Life-size Bender replica with a fermenter in his belly

What do you get when you cross a super-creative, Futurama-lovin’ hacker with a beer lover? You get a life-size replica of Bender, everyone’s favorite “foul mouthed, cigar smoking, booze drinking, shiny metal [assed], bending robot,” that is also a fermenter for your home brew and talks as well! (Yes, that’s the TARDIS behind Bender. He built that as well.)

Simon Jansen was inspired by an episode of Futurama, “The Route of all Evil,” in which Fry and Leela brew beer inside of Bender. He even built a replica of the remote control used in another episode that signals the brain, built with a 6502 Commodore processor naturally, to make Bender talk and his antenna light up. If you want to build your own Bender Beer Brewer, he gives very detailed instructions, including circuit diagrams on his site, though this is not a simple weekend project by any means.

The fermenter in Bender’s belly is a 5 gallon plastic fermenter that I suspect is part of the Cooper’s home brew kit that Brant is reviewing, or something similar.

While you are poking around Jansen’s site, don’t miss the ASCII animation tribute to Star Wars on the home page. Is there anything this guy can’t do?

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After much research and preparation and a little improvisation, I finally brewed my first batch of beer. I made some mistakes but I learned a lot. I apologize for the lack of photos but I was so intent on doing everything correctly that I forgot to take pics of the process. Here’s the blow-by-blow from start to finish. Continue Reading

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Advice by the bucketful

In my last post, I said that I was going to try to get a food-grade bucket and make my own fermenter. That proved to be harder than I imagined. I had read that bakeries are a good place to get buckets because they get big buckets of icing, which is a lot less gross than some things that come in buckets, like pickles and barbecue chicken wings. So I called around and was surprised to find that there is quite a bit of competition for these buckets. If you are going to try this, here is my advice:

• Call early in the morning, before someone else gets the buckets.
• Try restaurants, delis, and other businesses that order food in bulk.
• If the business doesn’t have any buckets, ask when they expect to get some.
• When you find a bucket, be prepared to pick it up immediately.

Two for the price of one (free)

I finally found a couple of buckets at a supermarket bakery. The lady at the bakery told me she had a couple of 5 gallon buckets but I would have to come get them now. When I arrived, I discovered they were actually 4 gallon buckets but I didn’t want to tell the woman I had changed my mind after she had held them for me.

The beer kit I had bought to make my first brewing experience more likely to succeed makes 6 gallons (23 liters). I was therefore thinking I needed a 6 gallon fermenter. A little research, however, revealed that there needs to be a little room at the top to allow the fermentation to occur. So, I needed at least a 7 gallon fermenter. I knew from talking to restaurants and businesses that the standard 5 gallon bucket was the largest bucket I was likely to find for free. I went to Lowes, Home Depot, and Ace Hardware hoping to find a larger bucket but didn’t find anything larger 5 gallons.

I had to make a choice: I could either bite the bullet and buy a fermenter or I could try modifying the beer kit ingredients to either make less than 6 gallons or split it into multiple fermenters. The point of buying the beer kit was to simplify the process thereby increasing the chance of making beer that was drinkable. If I tried to modify the concentrate and yeast to make a smaller batch or batches, I was complicating things. On the other hand, I’m trying to see how little I can spend and still make a good batch of beer. Spending $15-$20 on an 8 gallon bucket seemed a little ridiculous.

Since I had two 4 gallon buckets and I needed an 8 gallon fermenter, I decided to try my luck and split the beer kit ingredients in two and brew two 3 gallon batches. It doesn’t take a lot of math to divide by 2 so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?

Roll your own fermenter

All I really needed to make my buckets into fermenters was air locks. The air lock is a simple plastic valve that you fill halfway with water so that gas from the fermentation can escape but outside air and contaminants can’t get in. I picked up 2 air locks from my local beer store for 2 bucks. They didn’t have grommets or stoppers that fit the air locks so I went to the plumbing section of Ace and got two cone-shaped rubber washers that are meant to be used in faucet repair. I drilled a hole in the lid of each icing bucket and inserted the washers and air locks. Voila! I am now the proud owner of two 4 gallon fermenters which cost a grand total of $3.50!

I was planning on splitting the wort into 2 even batches. I decided it would be easier if the fermenters were graduated so I could easily tell how much liquid was in each one. I used a 4 cup measuring cup to pour water into the buckets and marked off half-gallon increments on the outside of the buckets.

I’m finally ready to brew some beer!

Cost so far

• $20 - malt concentrate (beer kit)
• $8 - hydrometer
• $5 - cleanser
• $0 - four gallon icing bucket (2)
• $3.50 - air lock and rubber washer (2)

$35.50 - total

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Think globally, buy locally

I headed down to my local beer shop to see what was available for the home brewer. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent selection of grains and yeasts, as well as some equipment. The best part, however, was talking to a real, live human about brewing. He was able to give me some advice/pointers without making me feel stupid. I love forums and blogs and wikis as much as anyone but sometimes a conversation with a knowledgeable person in meatspace is invaluable. Here are some things I learned:

• Because so many farmers are switching to corn to meet the biofuel demand, the price of hops and grains has gone up significantly in the past year. A crop-killing freeze in Europe has exacerbated the problem.
• Buying bottles for your brew is expensive. It is often more economical to buy beer and reuse the bottles. (Plus you get to drink the beer.)
• There is a dizzying number of grains, hops, yeasts, and additives that you can use to create unique beer recipes. That’s a good thing but it’s also a little overwhelming.

I ended up buying 3 things: a “beer kit,” a cleanser, and a hydrometer. I’ll get to the beer kit in a minute. The cleanser is One Step No Rinse Cleanser by Brewcraft USA. It is supposed to be environmentally friendly and easy to use. The hydrometer is a triple scale beer and wine hydrometer, 60° F. It does not have a brand on it so I can’t link to anything but it’s just your basic hydrometer. I have seen these online for a little less but by the time you add shipping, the price is about the same.

Have your cake and eat it too

The beer kit is Cooper’s Stout hopped malt concentrate. It is to home brewing as a cake mix is to baking. A cake made from scratch by an experienced baker will always taste better than a cake mix, but using a cake mix increases the chance of an edible cake for the novice. With the beer kit, you add water and sugar and in a few weeks you (hopefully) have 6 gallons of Australian stout. I know that this will not be “true” home brewing but I decided to go with the beer kit because it will allow me to experience the mechanics of home brewing while simplifying the process. The “kit” includes the concentrate, a yeast pack, and instructions.

Paper or plastic?

I am the type of person who, when given a choice, will chose paper over plastic at the grocery store. Likewise, I prefer glass containers to plastic. I’m just not a big fan of plastic; to me it represents the cheaply made, disposable, petroleum-dependent, big-box crap that our consumer-driven society is drowning in. For that reason, I had planned to use a glass carboy (big ass jug) as a fermenter rather than a plastic bucket fermenter and glass bottles. I have changed my mind, however.

Part of this experiment is to produce a batch of home brew as cheaply as possible. Glass carboys cost $30+ both locally and online. I scoured the thrift shops for a used carboy but didn’t find one. I will continue to look, as I still want to use a glass carboy as my fermenter, but for my first attempt at brewing at least, I will use a plastic bucket.

Fermenting buckets are supposed to be made of food-grade plastic. However, there is some debate over what “food-grade” means. After reading this discussion of acceptable plastics, I’m going to find an HDPE or PET bucket and make my own fermenter. All I need is a 6+ gallon bucket with a lid, and I’ll drill a hole for the gas vent and possibly a spigot to make bottling easier.

Yes, I said bottling. I had planned on holding off on buying bottling equipment but I was showing my ignorance. Part of the fermentation process occurs in the bottle. The carbonation is actually created in the bottle so it’s not something I can skip. While it is cheaper to buy beer and save the bottles than to buy new bottles, I would need 64 12 oz bottles for the 23 liters (about 6 gallons) of beer that the beer kit makes. That’s a lot of beer for someone that is ready to get this process started. You can buy plastic bottles for reasonable price, but they are the same bottles that you buy soda or water in. So, now the plan is to buy some bottled water and reuse the bottles.

Cost so far

• $20 - malt concentrate (beer kit)
• $8 - hydrometer
• $5 - cleanser

$32 - total

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