Unique Food Technology

Keepin' you and the beer cool

Ever wonder how far we’ve come in how to keep a pizza warm on delivery?  How bout all these special beer cans and bottles commercials always tout?  Well, I’m here to try to answer those questions and maybe discover some other technologies along the way. Why does this stuff matter? Because nobody would be happy drinking warm beer with a cold pizza that was just delivered.  I understand some people like cold pizza and some can tolerate warm beer (I never understood either), but I’d be shocked to learn of a person who wouldn’t make a comment if a cool pizza arrived on their doorstep or they had an alternative to a warm beer available.

So first pizza, what are in these bags?  Here is a site that gives tons of options for you to purchase for yourself. I can only think the value of buying actual pizza bags without owning a restaurant is to set someone up for a burglary because you aren’t carrying 12 pizzas to your kitchen table! Each are filled with different paddings for protection and warmth.  You have the foam option with some heat reflecting mylar or polyester insulation, maybe some polyfoam or steam vents to keep out the sogginess.  But for a pizza place, these just shouldn’t be good enough.  Dominos Pizza had the right idea years ago when they stepped into the next generation with the “Heat Wave” years ago.  You can charge these brilliants bags up electrically connecting with what is known as “phase-change material.” Once heated and unplugged this helps disperse 170 degrees of heat throughout this bag and has extra materials to make sure those crusts stay crisp.  The company Cooktek offers up chargeable bags to keep the heat in as well. And if you’re wondering, yes there is a Wikipedia page on Pizza Delivery.

Go ahead, order some!

So now that we’ve gotten our warm pizza (hopefully from a place better than Dominos, kidding, but respect yourself when you order pizza) and have a slight idea how it was kept warm and crisp, lets grab our beer that has been sitting on our counter.  In front of us is the now popular aluminum bottle, plastic bottle, some of the crazy keep cold cans, and how bout one of those vortex glass bottles.  First, the aluminium (as it was originally called) truly does keep the beverage cooler.  It was the 2006 World Series and I had never met Mr. Aluminum Bottle until a pre-game world series party.  I’m still convinced the only reason the Cardinals won the World Series that year was not because they were the better team, but by catching the Tigers off guard with this brilliant technology going national. Originating out of Pittsburgh, the bottles were tested and said to keep the beer cooler both at Loyola (Maryland) and Bucknell. Thanks to some basic chemistry, I’m sure it’s right.  Now here is a can, used by Miller products that keep the beer cool throughout by vacuuming in the heat and use a cool evaporation system. As for the Miller “Vortex” bottle this is a bottle that umm pours the (already poor tasting beer) differently to give you more flavor, nice try, but most people don’t actually want to taste the beer.  Now the plastic beer bottle, well the benefits are obvious.  For those who like to get drunk and throw things, these won’t break. They also offer a bit of heat resistance with the plastic helping the bottles stay slightly cooler for a tad bit longer, but I say stick with the aluminum bottles on that one.

Thanks for stopping by and letting me successfully enlighten (or waste) some of your time.  But doesn’t this all sound great? So go ahead look at that pizza and beer can pictured above and give your local delivery man a call.  And don’t forget to order toppings, you’re insulting the pizza if you go plain cheese!  And of course, tip the delivery man.

And if you’re interested in some cheese information, check out this published story and multimedia by myself and Will Mueller about the World Championship Cheese Contest