Poll for Beer Consumers

[NM22]

Hey guys,

I'm a Mechanical Engineering college student and for my senior design group we are fabricating a kegerator (keg-cooler) and I need some market analysis numbers. The product is a sleeve that fits over a keg and cools it. It is the portable kegerator. Any questions or comments are welcome. So if you would purchase the product just say yes and if not select no. Any reasons as to why you would or would not purchase it are welcome. The target price range is 250-300 dollars. So it would cost less than most kegerators and it would be portable. Thank you.

 

[squeeze]

Unless you are producing THIS in keg size, no thanks.

 

[zab1001]

...or 20 bucks for a tub and some ice...

 

[VetteMuscle427]

It's easy enough to build your own... I guess that's like having someone put a deck on your house... you can do it, or you can pay someone else to do it for you..

I vote no, I make my own kegerator.

 

[TheBubba]

Good idea, but I'd rather build my own monstrous contraption to do the job...

 

[Brett327]

From a marketing standpoint, it doesn't make very much sense because very few people own kegs. For those who don't, places that sell kegs (i.e. distributors) usually supply you with the required equipment for cooling (tub and ice). For those that do own kegs or other such devices, there are a million tried and true (and not very expensive) products already on the market that serve that purpose. I'm a homebrewer and comparable products to what you suggest go for well below your suggested target price. A noble effort, but no sense in reinventing the wheel, right?

@ Firefriendly: Rocksalt make colder - think ice cream.

Brett

 

[Steve Wilkins]

Beer in the keg shouldn't last long enough to need this....uh....kegerator comdom....oops sorry, I mean sleeve. Besides, 300 bucks will get me about 5 more kegs or so.

 

[JTD]

That's your senior design project? A group of senior level engineering students should be able to work the specs out on something like that in about 2 days, and build it in a week. Is your refrigeration system particularly novel? Also unless your toting a rather large battery around with this thing, I assume you need to be somewhere with an outlet. That would seem to be a bit restricting.

 

[NM22]

No outlet required. This kegerator is truly portable. For example you buy a keg and take it camping in the Arizona desert for a week it would require a ton of ice to keep cool. My group is proposing an idea of making it run of propane (small can). In order to do that we will have to design the refrigeration cycle, and work on its efficieny, which is harder than it sounds. Granted there are PORTABLE kegerators out there they are very steep in price ($500+).

Plus I have seen morons using one of these bad boys for mixing drinks at tailgates, people do buy anything.

http://search.cartserver.com/search...tegory=atmaster&maxhits=10&keywords=tailgator

 

[Schnugg]

Too old to be getting dumb drunk on keg beer. So wouldn't use it.

 

[mkoch]

What do you use the rock salt for?

High school chemistry. Rock salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, causing it to melt sooner. As ice melts, it needs to absorb a specific amount of energy to make the transition from solid to liquid (I sucked at chemistry, I wanna say thats the specific heat, but im pretty sure im wrong)). It draws that heat from the surrounding matter (the keg) cooling it in the process.

Or, for the people with kegs right now, "it makes the beer colder".


As far as buying the product, I'd say no. Just because on the rare occation that I get a keg, $5 for ice is fine. @ 200 bucks a pop, that becomes 40 kegs worth, while the number of kegs I've purchased is still in the single digits...

 

[HueyCobra8151]

As ice melts, it needs to absorb a specific amount of energy to make the transition from solid to liquid (I sucked at chemistry, I wanna say thats the specific heat, but im pretty sure im wrong)). It draws that heat from the surrounding matter (the keg) cooling it in the process.

Q = mLf

Heat = mass * Latent Heat of Fusion

You would also want to incorporate Q = mc(Tf - Ti) to account for the cooling or warming of the ice and once again for the cooling/warming of the water.

I may not be smart...but I can lift heavy things.

 

[VetteMuscle427]

As far as buying the product, I'd say no. Just because on the rare occation that I get a keg, $5 for ice is fine. @ 200 bucks a pop, that becomes 40 kegs worth, while the number of kegs I've purchased is still in the single digits...

Building a Kegerator though can be very worthwhile... one of those meaningless projects that makes you feel good. Junior year my roommate's father was getting ride of a horizontal deep freezer. For about $75 we were able to hook up a thermostat that cut the power to the freezer when it got cold enough. Could have built it cheaper if we weren't so wasteful and had planned it out. A house full of all male engineering students gets weird....

 

[Lawman]

Another big problem. Whens the last time you were at a party with just one keg. I dont know about you guys, but most of the ones Ive hit average 4-6 Kegs so when you figure all the stuff you'd need to buy to keep those 6 cool it becomes really expensive.

 

[Schnugg]

Q = mLf

Heat = mass * Latent Heat of Fusion

You would also want to incorporate Q = mc(Tf - Ti) to account for the cooling or warming of the ice and once again for the cooling/warming of the water.

I may not be smart...but I can lift heavy things.

All I remember is F=Ma and you can't push with a string.

Now if you want to talk about the laws of thermodynamics and aviation, here goes:

"If the heat is not on you, it's on someone else" is quite applicable to aviation and squadron life.

Cheers,
G