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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