“Never leave a beer behind.” That was a phrase I heard often in my college days, from well-meaning friends who simply hated to see a fine beverage such as Miller Lite get wasted (no pun intended). Now that I’m older and wiser, I know that sometimes you have to leave a beer behind. I hate wasting food of any kind, and now that I’ve moved onto more expensive, high-quality craft beers, there’s always a pang of regret when I have to leave one unfinished for any reason. But these things happen, especially when one no longer lives within walking distance of bars.
3Dom USA also hates to see a good beer go to waste. You may remember the North Dakota-based fila
ment manufacturer from some of our recent articles; this one from August introduced the company’s Wound Up filament, which is made, astonishingly, from coffee. Now they’re following up with Buzzed, a filament made from, yes, beer. More specifically, it’s made from the waste byproduct from the beer-brewing process. Spent grain comprises up to 85% of a brewery’s byproduct, and several brewers have come up with ingenious methods of recycling the grain, from animal feed to biofuel.
“We get the byproduct from a local major label brewing plant,” said 3Dom USA CEO Jake Clark. “It’s stuff that would otherwise just be placed in a landfill. We specifically look to make useful supposedly unusable material.”
Sustainability is one of 3Dom’s core values. Earlier this year they introduced a filament and a spool made from bioplastic designed to break down in landfills, and they recently teamed up with purging compound manufacturer Dyna-Purge to create a safe, non-chemical cleaner for 3D printers.
Buzzed succeeds Wound Up as the second product to be released as part of their c2Composite line, which consists of bio-based filaments produced with their partner c2renew. The company advises that additional products will be added to the line soon.
Buzzed filament can be used in any printer capable of printing with PLA filament, using standard PLA settings, although they do advise that a good starting point is about ten degrees cooler than you would normally print PLA. 3Dom also promises that the final product will have a unique look.
If you enjoy the way the light catches the amber liquid of a good lager, you’ll love printing with Buzzed, which produces prints with “a rich golden color and a noticeable natural grain.” Unlike Wound Up, however, it thankfully does not retain the scent of the material it is sourced from, so you won’t need to worry about getting pulled over while driving with your Buzzed-printed steering wheel cover or dashboard ornaments.
A 1kg spool of Buzzed filament costs $49, and is available in 1.75mm and 2.85mm diameters. So crack open a cold one and start thinking about what designs you’d like to immortalize in beer.
Have you had the opportunity to try this filament out? Let us know your thoughts in the Beer Filament forum thread on 3DPB.com.
