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PeltierBeer

Posted by michael on from the necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention dept.

Helstein writes "Finishing a beer in the sun before it gets warm is usually not a problem, but what about those really hot days? Having some hardware lying around there is only one solution to keep the beer cool, that's to make a PeltierBeer."

4 of 451 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by TheFlyingGoat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My wife viewed this and asked why in the world someone would make that. I had to explain that we geeks get a kick out of doing stuff like this, just for the sake of doing it. This particular project would be even cooler (no pun intended) if that cat5 carried some information instead of just power. That way, maybe I could track which friends are drinking all my beer. :)

    --
    You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
  2. Re:The only problem is by cruppel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, this is what Guinness should always come out of. =)

    that was a long week...

  3. Beer in sun bad by gizmo_mathboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For us beer geeks we would just drink beer in the sun faster. UV rays is what skunks beer.

    UV interacts with the alpha acids from the hops and creates that "skunky" taste. This is why most beer bottle are brown, it blocks out most of the UV for a period of time.

    This page does a a decent job of explaining what happens.

    Nonetheless, this is a cool hack. Just drink it fast or leave it in the bottle/can.

  4. /. is being had by blair1q · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This thing couldn't work in a million years.

    The thermometer isn't in the beer, it's hooked directly to the copper plate atop the peltier device.

    Without a crystal goblet and gobs of thermal goop, he's going to cool his thermometer probe and some air and not much else. Actually, he should just leave the beer in the can. Aluminum has a thermal conductivity of 205 W/m-K, and glass does 0.8 W/m-K. The thinner can* and 250X increase in k will make his project more successful, but still a candidate for /. troll of the year.

    I'd be willing to bet that the metal rails of that "caffetiere" are transmitting more heat to the sides of the glass than the copper plate is taking from the base.

    * - say the base of his glass is 4 mm thick, and the can is 0.2 mm thick (it could be less), then the glass will have a thermal conductance of 200 W/K and the can will have a thermal conductance of 1.03e6 W/K.