Keeping beer cool

[Andy Zarse]

How about a compromise? Cover the bin in wet towels. Bingo!

[Darren]

Arrrrrrrrr but that means a time delay on beer consumtion - better to have a word with your kind neighbour that goes to town and stocks up on ice from the local supermarkets.

Towels are needed for pool activity and are probably not suitable for beer hygiene after the first day.

But the bin still wins.............

[Matt Harper]

Ah, the age old connundrum of keeping the beer drinkable! We've been wrestling with this problem since the early '80s.
Unless you have a modest appetite for cold suds, most fridges are just too small. I have seen folks with full-on domestic refridgerators standing chugging away on the campsites, but they seem a bit of a hassle to me.
Key to EVERYTHING is ice. I like the inginuity of the thermal transfer suggestions, but I can't really see how the beer temp is going to drop below the air temp without a compressed gas heat-exchanger (as opposed to a wet towell).
We go as a big team, who unfortunately drink quite a lot of beer. Years of experience (sometimes bitter - oh, great f**k*ng pun!!) has taught us that in order to have lashings of ice cold beer to hand at all times (trackside, as well as campsite) you need a mobile (i.e. wheeled) cooler with a large capacity and the ability to acquire ice in some volume. Buying ice from the supermarket is fine - but it's the piddly little stuff that turns to slush and inevitably tepid water by midnight on Saturday. Icebergs are required - large 'bricks' of ice that last and last. We used to nick 'em off the theiving bastards selling Kanterbrau in le village.
Also, if you are personable and persuasive it is quite easy to persuade the staff on the fish counter at the local supermarket to help you out.
We trundle R2D2 into El'eclerc in La Fleche every race day morning and 5 Euros gets as much ice as you can shake a stick at. Another trick is: 2 coolers - one for ice and beer and one for ice only.
Luckily for us and not by co-incidence, my parents live close to Le Mans. In the weeks prior to the race, manufacturing of icebergs commences on a grand scale. My mum fills empty ice cream tubs with water and freezes them. In a good coolbox they last for ever.
If I was local (Gilles, I'm talking to you sonny!) I'd make a lot of block ice and flog it in the campgrounds. I'd make a killing.
If anyone is interested in how to convert a stock Rubbermaid drag-along coolbox into a go anyfrickin'where R2D2 let Dave H know - he's got the blueprints and the patent application...... have a cool one.
 

[BigH]

Yes, this one's a hairy old walnut. Matt seems to have all bases covered there. In the past we've tried ice from the fish counter as well as domestic fridge freezers. The fridges never seem to do the job, there's always someone who hasn't got a grasp of thermodynamics rooting around in there for his Camambert.
In our first couple of years at MB a guy did used to do the rounds selling blocks of ice from the back of a truck, and he did a roaring trade. He's probably under some pikeys patio by now.
We have also stuck wet boxes of 33's under the cars overnight, and it's surprising how cold they get. This has the added advantage that in order to enjoy them properly, you have to set your alarm for about six-ish in the morning. It's a great start to the day.
'Kpy and Gilles Frozen Water Co.' - has a ring to it don't you think?
H

[Andy Z]

Hi Matt

Quick lesson in thermo dynamics. The patented Zarse Beer Evapouration Cooler will reduce the temp of the ale to well below the ambient air temp. It works on the same principle as the domestic fridge, heat exchange (transfer).

For an experiment, dip your head in a bucket of water then drive down the highway at seventy and stick your nut out of the window. I guarantee you will find it quickly becomes colder than the ambient temp in FLA, if that is where you are right now. And the nasty chill you catch should be better in time for June 14th!

It's like the wind chill factor, albeit a slower version. The hotter the weather, the colder the beer. Honest! Trust me, I'm a doctor.

Herr Doktor Zarse

[BigH]

You can tell where our interests lie, as this topic quickly goes hot.
Dr Zarse, who most probably likes green eggs and ham, should be trusted on these matters. The Romans, apart from the roads and all that shyte, used to make ice with this technique. However, they didn't have wheely bins, and with those, you can actually climb in with the beer.
Betty Swallocks? -no more. Warm beer? no sirree!
H

[Matt Harper]

Dr Zarse
Many thanks for the "Hotter the temperature, the colder the beer" lesson.
I have to confess that I spent the greater part of my physics classes at school staring at the teachers tits and imagining what it might be like to bounce around on them - however, I do recall something about Browns law of gases and how a refridgerator works. Unless I'm very much mistaken (and I usually am) any mechanical device that is employed to change the temp, using a heat exchanger invariably has a compressor. If you compress the gas you create heat - expand it and it cools down. Apparently a fridge doesn't create coldness - it just removes warmth. This is a subject that I should take some notice of, because I'm literally surrounded by equipment that is either cooling or heating something in my home. It would seem the only thing they are very good at is burning money.
I guess it boils down to how cold is comfortable and palatable, beerwise.
When I lived in England I drank Tetley Bitter, which doesn't want to be too cold. In USA dark beers are f**k*ng awful and lager is served just above freezing. I endured very many editions of the 24 hrs sipping disgusting warm beer and wondering why the hell I was in such bad shape (gastrointestinally as well as mentally) when I got home.
I've become a bit obsessed about keeping the beer cold. We drink a lot of Guinness (warm Nigerian Lager is not at all nice - it has to be proper cold) and champagne which means we have to go to a bit of trouble to keep everything icy - but it's well worth it.
It's quite amusing to spot 'tippers'. These are individuals in a group who covertly pour their beer on the ground or into the bushes - or take a manly swig and toss a 3/4 full can or bottle into the garbage. 'Tippers' are either drinking warm beer - or are beer pansies - alco-braggards, who claim to be beer monsters, but in reality don't really like the stuff.
Funny old world innit!
Andy - good luck in your creative beer cooling endeavours. I would attempt to dip my head in water and hammer along I4 at 70mph with my swede dangling out of the window - but Truckosaurus won't go that fast and my local State Troopers might view me with a degree of suspicion when I explained that it was a science experiment to help keep my beer cold.
Hopefully we'll bump into each other at Le Mans and compare temps!!
Regards
Matt      

[Andy Zarse]

Matt,

Ah, the old Teachers tits/O Level pass conundrum, I remember it well. Although I have to say I thought a Brownian Motion was what you had on the sunday morning after days of warm Boddingtons, cold merguez and that ham which you thought was probably okay even though it did smell a bit funny. A case of "Speak up Brown, you're through".

And yes, I forget to mention that you need to attach a compressor to the wet towels. A big mother, like at Kwikfit.

As far as tippers go, this disgraceful behaviour is bad manners and a warning sign of a raft of other psycological problems like inferiority complex and low self esteem.

The bottom line is if you don't want one, don't have one. And I would never make someone drink against their will. But I hate to see ale go to waste, so if you open one, you must drink it. I suspect one of our lot is a "closet tipper". And I'm going to catch the fukka this year and expose him for the lilly livered beer dodger he is.

Likewise I look forward to meeting you and DH, it's got to be the Champers bar at 9.00. Incidentally, have you become all "Yankified" by living in the States these last few years? I only ask as one of our mob isn't coming to Le Mans this year as he moved to Cayman Islands six months ago to work with some Americans. Already he's whooping and hollering and f**k*n' A-ing with the best of them.

Andy Z

[Matt Harper]

Andy
You're right on the money with your suggestion of 'outing' Le Mans beer tippers.
It is thoroughly disgraceful behavior and miscreants should be publicly identified and ridiculed. What really fucks me off is when you have 'a bit of a do' at your campsite and invite your neighbors to partake of a light aperitif - just to be social, like - and one or more of your guests, after a can or two, starts tipping your beer!
The hours of darkness are when this phenomenon is at it's worst. Throughout the environs of the circuit, beer pansies are offering brewskies to the weeds and then bragging about what utter piss-heads they are (I never figured out why anyone would take pride in being a lush - personally I'd do my best to keep it to myself).
I very much look forward to meeting you at the Champagne bar on Saturday evening.
Additionally I should like to reassure you that since being posted to the colonies, I have retained my stiff upper lip, sense of good form and my right to take tea and tiffin during the afternoon.
Orlando definately beats Bradford for climate and motorsports opportunities, but even here amongst the palm trees and pick-up trucks, there lies a little piece of England. In reality, there also lies about 50,000 other British escapees - it's a bit like Southend, without the razor fights.  
 

[Rhino]

What is bad as well is the morning after when you find nearly full cans sitting there. It makes me weep.
If anyone wants one of those electric coolboxes, they are in Lidl this thursday can't remember how much.

[rcutler]

Halfords are doing a 12v chiller for half price again this year. If you half fill it with water (it says don't do this in the manual but it is all that helps it keeps the temp) then the cooler works fine after about a day. The 28l one holds just over 1 crate of kronenbourg so to or three of these should do the trick.

Besides I wanted to be the first person to post a very hot topic on the new web board.

[Jeffa]

Check out this link for an extreme DIY fridge

http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/

This guy uses a Jet engine to cool his beer!!
Sounds daft but it seems to work.

Jeffa

[GeeBee]

Now that is the Dogs. Nobel Prize nomination anyone....?

[BigH]

Dear God,
Beer tippers, BEER TIPPERS! This is a heinous crime indeed, up there with child molesting and round dodging.
I had forgot all about this phenomenon, and was reminiscing with Mrs H the other night, as she was funnelling me infield.
During our wooing period, I had been invited out to meet a few of her men friends in a bar in central Birmingham, in which was obviously some kind of test. We started off having a fine session, and then later in the evening I spot this t-wat sneaking his pint of Guinness, which I'd just bought him, under the table and tipping it on to the floor.
My jaw was slack with amazement, I'd never seen such a thing. What does a man do? My instinct was to wring the carpet out and pour it down his throat, but unfortunately it was a night where I was out to impress. These are rarified circles in which I frequent after all. In hindsight, maybe I should have taken AZ's  lead with his response to the llama farmer.
I have to confess though, to leaving a few 'confused beers' about the place. You know how it is, you're half way through a drop and put it down to do a little dance, (make a little lurv, get down and out), and can't find it when you return, bow-legged. So you open another, convinced it will be 'fresh', and then it all happens again. And again.
Cold beer is the holy grail though, every time we've tried an alternative it's been a disaster. The Continental bitter had a limited 'clean weapon' tactical effect. The property was left ok, but nothing else was standing. A brief flirtation with a bottle of Lagavulin one year was closely followed by the 'Clarkson Incident' where I was lucky not to get beaten up by a couple of heavy looking chaps. Three bottles of red wine induced a severe, and never experienced before, bout of kleptomania. On the Saturday morning I found myself better equipped for the race than some of the teams.
Nurse, the wet towels please.
H

[Matt Harper]

I did have a chuckle at that one H - this new look forum seems to have done a brilliant job of dispensing with the "The ACO are a set of bastards - where's my f**k*ng tickets?" brigade.
We have never tried beer alternatives at Le Mans - supplements, yes, but not alternatives.
Your posting reminded me of a seriously traumatic dilemma we found ourselves in one year, at the Indy 500. Fax, Dave H, Ricardo and myself decided to leave the beer purchases until the day of the race (and stay in a bar and get bollixed) On race day morn as we approached the speedway Fax dropped the bomb - "Oh sh*t, guys, you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in Indiana". The utter desperate silence that befell the car was palpable followed by several "You're kidding, right" type, hopeful responses.
The prospect of witnessing the biggest single-day sporting event on the planet, whilst sipping cola, was looming at a scary pace.
Ultimately, we unearthed a honking great bottle of Gordons Export Gin (2 litres, as I recall) that we'd acquired in duty free. We spent the better part of the event completely ringbolted and I vaguely remember some tree-hugging yank behind us complaining about our industrial phraseology and the stench from our chair-leg sized stogies. I can't remember if one of us chinned him or not. The race ended with a colossal crash on the finish line, which seriously injured Buddy Lazier. I am horrified and ashamed to admit that I was so banjaxed I made some derogatory comment about roundy-roundy car bashing - I can't remember if that's when I got chinned. Stick with the beer - that's my advice - that other 'stuff' always causes calamities.