This is just wrong!

[DaYooper]

The WW thing - it might not make good beer at a reasonable cost - but it would look cool in some of the kitchens folks have around here that are bigger then the footprint of my house. I'm sure some of them will buy one just because of that. And use it one or two times a year perhaps.

That is a good point. I have noticed that the few houses I have been in that have those super, industrial kitchens tend to have a fridge and freezer filled with frozen dinners for those rare occurances they dont go out to eat. They too get used just a handful of times a year and almost always when hosting parties and such where it is catered. Just like Buffy brags about all the food that "she" put together while being swarmed with chefs in white, Biff can brag about his homebrew that he dabbles in to his fellow chaps.

[JimH]

Ya know, I was thinking about this thing last night. It would be a cool idea if it did more. If the fermenter could also do a boil, you could use the fermenter as a BIAB system, then you could mash and do the hop boil in the vessel, use the "lager refrigerator" unit to cool down post boil and pitch yeast (or use the method they showed?). Then ferment as usual, etc. Then use the vessel as a keg. Literally it would be all in one and you could use it to make any beer you wanted.

But who am I kidding? That thing is seriously expensive to make "beginner" level beer. (Not knocking the kits, that is how I got started, just wouldn't want to spend $8000 on something $20 does better.)

[monsteroyd]

I agree Mashani, this is what I call a manager's sell. Looks cool etc. but not really anything worth buying at that price. Although, I watched the video and it seems like there are some good ideas there (not $7000+ good, but still) They are carbing while they are fermenting by keeping the fermenter under pressure. That's kind of a cool idea. I also like the replace the trub at the bottom by closing the valve and unscrewing the jar-thing at the bottom of the conical, also cool idea. And the way they pitched the yeast in a similar manner. So I think there were a couple of idea on way to improve the process a bit. It wouldn't work for me, as I bottle carb, but still you keggers out there I would have thought would find this extremely interesting as a way to keep the beer under pressure from fermentation all the way to serving. I can see why it is a bit faster than my process as they've eliminated the carb step.

Monty

[Beer-lord]

I find the way they add hops to the fermenter very strange......a la hop tea!
Wonder what it cost to ship it here though if I had $7000 NZ to spend on this, I think I'd go pick it up myself.
But, I've yet to see how any beer that fermented less than a week, can be ready in 7 days. It can't taste good, can it? Are New Zealanders that unparticular about their beer?

[monsteroyd]

They probably like POR hops, so no telling.

Monty

[mashani]

I find the way they add hops to the fermenter very strange......a la hop tea!
Wonder what it cost to ship it here though if I had $7000 NZ to spend on this, I think I'd go pick it up myself.
But, I've yet to see how any beer that fermented less than a week, can be ready in 7 days. It can't taste good, can it? Are New Zealanders that unparticular about their beer?

I would not say their beer would be good that fast without actually trying it - maybe they can send me a machine to review LOL - but to be honest - a 1.03-1.04 beer with 2 packs of Bella Saison or a big starter of French Saison could very well be ready in 7 days if you can force carb it and your temps are in the 70s. It's probably done fermenting in 3 days and will clean up fast if you keep the temps up.

Same with say a 1.03-1.04 British Mild or Standard Bitter with a hefty pitch rate and real ale temperatures. Either force carbed, or served like real cask ales that are supposed to be very low in carbonation - residual carb is enough, because you didn't let it sit for a long enough time for the CO2 to come out of suspension.

I could brew patersbier that fast too if I could force carb it.

Now if you add bottling sugar all bets are off, due to acetaldehyde production. This is specific to force carbing or residual carbed beers. And beers that you are fermenting at real ale temperatures where the yeast is most happy.

[swenocha]

It also looks like you are locked into their ingredients kits, although I am guessing there are forums around where they discuss using generic stuffs.

I remember when we discussed this machine on the other forum a few years ago that we speculated that you'd simply have to keep a vessel to mash grains in. Looks like they added that kind of language to their site.

Whether you want to keep it simple or expand your brewing skills, WilliamsWarn has the ingredients you need to brew the best beer in your Personal Brewery. We supply top quality liquid malt extract, dry malt extract, yeast and specialty ingredients - all that you need to make our launch beers - Summer Ale, Blonde Ale and English Pale Ale and more. And we will continue to add to our range.
If you are an all-grain brewer rather than a malt extract brewer, just add 23 litres of your own wort to the WilliamsWarn, add yeast and let it do the rest.

All 80 official beer styles can be made as well as the option to develop your own.

I would assume you could use any other extracts as well. At least, I can't see why not.