Longtime readers of this blog might remember that I’ve been working on a device that cools your beer as you drink it. It’s called the CryoBev3000. Here’s how it works: an electric pump circulates sub-freezing water from a bucket of salty ice, through a copper coil that’s in contact with the beer. Here’s a youtube video of a recent prototype test.
With the punishing Austin summer looming on the horizon, I have thrown down the money to upgrade the cryo-umbilicals to low-temperature high-performance latex tubing. The latex tubing is a huge improvement from the vinyl.
Another exciting upgrade, I’ve adapted the CryoBev3000 to work with my bicycle buckets. Cold beer has gone mobile.
A couple of days ago I took the CryoBev3000 out to Salvation Pizza for a field test. Notice an anonymous co-worker who is pretending he’s not with the weird guy with the beer machine.
Here at the bottom you can see the internal coil variation.
Later in the day, I took the CryoBev3000 over to a dude’s house and we played chess while enjoying well-chilled beer.
This was a scientific beer-drinking session, so we took plenty of temperature readings. The salt/ice solution had a temperature of 10degreesF, which stayed pretty consistent for hours. The cooling coils dropped the beer to a steady equilibrium temperature from their semi-warm state. The external coil maintained just below 40degreesF and the internal coil maintained about 35degreesF for the duration of the beverage.
It’s not the sub-freezing temperatures I was hoping for, but I know it’s possible at least in theory. When I put the internal coil in a glass of water, it quickly formed a sheath of ice about an eighth of an inch thick.
There’s more fussing and tweaking in store, so I’ll keep you updated.
