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.

 

[Mike Neilson]

I would love for this machine to work but I see problems all over it, for one cleaning, just wipe away yeast? no chance!! Add Malt? I didnt see him add any malt to his brew, nor hops, how do you dry hop? how do you know when fermentation stops how do you take a sample, man I could go on all day about it and still not be able to afford one. Its like seeing a high price Italian super car drive down the road only you over take it around the shopping mall and beat it to the park. just my opinion

[Sam Wood]

Mike, here are a few facts that you need to know, and I can assure you that I am qualified to tell you as I have one of the WW units and have made beer in it as a beta tester, firstly cleaning takes about 1 1/2 hours from the time you empty your brew to the time the next one is up and running, after that there are only a few minutes to adjust carbonation to your liking and clarify, the yeast is not really easy to get off but the internal is mirror finish and removing it is not all that bad.

The video only shows adding LME but if you go to the website you will see that in the recomended brews they require DME, you don't have to use WW brew kits but the beers were designed for the first time user so they could make a primium beer without any hassle.

Provided you have your carbonation level set how you want it, you don't really need to know exactly when the ferment has stopped, if it over runs a couple of days it doesn't matter, you just chill and clarify and then start drinking.

If you want a sample just pull on the beer tap and beer will come out if you accuratly know when the ferment is finished, in fact if you did that I am sure your beer would be done in six days or less.

The market that these guys were targeting was not the homebrewer but the guy who tried and gave up or the guy like myself who has never brewed and doesn't have the time to get into it seriously.

I would suggest that if anyone is sceptical about it, they should go and have a beer with Ian Williams at the shop and he can explain what it really does, I guarantee that the beer is great.

This machined was designed to draw back more people into the homebrewing community and I am sure that some of those that come back will go on to do the all grain thing as well and still use the WW to carbonate and ferment in.

I hope this helps you understand it a bit more.

 

Cheers Sam

[Reviled]

"I guarantee that the beer is great."

 

Great when comparing it with a kit beer, or great when comparing it with an All grain brew?

 

To me, spending over $5k just to be able to make kit beer is ridiculous - I understand what you're saying that you are aiming at lazy people, but $5k?? Sh*t...

[Richard Jack]

Lazy people can just buy beer at the supermarket, and it doesn't cost 5 and a half grand to walk in and start paying for it. And shit, it only got 0.4/10 more than Tui in blind tests, that's barely significant. But, I suppose that after about 200 batches and about 13000 beers they start breaking even [back of hand sort of calc, take it for what it is] with store bought... Yeah.

[Sam Wood]

Comparing it to its bottled equivilent, I haven't tasted your all grain and you haven't tasted my brew, quite a lot of the people that you call lazy simply don't have time to brew all grain because they are busy at work and with families.............it's not for you!!

[JoKing]

I work 50 hours a week, have 2 kids under 2yo and still manage to brew 3 batches of all grain beer a week.

 

I like the WW fermenter though - I reckon it's perfect for kit brewers.

[Andrew]

You sound like me a "winner"

[JoKing]

I should ahve said 3 batches of AG per week (some weeks).... not every week!

[James Lawson]

Fixed that for you

 

"I work 50 hours a week, have 2 kids under 2yo and still manage to drink 3 batches of all grain beer a week."

 

j/k I'm sure you don't drink it all yourself :)

[jt]

I'm sure he'd need a beer or two after a week like that !

[JoKing]

I hope not! 3 batches is over 400 Liters!

[Reviled]

"I haven't tasted your all grain and you haven't tasted my brew"

 

Youre right, but im not guaranteeing my beer to be "great" - thats a big call.

 

And like Jo, I work, have a kid, family, life etc but still manage to make time to brew all grain, because it's not actually as hard as people make out. I feel that you are pushing the message that brewing all grain is hard, and takes alot of time, which is not the case!!

 

I personally try to help people see that brewing All grain is actually alot cheaper than most think, and really doesn't take a huge chunk of spare time.