As a very Irish American. Guinness honestly is not a great beer. It loses in blind taste tests to some laughable competition. Even when properly poured. It's a bit watery and burnt if we're honest. However. Guinness does work really well as a base for a beef roast or stew. And then you can pair it. So every St. Paddy's I do my duty as an American Irish. I make my totally inauthentic corned beef with cabbage, carrots, and "taters" thanks to my Appalachian Irish heritage. It is astonishingly good. After a couple of pints your plate really does look like the Irish flag. And that's a very fine evening.
Started drinking Guinness 30 years ago .Was never a big fan .Then someone took me to an Irish pub and explained and showed me th difference the pour makes and temperature its served at and paired a meal of beef ribs brazed in Guinness.Aewsome learning experience .Guinness pairs with many good foods !From fish and chips to meat pies and roasts and more .Great Break down as always
@@Camerasdontlie Never had that problem .But I know guys that have bad guts and they can't have beer past or bread and cereals .Mind you I don't drink more than 3 pints and always with food .Usually a pint with a meal and some good burboun Irish whiskey scotch or brandy to finish .
The cap at 13:24 is something I always use for getting rid of bouncing switches. Yes, you could do that in software, but a 10nF cap works wonders as a low-pass filter together with the internal pull-up in the uC. 10nF will give you a +/- 2ms delay and a clean on/off signal. Good enough for detecting 25 pushes per second.
I have a unit that does the same thing for any beer. It's called a Fizzics beer dispenser . It is suposed to give the taste of draft to your beer. but it works just like the one you have.
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE Missing the nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix Guinness uses. Half the reason Guinness tastes better in Ireland is because it just does not stay fresh. The ABV isn't really high enough and you can't really pressurize cans high enough to fit the same quantity of nitrogen gas as you could carbon dioxide. Combine the two and you have a beer that even canned only tastes great the same month it's made. Of course, if you're shipping it direct to a bar then it's not sitting on a shelf for two weeks, and on tap you can just add straight nitrogen to it as it's dispensed.
@@xAlexZifko Its far from a placebo I'm afraid, I've yet to get a decent pint of Guinness outside of Ireland. A decent pint of Guinness is the cornerstone of a pub in Ireland. Outside of Ireland this is not the case. This lad covers pints in Ireland and abroad - ruclips.net/user/results?search_query=guinness+guru .
i cut open a can once to see what the "widget" was. it's just a plastic ball. no "bursting" or any sort of technology i'd expect from the term "widget". straight into the landfill 😕
Clive, I love your reverse engineering of various gizmos, but this Guinness Nitrosurge device makes drinking all the more interesting, and pleasant on the wallet once I found the place that sold it cheapest. I am grateful you found a way of opening it up so neatly without trashing the electronics. As my daughters and I all love beer, especially the craft beers, this is going to be a keeper especially since you cleverly analyzed it. ❤
Welch's "Sparkling Grape Juice" I'm *_almost certain_* USED TO BE "carbonated" (heretofore referred to as) with nitrogen, based on what you've described and the absolute density of that foam. I'm now 40, but have been drinking that stuff *every* year (usually at least 3 occasions) for as far back as I can remember, and it *_WAS_* that carbonation which, in all honesty, that made it the best. As of, probably 5 years ago, maybe up to 8, that carbonation changed _drastically..._ much to my dismay. That, as you put it, velvety foam... no longer present. Unfortunately, it's taste has also changed, becoming more bitter. My guess is that's because they switched to now being carbonated with... carbon, now. I figure that part of that flavor change is probably due to a bit less sugar added since the US has changed their Daily Nutrition Values during that same timeframe _(a 12oz can of soda would've been, say "76%" daily value of sugar, but now they're almost all >90% lol)._ The other part I figure it's due to Carbonic Acid. It's still good stuff, but boy, it really is not anything like what it once was. 😔 [/weird ramble]
Carbon dioxide is soluble in water. It's why increasing atmospheric CO2 acidifies the oceans. Nitrogen is largely not. Also in the last 10 years, the FDA has clamped down harder on what food additives are safe to use. I don't think they'd be affected, but it's possible some seal or the thick glass required to handle the pressures just got too expensive for a publicly traded company...
I thought I noticed the same change somewhere in the last decade, it took several holiday seasons to notice it; that the once thick unctuous foam was now sadly ...normal.😑 I'm glad it's not just me!
Sadly almost every product of our youths has changed due to corporate greed and the corporate corruption of regulatory standards. High fructose corn crap is not natural and needs to be banned to reduce disease.
I have no basis for this theory, but perhaps they changed something else in the drink that downline effected the "potency" of the carbonation as well. I'm under the impression welch's is pure fruit juice so it's not a sugar/hfcs situation but maybe their perservatives or something effect the carbonation in some manner. When brewing alcohol you'll find that some bizarre sugar sources will easily ferment, but add just a bit of some element and they'll die almost immediately and produce no alcohol/CO2. Relevant? No fuckin idea. Lemme know if you end up exploring this further and find some knowledge
@@cheyannei5983 technically, this is not true and NOAA (quoted & linked below) is using incorrect terminology...the oceans are not acidic... they are alkaline... 8.1 ph... and with increasing CO² absorption, they are becoming less alkaline ... but... until the ph falls below 7 they cannot actually be called "acidic" whatsoever... 🙄 "Because of human-driven increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is more CO2 dissolving into the ocean. The ocean's average pH is now around 8.1 , which is basic (or alkaline), but as the ocean continues to absorb more CO2, the pH decreases and the ocean becomes more acidic." www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/ocean-acidification But then, NOAA has long been known to lie about climate change and even falsified data to support their politicised stance... observer.com/2017/02/noaa-fake-global-warming-data-paris-agreement-climate-change/
I gotta say, Clive, I admire that you can draw a great looking schematic freehand. I know mine would look like what the Germans call "cable salad", so I abuse labels in KiCad to keep things clean and keep me from spending weeks failing to make it look nice.
I work nights...on a sunday evening/saturday morning my only option is the petrol station. I know they sell 8 guiness for 10 quid too, you now made me perhaps go for a wander ;)
Your reverse engineering is legendary. For scraping off the silicone coating, try wetting it with isopropyl alcohol and use a soft wooden scraper stick. This works wonders the times I tried it. Not being a drinker myself, when I do break down and "have one for the cause", I almost always choose a dark ale. Yummy.
Im gonna spice this suggestion up a bit. Instead of isopropyl use ghb/gbl/1,4 BDO (in order of favor, and depending on legality in your area) which are all highly effective plasticizers and solvents. Should scrape like butter
My first thought with the non-lithium batteries is that they probably expect someone to put one of these in a dishwasher or sink full of water at some point.
That’s cool. When I buy Guinness here in the states there is some sort of device in each can that initiates when I pop the top to provide the same result. Love Guinness.
The widget. I will never understand people who buy glass bottles of Guinness. Guinness without the widget tastes like a pint poured with no nitrogen and dirty lines.
@@davidr1122 I’m convinced glass bottles of Guinness exist so that online supermarkets have something to replace your order with when the real stuff is out of stock, and they’re betting on enough people not bothering to return it.
I remember the bar I worked at as a student had a bar-top ultrasonic surging device because it was impossible/impractical to get Guinness in kegs where we were. Apparently it didn't quite match kegs on the flavor/texture side but the surging action made for a fairly impressive little performance piece.
The ultrasonic transducer looks quite a lot like the ones you used to get in TV remote controls before infra-red became really popular. The ones that you could jingle your keys near and it would change channel.
That sounds more interesting. Liked the old analogue things that would behave strangely and you'd have fun trying to figure out what and why that caused it.
Those ultrasonic remotes for TVs were fun. You could get it to do the 'wrong' thing, like changing channel while you were pressing the volume button, by quickly moving towards or away from the set, so the doppler effect changed the frequency seen by the TV.
Can we now expect a series "will it nitrosurge?" from you, with other cans? Like - Coke? Iced latte? Soup? EDIT: Should have watched to 3:36 before posting this... m(
"Surge" in conjunction with a canned drink makes me both remember, and yearn for, ye old *_Surge_* soda. Dunno if they sold worldwide, probably not. They didn't last long, but... The "Yellow Soda" (citrus) market is a tough one. After moving to the southern US I've discovered Sun Drop, which is every bit as good as I remember Surge to be, _and better!_
I had actually thought before watching that this was gonna be a video with the same sort of thing Pepsi uses for their Nitro Pepsi drinks which is an in can design.
I think the cork reflects and directs the ultrasonic energy from the piezo transducer. It is used in directional underwater transducers I have for direction finding while SCUBA diving.
We used to have a similar thing to this where I used to work - we had to have specific cans of Guinness for it, and you placed the glass on a small metal plate which vibrated ultrasonically. It appeared to do very little at all, but if you put some drops of water on it, you could see it vibrate when you pushed the button. I can’t remember anyone ever using it with a real drink.
Thanks Clive, Yet again after watching you it cost me money :) I have been trying to find the nitrosurge version one for a long time but never did. However, if you buy the correct cans of Guinness you can use an ultrasonic cleaner instead just pop the can in the cleaner for 30 seconds or more, if you want one the new version they can be bought from Tesco for £30.
That is wild! I lived in Dublin for over a decade and never came across such a device. Granted, we were much more likely to head down to a pub rather than get a can.
I bought some crappy suspiciously cheap bluetooth pseudo-airpods (don't recommend, somehow the tiny batteries inside died immediately). when they turn on, they distinctly say "power ong".
Clive your videos are amazing. I’ve been watching you for years now because of your silly attitude. Thank you for teaching me what I know about electronics while also being genuinely entertaining
Decades ago my Father In Law would teach me and write diagrams. With computers, he would buy but didn't (at his age) know how to process the software. I loved helping him as I couldn't afford his equipment. He tricked me one time by asking me to buy a tape backup and a scanner. When I tried 3 mths later to give it to him he said that was a gift as my wife and I had never asked for a loan his 5 children had and not paid back. Gentle and Brilliant Man - well missed.
A nice device indeed. I've never realized they even existed. At first I had thought it'd inject teeny tiny amounts of nitrogen from a small container, but it's a lot simpler.
The video I saw before this one started playing, guy was testing the Guinness Nitrosurge on a Guinness 0.0 form what he said, it didn't make much difference in texture, but it did make a full pint. Nice video, I didn't know these things existed.
Brilliant teardown as usual (With Schematic) BC but mysteriously these new special cans of Guinness cost a lot more than 'standard' ones that you can chill down in a fridge who would have thought it?
I think the price will come down when the novelty wears off. There's a trick to open the widget cans without triggering them by tapping a pin through the top and letting the pressure bleed off slowly. Then the can can be used with the surger.
As an American from a rural area, the *only* good beer I could consistently get access to during college was Guinness. Now I'm starting to think I need to, erm, *aquire* this gizmo to reacquaint myself with the wonders of Guinness!
Those RC pairs connected to pins 3 and 5 are the classic delay on power-on you'd add to a microcontroller's reset line, but not quite sure why there's two of them. It could be timing-related in general, or could be some other kind of secondary startup delay.
The way they've long been trying to introduce all kinds of gizmos of global- and home consumer-friendly technical wizardry to deliver "the special sauce" is but tacit acknowledgement that for whatever reason, and I don't know the reason, and maybe nobody really quite knows, but for some reason, Guinness on tap in an actual Dublin pub, or maybe a pub in one of the 32 counties _is_ something special.
I could never really notice a difference in the mouth feel of Guinness, unless I was really trying to sort it out. Now what _IS_ a night-and-day difference is the nitrogen Pepsi. That stuff is how soda should've been from the start
Oh man. So cool. I've been wondering about this thing in your Patreon streams (Fascinating!) (Not a shameless plug by any means!) I really think it would be cool to have some multi-part hours long streams of you pulling stuff apart and working things out like this. I'd be glued to it like this thing was ultrasonically assembled and it would take a Dremel to pull me away! Thanks Big Clive! FredRock.
Oh, I wonder if the cork may provide attenuation sonically. Sort of direct the vibration in an intentional direction with it's sort of uniform density and with the foam being like a speaker enclosure in front of it. Pretty high frequencies I'd imagine and kind of intricate for the assembly itself. Yea, why not just have a transducer there? Like you say, the eventual knockoffs won't ask that question. Sort of like comparing an Audi to a Yugo.
Here in the UK our Guinness cans have a plastic widget in them and "As soon as the can is opened, a combination of chemical reactions and ingenious product design forces the beer that’s inside the widget out of it, producing highly nitrogenated beer."
We have (or, maybe, had...been a while) that same thing in the states. I remember seeing it for the first time in the 90s. I recall it actually pouring well versus the plain cans. Edit: Based on some other comments here, the widget is still alive and well in the U.S.
Oh my word that was a shock seeing what you look like 😄. Not seen any shots of you before. As a retired electronics engineer I do enjoy your teardowns, particularly the ones that include some jepardy. Have done a lot of 'interesting' experiments in my time 😇. Keep it up big fellah.
This is different to the one I had in the early 00's which you poured the special can of special surgy Guinness into the supplied Guinness branded glass and sat the glass onto a pad which made the bubbles surge up in its very special way at the push of a button
I know what you're talking about, someone did a teardown on one of those a while back, was thinking it was Clive but maybe not. (I never seem to be able to find what I'm looking for in RUclips anymore.)
Someone's in a cheeky mood. You got an eyeroll out of me with that "nice, creamy head." So my question is, what have people who drank Guinness from bottles been experiencing all this time?
There's a difference between carbonization and nitrogenation, most of the Guinness is carbonated unless it specifically states it's nitrogen. There's a huge flavor difference between nitrogen and carbon dioxide and if you find somewhere with side by side taps of the same beer to taste test it's blatantly obvious. CO2 adds bitterness so using nitrogen on a stout means it's sweeter and tastes completely different.
@@mattgayda2840 Thanks. That probably explains why people have such drastically opposing opinions on the stuff, more so than beer it seems. Would the same be true for other -lagers- stouts? I don't even know any by name, that's how dominant Guinness is. Edit: realized I called it a lager because the word "stout" escaped me 🤣
@@VeganAtheistWeirdo yes, and carbonation of beer is a new concept that was never introduced until the last century. The science of brewing is incredibly complex but a deep rabbit hole I recommend everyone go down and learn so you can turn a 5 gallon bucket of water into beer in your basement for a fraction of the cost.
@@VeganAtheistWeirdo Real "beer" isn't what's found in 99% of products labeled beer. Water, malt, hops, and yeast are the only four ingredients permitted to call a beer a beer under the German Purity Law (also known as the Reinheitsgebot) of 1516 stated that beer could only be made from these ingredients, and today many brewers still adhere to these guidelines.
3:40 Pepsi makes a “nitro Pepsi” in a similarly big can. On the can, they recommend dumping it into a glass to stir up the bubbles. But, the one time I tried it, I cracked it and drank straight from the can before I even noticed the instructions. By the time I did pour it into a glass, I think what little gas was left escaped after the rough pour and it went flat really quick because it just tasted like flat Pepsi and I wasn’t impressed. But, I’d be really curious to see if the ultrasonic doodad would kind of fluff it up and improve it at all.
Is this device actually giving it a different texture? As nitro also releases when you would just pour the can at once in the glass, and it still gives you an excellent creamy foam
I feel like you'd be able to do basically the same thing just by pouring through a metal screen with the right coating to give it plenty of nucleation sites.
Back in the 80s there was a tremendous amount of publicity about a patented "widget" Guinness had designed to put in cans so the stout would emerge just the way it did from a tap in a pub. Has that technology now been superseded?
@@stevec00ps It's a plastic ball pressurised with nitrogen that vents through a tiny hole to blow a stream down into the can when the pressure is released.
I actually bought one of these for use on other stouts specifically for imperial stouts. It does kind of work. It's also just a bit of fun. I will be looking forward to a series of will it surge? Hahaha
Nice one. I was hoping you'd cover this so I wouldn't have to destroy my own test sample! It's actually pretty crude, so should be very easy to come up with a functionally equivalent device.
Just a few days ago I was having bottled Guinness and wondering whatever happened to the spinny plastic nitrogen things inside the bottle. I just assumed they removed them from all cans and bottles... like sneakers removing the pump mechanisms from the tongues once the gimmick wore off. I foam my Guinness just by giving a good pour and swirling the last bit in the can/bottle before pouring it out to add some extra pure foam head on top.
Still sold in the USA but recycling the cans is a problem and scrap yards get REALLY angry about them because they pay by weight and it's foreign plastic. Need to cut the cans in half and removing them before recycling them
I'm here for the tear downs and such, of course, but I think mostly I'm here for the "one moment, please"! 😁 Love Guinness from the tap. I'd love something that made the can as good
You can get the same results from an ultrasonic jewellery cleaner. You start by piercing a tiny hole to release the gas in the can then put 6 cans after putting a hole in the top of the can in the fridge for 30 mins then put a can into the ultrasonic cleaner standing up for 5-15 seconds then take out and pour and enjoy
You need to tear down a Chinese equivalent for a proper comparison. Would be a good example of how something should and shouldn't be built. Keep up the good work Clive 👍
They own several bourbon distilleries too. I just toured one they were talking about being owned by same company as Guinness. It was the Stitzel-weller distillery.
I probably hold the record for the fastest time from the finishing line of the Dublin Marathon to standing in the bar of O'Dwyers supping a pint of Guinness ( the first of many that day, it's important to rehydrate after running all that way 😁 ) I'd love to get hold of one of these!
Thanks, ChatGPT - definitively, certainly (may in fact be completely incorrect): The PIC16F1824 is a low-power 8-bit microcontroller with 14 pins and operates on a 3.3V supply voltage. Pin 2 is VCC and pin 6 is GND, which matches the pinout configuration you mentioned.
Thanks Big Clive! I bought some of that Guinness recently but they didn’t have any of those gadgets left. So, nice to see how it works.😊 I drank it anyway! 🤷♂️ 🤣🤣
When I was a younger guy I fell in love with a drink called a Guinness Punch. This video makes me want it again SO bad. And it doesn't need a $75 electronic gimmick to taste great.
I guess this settles the debate of Bottles Vs Cans …I have Bottles in my possession …and this is the first I’m seeing the “nitrosurge” …i feel so clued in now
My grandfather, an avid pipe smoker, would have come across the Nitrosurge at my shop, believed it to be a meerschaum pipe, turned it upside-down, charged it with a fistfull of Captain Black, fired it up, and, well, you - know.......
That thing is really nice! The unmistakable look of GOOD modern pro-sumer device, nicely fit for purpose (there's many grades of "pro-sumer"). I'm genuinely impressed by this thing. Seeing the insides IS a shot of antidepressant.
Hi Clive, did you by chance measure the frequency used by this device? It would be interesting to know what frequency and why. Thanks for another interesting video.
Yes, I'd like to know the frequency and the voltage at the piezo. A bit tricky now as the transducer is now destroyed. Perhaps it wasn't in working order by the time Clive had dismantled it enough to get a scope on it.
That's funny because here in Ireland we have another brand called O'Hara's Nitro for years now. It was simple for us electronics geeks, you poured your pint then just sat it in your ultrasonic cleaner with the lid off for about a minute. Got me through no pub COVID anyway
The Bear Brotherhood flag caught me off guard. I only watch your teardown content and this is my first time seeing what you look like. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Cheers.
Clive, thanks for reminding me just how good Guinness really is. I remembered that I had three bottles in the fridge. Key word being "had".
The bottled Guinness is better by far than the canned stuff . Nitro surge is a gimmick .
@@ballockybill2277 Yes , a 54 Euros gimmick
As a very Irish American. Guinness honestly is not a great beer. It loses in blind taste tests to some laughable competition. Even when properly poured. It's a bit watery and burnt if we're honest. However. Guinness does work really well as a base for a beef roast or stew. And then you can pair it. So every St. Paddy's I do my duty as an American Irish. I make my totally inauthentic corned beef with cabbage, carrots, and "taters" thanks to my Appalachian Irish heritage. It is astonishingly good. After a couple of pints your plate really does look like the Irish flag. And that's a very fine evening.
Started drinking Guinness 30 years ago .Was never a big fan .Then someone took me to an Irish pub and explained and showed me th difference the pour makes and temperature its served at and paired a meal of beef ribs brazed in Guinness.Aewsome learning experience .Guinness pairs with many good foods !From fish and chips to meat pies and roasts and more .Great Break down as always
Did that same mate tell you about the Guinness shits. ??? I’ve got first hand experience of this phenomenon
@@Camerasdontlie Never had that problem .But I know guys that have bad guts and they can't have beer past or bread and cereals .Mind you I don't drink more than 3 pints and always with food .Usually a pint with a meal and some good burboun Irish whiskey scotch or brandy to finish .
Yep. For me, it all depends on what I eat, and how much I drink with it.
The cap at 13:24 is something I always use for getting rid of bouncing switches. Yes, you could do that in software, but a 10nF cap works wonders as a low-pass filter together with the internal pull-up in the uC. 10nF will give you a +/- 2ms delay and a clean on/off signal. Good enough for detecting 25 pushes per second.
Not pouring that properly has hurt my soul...
I have a unit that does the same thing for any beer. It's called a Fizzics beer dispenser . It is suposed to give the taste of draft to your beer. but it works just like the one you have.
But costs £130!
Based on _"I have a"_ and then _"is supposed to"..._
Iiiiiii'mmmm going to assume it _doesn't _*_quite_* work as advertised? 😅
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE Missing the nitrogen/carbon dioxide mix Guinness uses. Half the reason Guinness tastes better in Ireland is because it just does not stay fresh. The ABV isn't really high enough and you can't really pressurize cans high enough to fit the same quantity of nitrogen gas as you could carbon dioxide. Combine the two and you have a beer that even canned only tastes great the same month it's made.
Of course, if you're shipping it direct to a bar then it's not sitting on a shelf for two weeks, and on tap you can just add straight nitrogen to it as it's dispensed.
@@cheyannei5983 another 40% or so of the reason it tastes better in Ireland is because of effective brand recognition and placebo effect
@@xAlexZifko Its far from a placebo I'm afraid, I've yet to get a decent pint of Guinness outside of Ireland. A decent pint of Guinness is the cornerstone of a pub in Ireland. Outside of Ireland this is not the case. This lad covers pints in Ireland and abroad - ruclips.net/user/results?search_query=guinness+guru .
I have to admit, I was mostly here for the velvety texture.
Our Guinness cans in the States have a nitrogen widget inside the can. The pressure in the can releases when opened and the widget bursts open.
Same in uk
Yes, those have been around for years but this is a much newer system ...
i cut open a can once to see what the "widget" was. it's just a plastic ball. no "bursting" or any sort of technology i'd expect from the term "widget". straight into the landfill 😕
Widget, it's got a widget. It's got a widget, a widget it has got.
Clive, I love your reverse engineering of various gizmos, but this Guinness Nitrosurge device makes drinking all the more interesting, and pleasant on the wallet once I found the place that sold it cheapest. I am grateful you found a way of opening it up so neatly without trashing the electronics. As my daughters and I all love beer, especially the craft beers, this is going to be a keeper especially since you cleverly analyzed it. ❤
These cans apparently work with the traditional surger units too. I have loved using mine for the last decade or so, yet to try the new cans though.
Welch's "Sparkling Grape Juice" I'm *_almost certain_* USED TO BE "carbonated" (heretofore referred to as) with nitrogen, based on what you've described and the absolute density of that foam.
I'm now 40, but have been drinking that stuff *every* year (usually at least 3 occasions) for as far back as I can remember, and it *_WAS_* that carbonation which, in all honesty, that made it the best.
As of, probably 5 years ago, maybe up to 8, that carbonation changed _drastically..._ much to my dismay. That, as you put it, velvety foam... no longer present. Unfortunately, it's taste has also changed, becoming more bitter.
My guess is that's because they switched to now being carbonated with... carbon, now.
I figure that part of that flavor change is probably due to a bit less sugar added since the US has changed their Daily Nutrition Values during that same timeframe _(a 12oz can of soda would've been, say "76%" daily value of sugar, but now they're almost all >90% lol)._
The other part I figure it's due to Carbonic Acid.
It's still good stuff, but boy, it really is not anything like what it once was. 😔
[/weird ramble]
Carbon dioxide is soluble in water. It's why increasing atmospheric CO2 acidifies the oceans. Nitrogen is largely not.
Also in the last 10 years, the FDA has clamped down harder on what food additives are safe to use. I don't think they'd be affected, but it's possible some seal or the thick glass required to handle the pressures just got too expensive for a publicly traded company...
I thought I noticed the same change somewhere in the last decade, it took several holiday seasons to notice it; that the once thick unctuous foam was now sadly ...normal.😑
I'm glad it's not just me!
Sadly almost every product of our youths has changed due to corporate greed and the corporate corruption of regulatory standards. High fructose corn crap is not natural and needs to be banned to reduce disease.
I have no basis for this theory, but perhaps they changed something else in the drink that downline effected the "potency" of the carbonation as well. I'm under the impression welch's is pure fruit juice so it's not a sugar/hfcs situation but maybe their perservatives or something effect the carbonation in some manner.
When brewing alcohol you'll find that some bizarre sugar sources will easily ferment, but add just a bit of some element and they'll die almost immediately and produce no alcohol/CO2. Relevant? No fuckin idea.
Lemme know if you end up exploring this further and find some knowledge
@@cheyannei5983 technically, this is not true and NOAA (quoted & linked below) is using incorrect terminology...the oceans are not acidic... they are alkaline... 8.1 ph... and with increasing CO² absorption, they are becoming less alkaline ... but... until the ph falls below 7 they cannot actually be called "acidic" whatsoever... 🙄
"Because of human-driven increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is more CO2 dissolving into the ocean. The ocean's average pH is now around 8.1 , which is basic (or alkaline), but as the ocean continues to absorb more CO2, the pH decreases and the ocean becomes more acidic."
www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/ocean-acidification
But then, NOAA has long been known to lie about climate change and even falsified data to support their politicised stance...
observer.com/2017/02/noaa-fake-global-warming-data-paris-agreement-climate-change/
I gotta say, Clive, I admire that you can draw a great looking schematic freehand. I know mine would look like what the Germans call "cable salad", so I abuse labels in KiCad to keep things clean and keep me from spending weeks failing to make it look nice.
Oh Bugger, I REALLY WANT a Guinness now. And all the shops are closed.
I work nights...on a sunday evening/saturday morning my only option is the petrol station. I know they sell 8 guiness for 10 quid too, you now made me perhaps go for a wander ;)
Your reverse engineering is legendary. For scraping off the silicone coating, try wetting it with isopropyl alcohol and use a soft wooden scraper stick. This works wonders the times I tried it.
Not being a drinker myself, when I do break down and "have one for the cause", I almost always choose a dark ale. Yummy.
Im gonna spice this suggestion up a bit. Instead of isopropyl use ghb/gbl/1,4 BDO (in order of favor, and depending on legality in your area) which are all highly effective plasticizers and solvents. Should scrape like butter
hi labguy lol
My first thought with the non-lithium batteries is that they probably expect someone to put one of these in a dishwasher or sink full of water at some point.
thoroughly enjoyed Clive - great work as always
That’s cool. When I buy Guinness here in the states there is some sort of device in each can that initiates when I pop the top to provide the same result. Love Guinness.
The widget. I will never understand people who buy glass bottles of Guinness.
Guinness without the widget tastes like a pint poured with no nitrogen and dirty lines.
We only have bottled Guinness at the bar I work at. It definitely has a flatness to it. Also doesn’t sell very well lol.
@@davidr1122 I’m convinced glass bottles of Guinness exist so that online supermarkets have something to replace your order with when the real stuff is out of stock, and they’re betting on enough people not bothering to return it.
The tight friction fit is demonstrated in the usual way around 5:50 by Big Clive, not to be missed!😊
DEMONETIZED!
I remember the bar I worked at as a student had a bar-top ultrasonic surging device because it was impossible/impractical to get Guinness in kegs where we were. Apparently it didn't quite match kegs on the flavor/texture side but the surging action made for a fairly impressive little performance piece.
The ultrasonic transducer looks quite a lot like the ones you used to get in TV remote controls before infra-red became really popular. The ones that you could jingle your keys near and it would change channel.
The clapper for the lamp the jingler for the tv. Miss those days
thanks i feel really old now.
😂 I’m too young to remember that but that’s hilarious
That sounds more interesting.
Liked the old analogue things that would behave strangely and you'd have fun trying to figure out what and why that caused it.
Those ultrasonic remotes for TVs were fun. You could get it to do the 'wrong' thing, like changing channel while you were pressing the volume button, by quickly moving towards or away from the set, so the doppler effect changed the frequency seen by the TV.
Can we now expect a series "will it nitrosurge?" from you, with other cans? Like - Coke? Iced latte? Soup?
EDIT: Should have watched to 3:36 before posting this... m(
Cat food, mais, or black pudding? Can't say no before you try!
Actually, mushy peas might actually somewhat kinda sorta work. Maybe.
"Surge" in conjunction with a canned drink makes me both remember, and yearn for, ye old *_Surge_* soda.
Dunno if they sold worldwide, probably not. They didn't last long, but... The "Yellow Soda" (citrus) market is a tough one. After moving to the southern US I've discovered Sun Drop, which is every bit as good as I remember Surge to be, _and better!_
@@thany3 I hate it, thanks! 🤣
Now, if you'll excuse me, my brain is requesting a romantic bubbly bleach bath...
I had actually thought before watching that this was gonna be a video with the same sort of thing Pepsi uses for their Nitro Pepsi drinks which is an in can design.
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE in the south, it's Mellow Yello for the traditional drink, along with RC Cola.
I think the cork reflects and directs the ultrasonic energy from the piezo transducer. It is used in directional underwater transducers I have for direction finding while SCUBA diving.
We used to have a similar thing to this where I used to work - we had to have specific cans of Guinness for it, and you placed the glass on a small metal plate which vibrated ultrasonically. It appeared to do very little at all, but if you put some drops of water on it, you could see it vibrate when you pushed the button. I can’t remember anyone ever using it with a real drink.
It's supposed to have a layer of water on it to couple to the can.
Used that too at my last work place, cool device for Canned guinness only.
Diageo sent it for free if you buy X amount of cans
Thanks Clive, Yet again after watching you it cost me money :) I have been trying to find the nitrosurge version one for a long time but never did. However, if you buy the correct cans of Guinness you can use an ultrasonic cleaner instead just pop the can in the cleaner for 30 seconds or more, if you want one the new version they can be bought from Tesco for £30.
That is wild! I lived in Dublin for over a decade and never came across such a device. Granted, we were much more likely to head down to a pub rather than get a can.
Not even sure if we're 2 years into when Nitros were released in Ireland. Possibly 18mths old only.
@@Halo4Light ah, that explains it.
The Chinese version would speak to you in bad English when you turn it on
It would say "you are havings good ginnis for maximum joys."
And flash the light with a SOS
And play five clips of obnoxiously synthesized Chinese music.
"You're a Bluetooth device has contacted a suck ses foley"
I bought some crappy suspiciously cheap bluetooth pseudo-airpods (don't recommend, somehow the tiny batteries inside died immediately). when they turn on, they distinctly say "power ong".
Excellent video really nice to see something well made that works well.
Always wondered how they worked. Thanks Clive 👍🇮🇪🙏
OMG I’d never seen you before Clive. This is better than I had imagined.
brilliant video, you do such a great job Mr. Clive
Clive your videos are amazing. I’ve been watching you for years now because of your silly attitude. Thank you for teaching me what I know about electronics while also being genuinely entertaining
Clive with creamy head all over his beard.
Instant demonetisation. 😂
Decades ago my Father In Law would teach me and write diagrams. With computers, he would buy but didn't (at his age) know how to process the software. I loved helping him as I couldn't afford his equipment. He tricked me one time by asking me to buy a tape backup and a scanner. When I tried 3 mths later to give it to him he said that was a gift as my wife and I had never asked for a loan his 5 children had and not paid back. Gentle and Brilliant Man - well missed.
Thank you for another great video Clive 👍 have a good day Clive and everyone 👋
A nice device indeed. I've never realized they even existed. At first I had thought it'd inject teeny tiny amounts of nitrogen from a small container, but it's a lot simpler.
The video I saw before this one started playing, guy was testing the Guinness Nitrosurge on a Guinness 0.0 form what he said, it didn't make much difference in texture, but it did make a full pint. Nice video, I didn't know these things existed.
Been wanting you to do a video on this for ages! Fantastic video as usual
Brilliant teardown as usual (With Schematic) BC but mysteriously these new special cans of Guinness cost a lot more than 'standard' ones that you can chill down in a fridge who would have thought it?
Thats why no one buys them here... 😂👍☘
I think the price will come down when the novelty wears off. There's a trick to open the widget cans without triggering them by tapping a pin through the top and letting the pressure bleed off slowly. Then the can can be used with the surger.
Nice tip BC thank you
As an American from a rural area, the *only* good beer I could consistently get access to during college was Guinness. Now I'm starting to think I need to, erm, *aquire* this gizmo to reacquaint myself with the wonders of Guinness!
Those RC pairs connected to pins 3 and 5 are the classic delay on power-on you'd add to a microcontroller's reset line, but not quite sure why there's two of them. It could be timing-related in general, or could be some other kind of secondary startup delay.
The way they've long been trying to introduce all kinds of gizmos of global- and home consumer-friendly technical wizardry to deliver "the special sauce" is but tacit acknowledgement that for whatever reason, and I don't know the reason, and maybe nobody really quite knows, but for some reason, Guinness on tap in an actual Dublin pub, or maybe a pub in one of the 32 counties _is_ something special.
I could never really notice a difference in the mouth feel of Guinness, unless I was really trying to sort it out. Now what _IS_ a night-and-day difference is the nitrogen Pepsi. That stuff is how soda should've been from the start
What a great teardown video! Brilliant 💯
Oh man. So cool. I've been wondering about this thing in your Patreon streams (Fascinating!) (Not a shameless plug by any means!)
I really think it would be cool to have some multi-part hours long streams of you pulling stuff apart and working things out like this. I'd be glued to it like this thing was ultrasonically assembled and it would take a Dremel to pull me away!
Thanks Big Clive!
FredRock.
Oh, I wonder if the cork may provide attenuation sonically. Sort of direct the vibration in an intentional direction with it's sort of uniform density and with the foam being like a speaker enclosure in front of it. Pretty high frequencies I'd imagine and kind of intricate for the assembly itself. Yea, why not just have a transducer there? Like you say, the eventual knockoffs won't ask that question. Sort of like comparing an Audi to a Yugo.
In Canada, our cans of Guinness have the ping pong ball 'widget' that would seem to equal or better than that contraption.
Here in the UK our Guinness cans have a plastic widget in them and "As soon as the can is opened, a combination of chemical reactions and ingenious product design forces the beer that’s inside the widget out of it, producing highly nitrogenated beer."
We have (or, maybe, had...been a while) that same thing in the states. I remember seeing it for the first time in the 90s. I recall it actually pouring well versus the plain cans.
Edit: Based on some other comments here, the widget is still alive and well in the U.S.
@@bmbiz The Guinness 0.0% alcohol cans contain a widget still here in the UK.
I wonder if they can be surged as they do contain nitrogen too.
Oh my word that was a shock seeing what you look like 😄. Not seen any shots of you before. As a retired electronics engineer I do enjoy your teardowns, particularly the ones that include some jepardy. Have done a lot of 'interesting' experiments in my time 😇. Keep it up big fellah.
You have been a disembodied voice for so long, seeing your face kind of blows my mind. 😮 still love the content!
Hmm does the nitrogen give you the bends after about 8 pints??? 🙂
Only if you surface from the pub too quickly.
One of the coolest gizmos I've seen for putting bubbles into beer since I last saw Young Einstein (starring Yahoo Serious). Thanks Big C.
I have never wanted a pint of Guinness more in my life
oh come on how freaking cool is this
Oh well, now we have to annex the Isle of Man...
This is different to the one I had in the early 00's which you poured the special can of special surgy Guinness into the supplied Guinness branded glass and sat the glass onto a pad which made the bubbles surge up in its very special way at the push of a button
I know what you're talking about, someone did a teardown on one of those a while back, was thinking it was Clive but maybe not. (I never seem to be able to find what I'm looking for in RUclips anymore.)
I made a video about that surger too.
Someone's in a cheeky mood. You got an eyeroll out of me with that "nice, creamy head." So my question is, what have people who drank Guinness from bottles been experiencing all this time?
There's a difference between carbonization and nitrogenation, most of the Guinness is carbonated unless it specifically states it's nitrogen. There's a huge flavor difference between nitrogen and carbon dioxide and if you find somewhere with side by side taps of the same beer to taste test it's blatantly obvious. CO2 adds bitterness so using nitrogen on a stout means it's sweeter and tastes completely different.
@@mattgayda2840 Thanks. That probably explains why people have such drastically opposing opinions on the stuff, more so than beer it seems. Would the same be true for other -lagers- stouts? I don't even know any by name, that's how dominant Guinness is.
Edit: realized I called it a lager because the word "stout" escaped me 🤣
@@mattgayda2840 this also explains why Starbucks “nitro” cold brew has a different flavor than their regular cold brew coffee.
@@VeganAtheistWeirdo yes, and carbonation of beer is a new concept that was never introduced until the last century. The science of brewing is incredibly complex but a deep rabbit hole I recommend everyone go down and learn so you can turn a 5 gallon bucket of water into beer in your basement for a fraction of the cost.
@@VeganAtheistWeirdo Real "beer" isn't what's found in 99% of products labeled beer. Water, malt, hops, and yeast are the only four ingredients permitted to call a beer a beer under the German Purity Law (also known as the Reinheitsgebot) of 1516 stated that beer could only be made from these ingredients, and today many brewers still adhere to these guidelines.
I love Guinness. I didn't know this product existed. Thank-you for bringing it to my attention 🙂
3:40 Pepsi makes a “nitro Pepsi” in a similarly big can. On the can, they recommend dumping it into a glass to stir up the bubbles. But, the one time I tried it, I cracked it and drank straight from the can before I even noticed the instructions. By the time I did pour it into a glass, I think what little gas was left escaped after the rough pour and it went flat really quick because it just tasted like flat Pepsi and I wasn’t impressed. But, I’d be really curious to see if the ultrasonic doodad would kind of fluff it up and improve it at all.
Yeah i feel exactly the same with the drink. it just feels like flat pepsi.
Big Clive.👍👍 Available in the states for $74US. I'm confused on the difference in the cans used, are they labeled? Cool device but way expensive.
That does seem expensive. Maybe the price will come down if the product takes off there.
Is this device actually giving it a different texture? As nitro also releases when you would just pour the can at once in the glass, and it still gives you an excellent creamy foam
I feel like you'd be able to do basically the same thing just by pouring through a metal screen with the right coating to give it plenty of nucleation sites.
OMG I've been moaning at Guinness for years to give us a full pint can. Wonders never cease.
I want a Big Clive shirt with his logo, complete with Creamy Mustache, that says "One moment, please."
I came for the velvety texture, but I stayed for the schematics!
To Arthur, Slainte!
Thank you sir
seems like the old one will go back together well enough
❤❤ really interesting 😮 love the food and drink videos 😊
I love tapping on the bottom of the glass when the Guinness is settling and listening to the note change :D simple things.
This video just landed in my feed.
Now... I am thirsty.
Thank you for all you do sir. I am now a subscriber.
Back in the 80s there was a tremendous amount of publicity about a patented "widget" Guinness had designed to put in cans so the stout would emerge just the way it did from a tap in a pub. Has that technology now been superseded?
They still sell them with the widget.
@@bigclivedotcom Isn't that a ball that contains nitrogen that bursts when the can is opened?
@@stevec00ps It's a plastic ball pressurised with nitrogen that vents through a tiny hole to blow a stream down into the can when the pressure is released.
Finished with your Guinness? Yes, I am!
Patents expire.
Creamy head is always lovely. Well said sir.
I actually bought one of these for use on other stouts specifically for imperial stouts. It does kind of work. It's also just a bit of fun. I will be looking forward to a series of will it surge? Hahaha
Nice one. I was hoping you'd cover this so I wouldn't have to destroy my own test sample! It's actually pretty crude, so should be very easy to come up with a functionally equivalent device.
I didnt know who to expect behind your voice but wow
Please don’t stop making these
How have I never noticed the bear pride flag on your wall? I love it! Represent, my dude.
Wow, I never noticed it myself until your comment just now! Love to see it
@@Zulf85 Yeah, I'm a bear myself and it makes me happy any time I see the flag because it's not something you see very often.
Just a few days ago I was having bottled Guinness and wondering whatever happened to the spinny plastic nitrogen things inside the bottle. I just assumed they removed them from all cans and bottles... like sneakers removing the pump mechanisms from the tongues once the gimmick wore off.
I foam my Guinness just by giving a good pour and swirling the last bit in the can/bottle before pouring it out to add some extra pure foam head on top.
Still sold in the USA but recycling the cans is a problem and scrap yards get REALLY angry about them because they pay by weight and it's foreign plastic. Need to cut the cans in half and removing them before recycling them
I'm here for the tear downs and such, of course, but I think mostly I'm here for the "one moment, please"! 😁
Love Guinness from the tap. I'd love something that made the can as good
I too love the way he says that. One moment, please!
My brain reads “one moment please” in Big Clive’s voice. I love it!
You can get the same results from an ultrasonic jewellery cleaner. You start by piercing a tiny hole to release the gas in the can then put 6 cans after putting a hole in the top of the can in the fridge for 30 mins then put a can into the ultrasonic cleaner standing up for 5-15 seconds then take out and pour and enjoy
Thank you for the inspiration, I will open a pint of Guinness every time right before I do a teardown!
"Demonstrate the creamy head" oo la la
I never knew I needed a Guinness until I accidentally saw this.
The plaid jacket and striped hat is what made this video work for me.
It's Tartan, he's Scottish , Only Americans call in 'plaid :(
It would be classed as a checked shirt here.
You need to tear down a Chinese equivalent for a proper comparison. Would be a good example of how something should and shouldn't be built.
Keep up the good work Clive 👍
They own several bourbon distilleries too. I just toured one they were talking about being owned by same company as Guinness. It was the Stitzel-weller distillery.
They have more than 200 brands.
@@huzcer right which is why I commented on one of them.
I probably hold the record for the fastest time from the finishing line of the Dublin Marathon to standing in the bar of O'Dwyers supping a pint of Guinness ( the first of many that day, it's important to rehydrate after running all that way 😁 )
I'd love to get hold of one of these!
Thanks, ChatGPT - definitively, certainly (may in fact be completely incorrect):
The PIC16F1824 is a low-power 8-bit microcontroller with 14 pins and operates on a 3.3V supply voltage. Pin 2 is VCC and pin 6 is GND, which matches the pinout configuration you mentioned.
The power pins do not match the PIC16F1824 (pin 1 + and pin 14 -). But I bet it made the statement with its usual pompous authority.
Thanks Big Clive! I bought some of that Guinness recently but they didn’t have any of those gadgets left. So, nice to see how it works.😊 I drank it anyway! 🤷♂️ 🤣🤣
When I was a younger guy I fell in love with a drink called a Guinness Punch. This video makes me want it again SO bad. And it doesn't need a $75 electronic gimmick to taste great.
I guess this settles the debate of Bottles Vs Cans …I have Bottles in my possession …and this is the first I’m seeing the “nitrosurge” …i feel so clued in now
I like the hat Clive. Makes ya look sporty. Nice Guinness, it seems to do the trick.
My grandfather, an avid pipe smoker, would have come across the Nitrosurge at my shop, believed it to be a meerschaum pipe, turned it upside-down, charged it with a fistfull of Captain Black, fired it up, and, well, you - know.......
The goo and foam pad likely reduce noise as it's working at quite high frequencies and a fair bit of energy.
Thanks Clive that looks very well made, and not cheaply done I’m sure… does it taste just like a draught pint ?
Thanks 😊
I'm not an expert in Guinness, but it tastes fine to me.
It tastes every bit as good. Consistent too. More expensive than the widget cans but cheaper than a pint in the pub.
@@bleddyjj mmm I love a Guinness I may give it a try thank you 😊
That thing is really nice! The unmistakable look of GOOD modern pro-sumer device, nicely fit for purpose (there's many grades of "pro-sumer"). I'm genuinely impressed by this thing. Seeing the insides IS a shot of antidepressant.
Just received a nitro surge as a gift was curious, and as expected big Clive has the answers
Hi Clive, did you by chance measure the frequency used by this device? It would be interesting to know what frequency and why. Thanks for another interesting video.
Yes, I'd like to know the frequency and the voltage at the piezo. A bit tricky now as the transducer is now destroyed.
Perhaps it wasn't in working order by the time Clive had dismantled it enough to get a scope on it.
That's funny because here in Ireland we have another brand called O'Hara's Nitro for years now. It was simple for us electronics geeks, you poured your pint then just sat it in your ultrasonic cleaner with the lid off for about a minute. Got me through no pub COVID anyway
Reminds me of the Pepsi Nitro that just came out that has nitrogen infused in the Pepsi so smooth love that Pepsi
The Bear Brotherhood flag caught me off guard. I only watch your teardown content and this is my first time seeing what you look like. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Cheers.
Can't be too large a can of Guinness!