Beer Brewing Bender Completed

An anonymous reader writes "The Beer Brewing Bender Project is finally completed. This is a fan built, full sized Bender from Futurama featuring a 6502 CPU powered brain to make him speak triggered by a prop remote control straight out of the show. Inside his body is a beer fermenter used to brew up a batch of real Benderbrau beer!"

Comments

I hide my face in shame

[Big Nothing]

And I thought _I_ was a Futurama fan. I will never make that clame again.

Aslo: where can I buy me one of these?

Re:I hide my face in shame

[AnarkiNet]

Hey, give him a break. He's obviously been working hard performing quality-control checking of the output of this new contraption.

Get that robot some more beer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Scene: Citihall: Mayor's Office. A pizza slice splats against the window.

Poopenmeyer: It's time to take action. [He presses the intercom.] Stephanie, cancel the maid for today. Have her come tomorrow. [He leans back into his chair.] Well, I'm out of ideas. Anyone?

Farnsworth: Wait! If we could build an object the exact size, density and consistency of the garbage ball, it might just knock the ball away without smashing it to bits.

Leela: But where can we find a substance the exact density and consistency as garbage?

Farnsworth: Alas, I don't know.

Fry: Uh, what about garbage?

Farnsworth: Good Lord! A second ball of garbage! That just might work!

Poopenmeyer: But garbage isn't something you just find lying in the streets of Manhattan. This city's been garbage-free for 500 years!

Fry: Then it's time to make some more.

Poopenmeyer: Make garbage? But how?

Fry: Stand back and watch the master! This Slurm can. [He knocks it on the floor.] Now it's garbage. These papers. [He sweeps them off the desk with his hands.] Garbage. This picture of your wife. [He drops it on the floor and the frame smashes.] Pure garbage. Now you try it.

        Poopenmeyer picks up a pencil and drops it on the floor.

Poopenmeyer: By God, I think the boy's got something. Come on, everyone! The fate of the city is at stake!

        He turns a chair on its side.

Fry: Good! [He turns to Leela.] Don't finish that cruller, throw it away [Leela throws it on the floor.] Bender. Drink that beer and drop the bottle on the ground. [Bender throws the bottle on the floor.] Very nice.

Poopenmeyer: Get that robot some more beer! [Bender smiles.]

All I can say is...

[ExE122]

"Bite my not-so-shiny fiberglass-on-cardboard-and-quilt-insulation-over-a-wood-frame ass."

Kudos on a truly awesome job! Looks great =)

Brewing Time

[sjaguar]

If the beer can be brewed within 30 minutes (including commerical breaks), sign me up for a few.

That's so cool!

[techpawn]

Also, because of what they made it out of, if there's ever a problem with the beer Bender can smoke too! Is that a tap in the front for the beer? Cuz if it is it's placement is very... poor...

Re:That's so cool!

[LiquidCoooled]

ft(amazing)a


1. Clean and sterilise the bottles. I use 750mL plastic PET bottles. A batch of beer will fill 30 of them.

2. To each bottle add sugar. I use sugar drops and add two per bottle (see below). The additional sugar is to allow for extra fermentation in the bottle. This is what causes the beer to have bubbles.

3. Remove the airlock from the top of the fermenter to allow the beer to flow freely.

4. Warm your hands (Not normally necessary but Bender insisted on this step before letting me near his tap).

5. Slowly, with each bottle tilted to avoid frothing, fill each bottle from the tap.

6. Tightly cap each bottle.

Re:That's so cool!

[ArsenneLupin]

And, what's more, it may dispense yellow (the beer) or white (the head, no pun intended...) liquid, depending on its mood :)

Re:That's so cool!

[Telecommando]

Plastic bottles? Blasphemy!

Re:That's so cool!

[Potor]

Is that a tap in the front for the beer? Cuz if it is it's placement is very... poor...

piss poor, even ...

Re:That's so cool!

[ralph75les]

"I just told all my friends to start drinking Corona, or MGD (pry off) or even Grolsch with the flip top."

Uh, you're going to be bottling in CLEAR bottles??? As as experienced beer brewer, I recommend that you DON'T use clear. The best bottles to use will be brown, followed by green (which I never use). I'm sure you've heard it before, but light is the enemy of beer. It'll skunk it quickly. The Grolsch bottles are okay, but sometimes those rubber seals will fail, and then when you bottle-condition the beer, it won't carbonate. Just some helpful advice, enjoy your brewing.

Way down under

[PopeRatzo]

I love reading projects like this one. I've got to wonder about how one lives in New Zealand to be able to find time to build this beer-brewing Bender.

I wish I was versatile enough to know how to wire up a 6502-based audio board w/wireless remote AND do the basic carpentry AND the fiberglass and painting AND brew beer. He's even got an arc-welder, as seen in his video of him destroying his HP printer (link on the last page of TFA)

Hell, my wife wishes I knew how to change a washer in the bathroom faucet.

Re:Way down under

[fotbr]

I don't think you give yourself enough credit.

Basic woodworking, fiberglassing, painting, and welding are all fairly simple skills -- they just take a bit of practice. Being an artisan capable of earning a living doing any of the above may be a different story, but hobby-level skills aren't all that hard to learn. That leave the electronics, and, well, this is slashdot, so you likely know that or know someone who would love to do a project like that.

If you really want to learn other stuff, check with your local community college, see if they have any intro-to-X type evening or weekend classes that'd fit your schedule. Most community colleges have some sort of intro-to-welding class, and I'd imagine a basic carpentry class isn't uncommon.

Cache

[dr_d_19]

...before it gets 'dotted.

Coral here!

Re:Cache

[CaptainPatent]

Yeah, Let's make a mirror...
With blackjack, and hookers...
In fact, forget the mirror!

Suck my..

[Ezza]

.. beer tap!

Gives new meaning to a head of beer.

Yeah? well

[everphilski]

I'll build my own beer-brewing-bender! With blackjack! and hookers! wait, forget about the beer-brewing-bender....

Bender OS

[Nonillion]

"but doesn't it run linux?"

I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't Benders preferred OS is Olde Fortran.

Re:Bender OS

[Minwee]

I'm not seeing much of a difference there.

With apologies to Pimpbot

[GodfatherofSoul]

He's got a stomach full of candy, and an ass made by Tandy.

Smut on Page 2

[The Redster!]

The pervert posted logic circuity on page 2. Someone should aks him to take it down.

Re:Cartoon Props?

[Tony Hoyle]

The remote is a faithful rendition of a remote used in the show - looks very authentic. I'm not sure prop is the right term but I'm having a hard time right now thinking of a better one.

I thought Bender consumed alchohol, not made it.

[CrazyJim1]

If Bender in the show was equipped with a brew station in his torso... That'd be a perpetual motion machine I wouldn't want to witness.

Fry,"Whatcha doin Bender?" Bender,"Drinkin my own fluids."

cool bot, poor beer

[darqit]

I used to brew some beer myself and the home kit the guy is using makes for pisspoor beer. And also beer from plastic bottles!!! blasphemy

You want to be using real ingredients not the beersyrup this guy uses. Real barley and hops. Most small breweries also sell to individuals.

Heat the barley in a pan with sufficient water (as in how much beer you want) and look up a schematic for the heating. Essentially this means heating your mixture to a designated temperature and keeping it there for a period of time. Different temperatures make the barley release different sugars. there are different temperature schemes. Experiment with a few you can really see the difference.

Add half your hops at the beginning and the other half halfway trough the heating process

Then strain your beer a few times until it has the desired clarity (can be influenced by the type of barley)and cool the mixture down so the yeast survives when you add it. It is good practice to activate your yeast before adding

The beerbender does use a handy fermenting vat. These are actually quite cheap. Keep the beer for at least 1 week at around 24 degrees celsius

The botteling is next. If you like beer you surely have some glass beer bottles. Buy a bottlecapper and some caps. Again really cheap.

You can use sugar drops to get the CO2 in the bottle but about 2-4 grams of plain sugar also works. I like using some honey as it can be tasted later.But an absolute winner is the brown caster sugar

cap the bottles with the sugar and again wait for minimally 2 weeks at 24 degrees before consuming

this way you can vary your beer way more than using some kit. You can experiment with different barley,hops,heating schemes,yeasts,storing times,straining and sugars.

Re:cool bot, poor beer

[Sloppy]

Agreed, the beer he is brewing will be absolutely disgusting. Probably far too malty, with no smoothness.

I doubt it will be awesome, but there's a reasonable chance it won't be disgusting. It's clear that he is using hopped (pre-bittered) LME. He's not adding any finishing hops for taste/aroma, but I bet the malt/bitter balance is going to be about right -- I've used hopped LME a couple times, and it contributed an even balance. I wouldn't use it in some kind of hop-showcase APA or IPA, but for a generic newbie beer? No problem!

What I didn't like about this guy's process, is that he's bumping it up with dextrose instead of more malt extract. But if he used malt, then I guess that would mean he'd have to deal with boiling some hops. So really, I bet his balance will be about right, and it won't be too malty. If anything, it's going to be really dry, as his 1.006 F.G. suggests.

I do have to agree on the plastic-bottles-sound-gross thing. I would never do that. But I know some people who use "better bottles" instead of glass carboys (which is what I use) for their primary fermenters, and their beer is fine. So if this plastic is similar (doesn't flavor the beer or allow oxygen in), then it will probably be ok assuming he's drinking it fairly soon.

I just don't see any serous show-stoppers here, which are going to ruin his beer. It'll have a fair chance.

I get the impression the guy is a newbie. And you know what? That's ok. It's fine to do a really simple process as your first one as you're learning the ropes. He won't be able to get as much diversity as a [arrogant]real[/arrogant] brewer, but he'll make better beer than 80% of the stuff for sale at the super-market. If he enjoys this, he's just going get more sophisticated as the mental infection sets in. It happened to me, I've seen it happen to others, and it'll happen to him. Building the Bender, shows he's got some kind of obsession thing going on.

Re:cool bot, poor beer

[5c11]

I know quite a few people already responded to your beer methodology, but the beer nerd in me can't help but put in a few words along with them.

First of all, you're absolutely right that his beer is probably gonna taste like crap (or "sparkling pond water" as John Palmer puts it). That said, there's nothing wrong with using extract, or "beersyrup" as you call it (though admittedly the pre-hopped stuff is worthy of derision). A lot of award-winning beers have been made from extracts with steeping grains. Most people start out doing a few extract beers, then move on to all-grain. Some people never move on to all-grain because they're happy with the beer they get from extract and don't want to go through the extra work that all-grain takes. On the other hand, all-grain is cheaper and gives you a lot more variables to tweak to control how your beer will turn out. It really just amounts to how cheap you are and how much time you want to spend.

As far as your methodology... either you're not articulating it well, or you don't really have the method down (at least not the method most people tend to use). Straining for clarity? What? Are you actually boiling the wort or not? I'm not going to lay out the precise steps that need to be followed as some people seem to be trying to do, but I will add on another recommendation for John Palmer's How to Brew, as well as Denny Conn's batch sparging instructions, Basic Brewing Radio, and The Jamil Show. There are also various forums that can be incredibly helpful as well.

Back on topic... the Bender statue is pretty much awesome, even if all it looks like all it really does beer-wise is hold a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Now, a temperature controlled stainless steel conical fermenter Bender, that would really be something...

Re:cool bot, poor beer

[Brandybuck]

Another tutorial comes with my brewing program, QBrew: http://www.usermode.org/code.html.

Re:OMG Bender has a TARDIS

[Tetsujin]

I can't think of a possibly more dangerous situation, LOL! 001100
010010
011110
100001
101101
110011

An old /. favourite...

[Chris Brewer]

Don't forget, this is the guy that created the jet-powered beer cooler as discussed way back when.

While his server hasn't become a smoking ruin, check out his TARDIS MAME console.

Re:OMG Bender has a TARDIS

[Tetsujin]

The real question is did you have to look it up?

I am such a nerd. Yeah, I didn't take the time to memorize the code when I was watching the DVD, or pay too much attention to exactly what the digit sequence was. But for posting here, of course, I wanted to get it right. :D

But I did learn that there's a very simple way to remember it... it's a count from 1 to 6 with a mirror-imaged copy... Funny how the secrets to the universe have such a simple basis.

Re:6502?

[onemorechip]

In the episode where Fry tried to use the professor's F-Ray to find the winning Slurm bottle cap, at one point the F-Ray was pointed at Bender's head and revealed a 6502 (just watched this episode again the other day, thanks to Cartoon Network's recent marathon). So Beer Brewing Bender's designers knew what they were doing.