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.

 

[Sam Wood]

All very valid points, comment 4, I have no idea as I have never used those yeasts but I an sure that Ian would be able to tell you, the VPRV is situated on the tower which is fed from the top of the tank, about 100mm from the liquid level but I am not sure how much foam those yeasts will generate etc.

I have really enjoyed the discussions, thanks.

 

Cheers Sam

[Druid]

Hey Sam - I have no doubt that the WilliamsWarn fulfils the requirements of some brewers and all power to the inventors.

 

I do think though that perhaps you should have declared your interest in WilliamsWarn a little more explicitly - you are clearly more than just a Beta tester and a mate of the guys that developed it and you stand to profit a little more from the acceptance of it than just seeing your mates get a good idea off the ground.

 

You are a Director of the company than either manufactures and/or markets the WilliamsWarn:

 

http://tinyurl.com/3dnnabv

 

And you (in combination with 2 others) own approximately 23% of Nanobrewing Ltd:

 

http://tinyurl.com/3oxw42h

 

Good on you for backing this venture - just let us know what your real interest is when you extol the virtues of something - otherwise it would appear that you have just been spamming us. 

 

This forum seeding sh*t winds me up - buy an ad FFS.

[Sam Wood]

Hi, me again, you are correct that I am a director and I am involved in the manufacture of the product on the engineering side, don't get me wrong, I never intended to join this discussion in order to assist with the sales of the product. I was simply surfing the net when I came across your forum and read some comments that I saw as unjustified and unfounded, I replied to them in to give you my point of view and defend the product that I have grown to love.

I joined realbeer so that I could reply to some of the questions and comments, when I joined up I did it in my actual name which is listed with my comments, anyone can look up the NZ Companies Office to find out what I do and what I am involved in, if I was trying to hide anything I would have joined in a different name and used my home email, also if you had of read all of the literature on the WW site you would have seen my name mentioned.

I am sorry if you think that I have misled you but I can assure you that it was not my intention, I did it because I found myself in a position defending Ians invention at  a time when he could not defend it himself, due to the fact that he had hunderds of emails to deal with daily, when I got involved in the project we identifed that the homebrewer was not going to be our target market, it looks as though we were right as most of our interest seems to be coming from people new to home brewing or people who have never tried it but like the idea of making beer at home.

Hopefully we will be able to reduce the price of the unit over time and make it more accessible to more people but at this stage it is not possible.

This will be my last post on this forum, thanks for your time.

 

Sam

[Kieran Haslett-Moore]

I was waiting for someone to start throwing the lazy old Tall Poppy call around.

 

I actually think most the criticism has been pretty even handed.I think forums like this are for indepth discussions of the pros and cons rather than the blithe spin that things like this get in the popular media.

 

As I see it the real problem is that the entry level extract brewers who this invention is aimed at are the least likely demographic to be spending big dollars on thier hobby.

 

Im also not sure that it solves the problem that most failed first time brewers suffer from which is poor sanitation. If your not down with cleaning cleaning cleaning your not down with brewing whether thats in a high tech personal brew plant or in a bucket with a syphon.

 

Best of luck to the inventors, perhaps we will all be proved wrong.

[Ralph]

I see this as a great tool for those people who are living in places where they cannot buy decent beer, and yet dont really want to be a brewer. With this they can put in minimum amount of work and get a very decent beer. Places like Dubai, where you cannot buy alcohol and yet there is a big ex-pat scene who would dearly love a beer. The guys working in these sort of places are often on decent cash as well...

 

I too think that forum discussion is good. If the product is good it should easily stand up to any criticism in a forum. 

[Stu McKinlay]

feel sorry for Soren... imagine how many google alerts he gets for Tall Poppy.

[Brendon]

THanks Stu. You made my day with that one.

[Barry]

I think it's a shame you feel that way Sam.

You could have been more up front about being a director as opposed to a beta tester, sure. You got called on it, so what.

 

This forum is a great vehicle for feedback from a group of passionate brewers who spend a ton of cash on equipment. If they can't offer you valuable insight into the homebrewer psyche I don't know who can.

 

Take the good with the bad, it's the internet. It requires a thicker skin. Be a shame if you couldn't argue your side and state your position, but be prepared to accept that others will have an opposing point of view. You should embrace the fact that your business could benefit from ALL points of view.

 

You appear to be stubbornly sticking to your business model/plan even though lots of us are telling you ways in which it won't work for us AND ways in which we a skeptical about it working for those who are into kit and kilo homebrew. Surely there's some value in that for your business?

 

Plus if you're genuinely interested in making beer you could do worse than spending some time here.

[Tilt]

I thought I'd get back to this thread and say I dropped into the WW place on the way home from work a week or so ago. 

I tried one of Ian's beers and talked about the rig for a wee while. 

What struck me most about the time I spent there was that here was a bloke with a bundle of experience and international brewing credentials who has the balls to put his ideas through extensive R&D and mutliple trials to bring them into action and see how they'll fly commercially. 

I'm still not convinced I'd buy one of these - even if I had the dollars or the price was way lower - but thats me wanting to enjoy the control and flexibility a more grass roots system affords. 

I do have to give these fellas credit though, as with many other small business owners, who guts it out because they feel they've got something to offer and there's a market.

He was also interested to talk about modifications or tweaks that could improve the useability for more experienced brewers - maybe as Mark II versions or after market upgrades.  (I thought an in line hop randall might help get over the limitations the thing has for dry hopping)

I'll be very interested to see where we see this WWkit ends up over the next 5 years.

Oh and the beer wasn't bad either.... A lightly hopped euro lager, not much in the way of distinctive malt or hop character but ultraclean fermentation and crystal clear with a fine white head which laced the glass and was served at just the right  temp. 

And I suppose if I could produce that sort of a beer out of a kit when I first started this hobby I would have been pretty damn happy - and isn't that what its all about?

[Tilt]

Anyone else see this home brew win in the Asia Beer Awards?

More significantly Yeastie Boys PKB won overall Champion Beer against formidable adversaries - but both Yeastie Boys and WillimasWarn flying the kiwi flag in international competitions - that parts good to see.

Its a shame and bad form that part of the WW marketing speil bags home brew. 

I wonder if they see the irony that the Champion Beer (that beat theirs to the top spot) originates from pedigree and innovative NZ homebrewing?

Congrats Yeasties! - its just as well for us that you're not amongst the "More than a third* of New Zealand males that have tried home-brewing"and "not carried on with it because of the time involved and the low-quality beer produced"

[Tilt]

Just to add....Props to Greenman, Tuatara and Moa for their medals too.   

[Liam Callaghan]

I'd just like to poke my oar in, not for stirring though :p

I have not had anything to do with the WW, looks good and has got people interested in making beer, started discussions and all is well.

I contacted WW regards their unit as I was interested in the conical tank - my obvious gripe at the cost of importing stainless conicals. I was put through to Sam and explained the situation and the cost, fully expecting to be turned down but without a flicker of a pause he said he would be happy to help, asked me to email him the details and he emailed me back within a couple of days with a great price.  Awesome bloke and very generous with his offer to help get an affordable stainless tank available to kiwis.  (These will be available from xnext week btw, refer the conical thread for photos and details) and should be retailing for about $320 - I'll be posting them onm TM more than likely.

The tank was checked by Ben Middlemiss and Blue at Pinzon Marine who does some of the best stainless work I have ever seen.  Both gave the tanks a big thumbs up and said the welding was flawless.

A big thank you from me to Sam and the boys at WW, great product you have on the market and a great help to people who want to brew in stainless here.

Ps.  Nice to see you make your own ketchup too, will flick you my recipe mate, its a winner!