Auto personal brewer - Kiwi invention

[Tilt]

Check this out - with the big Lotto jackpot tonight this bit of kit might be finding a home in a homebrewers shed sometime soon.

Williams Warn personal brewer

Seems like theres a lot of local kiwi R&D gone into this with a pretty schmick looking end product.

I'm not sure it hits the mark for me though- not enough experimentation and learn as you go trial and error.

 

[Michael]

I do like the idea of having a conical fermenter connected to the CO2 system. Pretty sweet idea.

Something like this would be nice to have as an AG brewer as well, but just not at the $5600 price point!

For me, I think that I will stick with buying a conical one day, and a co2/keg setup. :)

[Tilt]

From an engineering perspective - they've done some interesting work designing a stainless, jacketed sealed vessel which can boil and chill. 

The ability to do the boil, chill, drop the trub out the bottom of the conical and then ferment all in the same vessel would remove some concerns about contamination and oxidation. 

Is there any other gear out there that can do this?

[DP]

Oh? I didn't realise that it was also capable of boiling??

[DP]

I've gone and looked at their literature and I'm pretty sure the system doesn't boil. They say:

In this method we use an unhopped light extract as the base malted barley ingredient but also extract some flavours and colours from special malts and hops. A kitchen is required to heat up a few litres of water in two pots. We soak a small amount of specialty malts in hot water in one pot to extract the aromas, flavours and colours we need from them. The hops are boiled in the second pot for a period of time to extract bitterness, flavour and aroma from them. The specialty grains and hops are removed and the water they were soaked and boiled in respectively gets added to the personal brewery. You then add the base extract, water and yeast as you would in the Basic Method, but the extra step of using some coloured malt and hops gives enormous flexibility to make many beers styles.

So, I think it's capable of gently warming or cooling for fermentation temperature control but if you want to do a partial mash or all-grain you're going to have to do that separately with your own equipment.

[Michael]

Still. A great idea, just not at $5600.

[Tilt]

The info doesn't seem consistent - I got the impression from their video that water was placed in the FV and heated to pasteurise/ sanitise.  That'd imply a boil - but I was only assuming...

Might have to drop into their place on the way home from work and have a sticky.

Not that it'd make it any more affordable or useful... just cos I'm curious. Ha

 

[Sam Wood]

It is designed to take the water to 75 degC. I have had a hoppy beer from Ian Williams and it was great.

It is new technology and it will take a while to get your head around it but my opinion is that it will expand the homebrewing community and take the quality of homebrew to a new level. Watch this space.

[Richard Jack]

Can you explain what's new about it? My understanding is that it's a whole lot of existing technology lumped together, but if I'm wrong I'm interested in what's new.

[Sam Wood]

You can add clarification agent through the beer without losing any pressure, after that you can remove the sediment from the rest of the beer withour any oxiditation or losing any pressure and the beer is chilled in the same vessel that it is fermented in, carbonated in, clarified in and poured from, add this to the perfect temperature control and you have a unit that makes exceptionally fresh beer, although most of this has been done before in various methods, there is nothing around that combines all of the above and does it with ease in one appliance.

 

Cheers Sam

[Matt Cox]

Hi Sam. Firstly, qudos to you for going in to bat for this machine on this forum.

So do you actually leave the beer in the machine and pour straight from there into your glass? Or can you bottle each batch? I'd wager most guys on here would have a number of batches on the go at any one time, so using this as your keg as well doesn't seem practical. 

But maybe I misunderstand it.

[Sam Wood]

Matt, you can do either, leave it in the machine or bottle it and put in the fridge, I don't know how long it takes to do all-grain from start to the time it is chilled and clarified ready to drink. but if you bolltle it you can have 3 different brews in 3 weeks, the last brew ciould be left in the vessel unless you want to go on to the 4th brew, if you are in Auckland you should go and meet Ian, he is a great guy and very knowlegable, who won't bullshit you, have a beer with him.

 

Cheers Sam

[James Lawson]

Unfortunately, I'd be surprised if it does expand the homebrewing community. In my experience people get into homebrewing for the following reasons:

- homebrew can be cheaper than supermarket bought beer

- they enjoy the hobby: they like spending the time hand-crafting a beer, and get satisfaction from knowing that all that effort went into a superbly tasty product, and they may enjoy being involved in a hobby community

- it is possible to make styles of beer that are widely available in New Zealand

 

Props though, and best of luck.