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Keeping Your Keg Cool Sans Ice
DrLudicrous writes "Case Western Reserve University is reporting that first year physics graduate student Adam Hunnell has come up with the idea for a Keg Wrap, a thermoelectric sheet that will be able to maintain a full keg at 32-35F by running off of wall current or even a car's cigarette lighter. The funding for this project is coming from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, which has provided Mr. Hunnell with a $20,000 grant. Serious stuff - I'd rather see this than another few million dumped into quantum computing."
Can they make clothing out of this? That'd be nice for the hot regions of the USA this summer.
And, I'm sure there will be people trying to figure out how to scale this to computers, particularly portable devices.
I wonder if it's feasible to add solar-powered refrigeration to a cooler? Now THAT'D be a really useful invention. This keg thing is nice too though.
He plans to begin design work on a prototype in the next several weeks.
Great. I hope he lets us know when he has a design for a prototype.. And then maybe when there is actually a prototype vs. a vague bong inspired idea..
At this rate it seems that it would be easy for someone to get a jump on any opportunity and beat him to the market and patent.
..like this one. IIRC it was even on /. a few years ago.
I wonder if using the Nigerian Nomad clay pot reefer would work on a keg?
1. Big clay pot filled with wet sand
2. Smaller clay pot inside big clay pot with layer of sand in between(keg in this case)
3. Wet Rags on top of sand
4. Evaporation keeps your inside pot cool...
no plugs need
This kind of device is exactly what many homebrewers would need for fermenting. I'd probably pickup two or three as I don't have the space or money for more refrigerators.
That's been the main thing keeping me from getting more serious about brewing - I have no lagering space. I've got four people living in my house, so space and electricity are at a bit of a premium. If this thing (once it gets beyond the vague, pie-in-the-sky idea stage) can cool to an arbitrary temperature, that would be wonderful for homebrewing.
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The article is woefully skimpy on details, but it sounds like he's planning to sew a bunch of Peltier devices onto a sheet of nylon.
Perhaps, though the article doesn't make this at all clear, he thinks he's got some way to build a thermoelectric device out of a sheet of nylon. It would be a good and useful trick, especially when accomplished by a first-year physics student.
Either way, it sounds to me like you're going to have to combine this with a fan if you're going to get anything useful out of it. Thermoelectric devices move heat a few centimeters and concentrate it, but if you just let it dissipate it'll eventually warm up the other side of the device, sapping a lot of your power. You need to blow a fan past it so you can use the air as a heat exchanger.
Not all american beers taste like bovine excrement, but most of the popular ones do. Anything Bud, Michelobe, Coors, etc isn't fit for flushing toliets when the water pressure is low. However there are some rather good American Microbrews.
Old Dominion Beers (Ashburn, VA) are quite excellent, and rival some foreign beers.
Of the domestic non-micro area, Yuengling is respectable, Sam Adams can be very drinkable, and Killians isn't half bad either.
Having recently moved to England from America, I can now testify that the average British beer drinker has about the same beer preferences as an American... Out of all the people I know here, I am the only one that drinks ale. Every Englishman I know between the ages of 20 and 40 drinks lager (which needs to be "frozen"). On top of that, England now has Guiness "Extra Cold". What the hell is that all about? So you take a beer with enough flavor to taste fine a bit warm, and then freeze it...
(Disclaimer: I am a casual-at-best homebrewer. I believe the info below to be basically correct, but I am sure true zymurgists could crucify me on details. Please don't. I'm delicate.)
Well, for the most part you're right. I ferment my ales for about 1 week in my primary fermenter, 1 week in my glass carboy, and 2 weeks in the bottles (for CO2 generation), all at about 60F. However, lagers are kept in cold storage after primary fermentation for weeks or months. During this time (where the beer is kept quite cold), the yeast is mostly inactive, but the flavor mellows and evens out. Eventually, you get that crisp, clean flavor evident in lagers like Heineken, St. Pauli Girl, and other German Lager-style beers (yes, I know Heineken isn't made in Germany).
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If you care for cool beer without electricity you might want to check out this system, which according to their website "chills beer, wine and all other drinks anytime and anyplace within 30 minutes without the influence of electircity [sic], Water or ice."
A coworker of mine once speculated that for the average Joe, an individual's gross adjusted expenditures on alcohol remain roughly constant throughout the drinking adult years, but that the quantity and quality are inversely correlated. I think he might have been about right.
Liora
All the beer I've brewed (myself and with friends) fermented cool but by no means cold (~60-70 degrees). For that, a basement corner or crawl space usually works well. (If you don't have one...well...this device would be good!)
Now, after it has fermented and is ready to go, before drinking the beer, I think this would be ideal. Most of the times I've brewed I've used bottles, though, not kegs.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
If it has to be ice-cold to be palatable, you probably shouldn't be drinking it. :-P Fat Tire is just one example (out of hundreds) of a beer that's much more interesting when it's served in the mid-40s to low 50s. Your average Budmilloors swill, at those temperatures, would be just plain nasty.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.