Brew Fridge Thermostat

March 22, 2009 by Eliot 32 Comments

thermostat-1

Reader [Will R] sent in a thermostat mod for his brew fridge. His friends had found a perfectly fine bar refrigerator and wanted to repurpose it for brewing beer. A previous batch of microbrew had been mangled by the Australian heat so they wanted something that could maintain the perfect temperature. The fridge’s built-in thermostat wouldn’t rise above 5 degrees so they had to build their own. [Will] used a 10K NTC thermistor to measure the temperature. It’s connected to an ATtiny25 microcontroller that does the comparison and determines whether to turn on the compressor. He referenced SparkFun’s relay tutorial for the switching side. Although he didn’t etch a board for this project, the design file is included along with all the code on the project site.

Pouring A Beer Via IPhone

January 1, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUyzQBNT3k&eurl=&feature=player_embedded]

[Steve] sent us his new years project, a remote beer server controlled by his iPhone. He has built a frame from construx and used ioBridge to connect it to his iPhone. He states that he “wanted to make a project that allows for the perfect pour and take out all of that physical work”. Seems like it could use a little adjustment to be a bit less foamy. Maybe an additional frame to adjust the angle of the glass as it is poured.

Exersize For A Good Cause, Cold Beer

October 31, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

It can sometimes be difficult to decide what items we want to fill space in our homes. Our health is valued highly, as is our ability to consume cold beer. Someone out there must have been thinking of us when they designed this exersize bike that chills your beer. Admittedly, it won’t chill it as fast as some other methods we’ve tried. We also may end up forcing our friends and loved ones to do the actual chilling, but beer tastes better when cooled by slave labor anyway.

Beer Bot Will Pour You A Cold One

July 2, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 5 Comments

We love beer and we love robots, so guessing how we feel about this robotic bartender should be a no-brainer. Known as Mr. Asahi, the robot opens bottles and pours beer while taking your orders with aplomb and a jovial British accent. It also has a customized lazy susan with slots for bottles and notches for the robot’s hand to grasp.

Amazingly, this is not Asahi’s first beer pouring robot. That one requires you to do most of the leg work, though, so this one is a marked improvement. Best of all, it won’t ignore you when a person more attractive than you comes into the bar, and it won’t snub you for leaving a lousy tip. We now fear alcohol fueled robot rampages… they get more human every day. Video after the break.

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3 Liter Homebrew Beer Keg

June 4, 2008 by Sean Percival 15 Comments

Beer kegs are several things. They are expensive, heavy, but most importantly delicious. We found a nice guide for creating your own 3 liter beer keg. This is an inexpensive solution for homebrewers looking to keg their own beer.

The guide goes into detail on assembly and parts needed to create the bottle adapter. Most of the parts can be picked up locally or through MoreBeer.com. CO2 cartridges are used to pressurize the bottle. To keep everything cool you can use a standard water cooler with a few simple modifications. The 3 liter bottle is too tall for some coolers so you’ll need to cut a hole in the lid. Add a piece of aluminum covered styrofoam to the top and bottom, toss in some ice, and your brew should stay cold for about 3 hours.

The author does note that this is not recommended for long term storage. So drink up!

Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest

May 28, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 24 Comments

Let’s face it: no one likes warm beer. In the arid August air of Las Vegas, though, it’s difficult to get anything else. To combat this problem, Deviant has hosted a competition the last three years at Defcon called the Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest, or BCCC. We’re not talking about something as simple as a Coleman cooler or even a peltier cooler: the devices entered in this contest have to be able to take a beer from hot to cool and your glass within minutes.

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Beverage Hacks

May 26, 2008 by Eliot 9 Comments

It’s Memorial Day in the US, so we thought we’d put together a collection of links we’ve covered in the past that might help you celebrate.

The Apu 3000 is one of the finer examples of drug use leading to carpentry. It’s a 4 gallon frozen margarita machine built out of a garbage disposal. A new garbage disposal. We don’t have the time here to speculate on what sort chemical dangers you may expose yourself to by constructing this though.

Continuing the trend of throwing horsepower at problems is the gas powered blender. It’s good for people that love a refreshing beverage while inhaling the fumes of 2-stroke engines.

We’ve covered a couple peltier based cooling projects in the past too. The first was a can cooler for the desktop. The second involved snaking a CAT5 cable across the yard to power a mug.

Back in 2005, Hackaday regular [evan] sent in his BASIC Stamp controlled kegerator. It’s very reliable and way cheaper than a commercial unit.

We’re closing on a sad note: It seems the instructions for making Guinness beersicles have fallen offline, again. From what we remember, you throw the can in the freezer till it reaches a thick slush stage. Then, release the gas so it forms a head in the can. Pierce the bottom of the can and insert the stick. Return the can to the freezer and let it freeze solid.