beer

90 Articles

3 Liter Homebrew Beer Keg

June 4, 2008 by 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 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.

Continue reading “Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest” →

Beverage Hacks

May 26, 2008 by 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.

Arduino Beer Brewing

April 29, 2008 by 13 Comments


[Yuri] spent some time building a computer controlled, arduino interfaced beer brewing rig. A cooler serves as a mash tun, while the arduino controls a steam source that’s used to raise the temperature of the mash as desired. A java app talks to the arduino to set the temperature parameters and monitor the steam boiler. You can catch a nice video walkthrough of the setup, see some screen shots of his java interface.

Home Brewing Beer Brewery

October 16, 2007 by 16 Comments


I saw this last month in Popular Science, but it wasn’t online for a while. This (nearly) all-in-one brewery was built by [John Carnett]. It does everything but requires malt extract for now. It boils wort, cools it for fermenting, delivers the brew to the kegs and most interestingly to me – uses cold plate cooling to cool the beer just before it exits the tap. I’m pretty sure they’re using peltier junctions, but I’d like to know for sure. Props to [Nate] for inadvertently reminding me of the thing when he sent in this effort to brew beer inside a pumpkin!

Robotic Beer Launching Fridge

February 26, 2007 by 13 Comments

This robotic beer launching fridge is one of those ultimate projects that you are guaranteed to see posted all over the internet today. Robots, beer, the possibility of maiming innocent bystanders… what’s not to love? I’d be lying if I said my mechanical engineering friends and I weren’t contemplating this at many points during college. Kudos to John W. Cornwell of Duke for actually pulling it off. The mini-fridge has three servos: one to elevate beer from the 10 can magazine, one to rotate the turntable, and one for cocking. Spring power is used to catapult the beer across the room. The brains of the system is an ATMega8535 and 3 intelligent H-bridges. It’s controlled by an adapted key-less entry system. It looks like they’ve wisely placed it pointing away from the tv, but I don’t know if referring to your apartment as the “man-pit” is nearly as smart. Check out some of John’s other projects: the Mentos booby-trap and the touch activated paintball gun.

[via Dirk]