad

 

[natefrog255]

Thank you very much for the detailed information. I'm really conflicted if I want to drop $350 on the kegerator to put another couple hundred in improvements in it. And I've never had a kegerator before so I feel it may be more frustrating than what its worth.

 

[pvpeacock]

pictures would be very helpful. Also, where is the chill plate?

 

[NivekD]

Here's mine...I like it...after several mods just like Donnie did.

Before:

After:

I control the temp with an STC-1000 and it works great. Really need to get some perlicks though.

 

[pvpeacock]

That looks great! You convinced me to bite the bullet and buy a dual tap tower with Perlicks. Any tips on mounting the new tower? Thanks.

 

[pvpeacock]

I installed my double tap tower last night. Instead of drilling all the way through the top of the refrig and have to deal with the chill plate, I drilled small pilot holes in the top and then used self tapping sheet metal screws which were just under an 1" long. They tightened down nicely and the tower is very firmly set in place. Great addition. However, if I knew how much I was going to spend modifying everything on this kegerator, I probably would have bought a more expensive model from the start.

 

[barhopping247]

I installed my double tap tower last night. Instead of drilling all the way through the top of the refrig and have to deal with the chill plate, I drilled small pilot holes in the top and then used self tapping sheet metal screws which were just under an 1" long. They tightened down nicely and the tower is very firmly set in place. Great addition. However, if I knew how much I was going to spend modifying everything on this kegerator, I probably would have bought a more expensive model from the start.

Do you have any pictures of how you installed that double tower on this unit with the self taping screws. I just bought a double tap and will be doing this modification this weekend. Appreciate the help.

 

[4TBBUCS]

Bringing this one back from the dead! I also am looking to do the dual tap mod. I've had mine for about a year and a half and it's done its job well. I installed a tower cooler from the start. I'm struggling between drilling through the 2.5" tower and adding a faucet that way or just bitting the bullet and ordering a new 3" dual tap tower and drilling through the top. Decisions, decisions......

 

[barhopping247]

I created an adapter with my makerbot that allows a two tap tower to be installed into the factory twist and lock.

Came out pretty slick

Bringing this one back from the dead! I also am looking to do the dual tap mod. I've had mine for about a year and a half and it's done its job well. I installed a tower cooler from the start. I'm struggling between drilling through the 2.5" tower and adding a faucet that way or just bitting the bullet and ordering a new 3" dual tap tower and drilling through the top. Decisions, decisions......

 

[barhopping247]

Images attached....

I created an adapter with my makerbot that allows a two tap tower to be installed into the factory twist and lock.

Came out pretty slick

 

[stpug]

Thread title just got me playing KRS-One - thank you!

 

[pvpeacock]

I just added a two tap tower by using wood screws to drill the base into the top of the frig. I didn't need to drill the hole any bigger to fit the two hoses.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

Images attached....

Hey barhopping-
Do you still have the plans for that adapter? I sure could use one for my new tower. Would you be willing to make one for me?

 

[barhopping247]

Send me a pm