Kickstarter - Brewbot

[anthonyUK]

I guess it won't be much use to people here but there may be something for our own automation.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/car ... -appliance

 

[aamcle]

Looks to me that it will be at least as costly as a Brewmeister and I know which I would prefer:-)

Aamcle

 

[Fil]

As its a commercial venture i expect that the code and h/w interface will be black box and not open source,

looks like style may be more important to its designers than function too..

but kudos to the team, At least they have finished something

 

[thirdlight]

It's a bit rich for my taste, shame as it's much more local than most Kickstarters. I'm out. :)

 

[graysalchemy]

a multidisciplinary team of designers and developers based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

We are so passionate about this project that we have moved the whole team to Portland, Oregon as it is the micro-brewery capital of America

:hmm: :hmm:

Call me a cynic but I bet that brain storming session went something like this............

'Hey guys who's round is it'

'Yours'

'Oh..........

Wouldn't it be great if we could brew are own beer'

'Yeah.......even better if someone would pay us to do it as well'

'Hey and while were are at it we could go over to Portland, Oregon as it is the micro-brewery capital of America'

'So what are we going to do'

'I don't know lets just put a bid on kickstarter and move to Portland'

'Great Idea I will go and pack a bag'

I think Glen has had a hand in the design of the palette cladding :whistle: :whistle:

Mind you they have designed stuff for Jamie Oliver................ say no more.

 

[anthonyUK]

These type of 'braumeister' setups makes me wonder about what sort of person would use one and how long before you'd move on to something more traditional.
I can see that a 'black box' approach works well for something like a washing machine where you don't want any involvement in the process but I enjoy the brewing process. I don't know how much Braumeister users feel a part of the 'craft' side of brewing.
I would say the more heath-robinson your setup the more you would feel involved.

It is similar to a bread maker too. Kneading dough is quite therapeutic I find.

 

[graysalchemy]

Here here. :clap: :clap:

Though quite a few people are looking at adding more precise control to the brewing process though I still think making it is part of the fun. Unfortunately I wouldn't know the **** from an elbow on a rasberry pi or a arduino thingy watsit. I struggled to wire up a temp controller. :lol: :lol:

 

[ollyb]

I read about the Brewbot the day the Kickstarter came out, and the whole thing seems really off. Who gets into homebrew, but wants to miss out the whole creation process and just straight to the finished product? Why would you want to go all grain instead of extract if you wanted no part in the process? And £1500 is a lot. With a small amount of self education, £1500 could get you an excessively impressive AG setup to love and cherish for a long time. Plus, you can pull it apart to clean it properly and to store it.

I struggle to believe any random person interested in homebrewing, and knowledgable enough to have found brewbot on kickstarter, wouldn't be able to do a bit more research and build their own setup (and the kit is half the fun), for 20% of the price. I'm willing to be the vast majority of pledges are from people involved with these guys or the XOXO festival in Portland in some way.

 

[oz11]

These type of 'braumeister' setups makes me wonder about what sort of person would use one and how long before you'd move on to something more traditional.
I can see that a 'black box' approach works well for something like a washing machine where you don't want any involvement in the process but I enjoy the brewing process. I don't know how much Braumeister users feel a part of the 'craft' side of brewing.
I would say the more heath-robinson your setup the more you would feel involved.

It is similar to a bread maker too. Kneading dough is quite therapeutic I find.

I intend to buy a Braumeister next year. Brewing for me isn't about making equipment, umpteen modifications to my set up, etc, it's about making beer. I still tweak the recipes, put the malts in, throw in the hops, farm the yeast.... the equipment is just a means to an end for me... which is the beer.

 

[aamcle]

If funds were available I'd have a Braumeister, much as I enjoy building and tinkering I'd prefer to be reproducibly brewing beers I like and discovering new ones :-)


Atb. Aamcle

 

[Kevin Wood]

These type of 'braumeister' setups makes me wonder about what sort of person would use one.....

The day it cleans the vessels up, mops the floor and stores all the bits of brewery back in the loft afterwards I will be using one. :thumb:

 

[thedrayman]

It falls at the first hurdle for me. It assumes everyone will have a 'smart' phone. Some of us Luddites don't even have a mobile!

 

[Belter]

Their target audience will be very small. I definitely think this will fail...

 

[aamcle]

Speidal seem to be doing OK with the brewmeister especially in the US and AUS.

But then it's single vessel, easy to use, easy to clean, can make award winning beer and goes into a cupboard when not in use,

The elegant simplicity of it is a real plus, one pump, one temperature probe and only one vessel, well OK there is a malt pipe, two plate filters and the seals. You can't get more minimalist than that and still have auto profiling and yes I include Biab in that comment.



Atb. Aamcle

 

[Aleman]

It assumes everyone will have a 'smart' phone.

No it's even worse than that . . . It assumes everyone will have an APPLE smartphone . . .Never gonna happen in my world

 

[Belter]

.

 

[anthonyUK]

I've just seen a video online of the Braumeister system.
It is pretty much an expensive BIAB

 

[graysalchemy]

I think all these things and in particular are design led aimed at a particular market, clearly not the brewing market.

I mean it is all well and good having a window to see your grains but at the expense of insulation :wha: :wha: . I know the wort must be heated throughout the mash but any good system surely should be designed to be efficient in energy and ingredients.

This one clearly isn't.

 

[bobsbeer]

The PicoBrew version has taken in $50k more than they asked for. So I guess that one at least will hit the shelves. Can't say I'm impressed, especially the low volumes, but I suppose you could just keep the machine running more often to build up a stock. I'm in the process of a bit of automation, but that will give me more options, control and variability rather than load, push start and walk away. But there will be people who like that aspect. And it looks small enough to put in a cupboard.

 

[Aleman]

I've just seen a video online of the Braumeister system.
It is pretty much an expensive BIAB

Pretty Much. . . . but rather than cobbled together from what ever is laying around its built properly . . . and is fully automated . . . I don't think you would be able to get that degree of automation using a voile bag in a bucket with a Tesco element.