Brewing Equipment Uni Assignment - Help!

[Ironsides]

I'm studying industrial design, and for one of my assignments I have been asked to design a hand held, manually powered product for the kitchen. As a homebrewer i'm taking this opportunity to design something for brewing. so i'm looking for input. What can you think of that would be useful or that could be improved? A mash paddle for the stovetop brewer? a brewing specific thermometer, designed to float in the mash?

alternatively, can you think of anything else for the kitchen generally? All ideas are welcome. Cheers.

 

[Cube]

Non brewing but an articulated iPad stand that can change from magnetic to a table top stand. The stand could attach with magnets to anything and the ipad attached to it using its own magnets.

Stand can be controlled by either a iPhone app (aka apple remote and apple tv over wireless ) or small remote and servos or voice control?

Add to the other zillion stands out there but hey, would be cool.

The iPad is a great kitchen tool so fits into the brief

 

[Bribie G]

WTF have you been smoking, Cube?

Is this a real device or a hypothetical one?

If hypothetical, how about an instant chilling "wand" a bit like a small hand held immersion heater, except that it will be an immersion chiller. The coolant will come from a small central unit that it's attached to via a flexible hose delivering coolant using glycol (as in frozen fonts). So you can make instant chilled milk by waving the device in a glass of milk, or cool a pan of bolognaise quickly to pop in the fridge......

edit: oops, manually powered - maybe generate the power with an exercise cycle attached to the unit ?????

 

[MHB]

An immersion heater with a wire/bar guard so the hot bits wont touch the sides/bottom of mash bag or plastic esky.
If you wanted to get a bit fancy you could incorporate a simple thermostat so that it turned off when a preset temperature was reached.
Think of it as the ******* child of an STC-1000 and a bath heater - with training wheels.
M

 

[Muscovy_333]

WTF have you been smoking, Cube?

Is this a real device or a hypothetical one?

If hypothetical, how about an instant chilling "wand" a bit like a small hand held immersion heater, except that it will be an immersion chiller. The coolant will come from a small central unit that it's attached to via a flexible hose delivering coolant using glycol (as in frozen fonts). So you can make instant chilled milk by waving the device in a glass of milk, or cool a pan of bolognaise quickly to pop in the fridge......

edit: oops, manually powered - maybe generate the power with an exercise cycle attached to the unit ?????

I was about to +5 that idea...

 

[bradsbrew]

Ever seen one of those chip maker things where you put the potato in then push the handle down and it pushes the potatoe through the grid to make chips. How about if you had a 300mm x 300mm grid that sat above a chopping board of the same size and was hinged similar to a toasted sandwich press. Then you could upstand heaps of peeled potatoes and push down on the grid and have heaps of chips ready to go.
Not brewing related but I wish I had one in the kitchen.

Cheers

 

[Mattese]

This is probably a really bad idea - giving a bunch of brewers free reign on their imagination???

How about a cross between a mash paddle and a hand held blender that fits to the lid of a mash tun. Pop the lid on, give it a whirl, retain as much heat as possible while giving the mash a good stir through a gear-boxy thing that turn it through the mash with minimal effort on the outside. Hell, give it a few whirls to get that efficiency up!

Hey, he didn't say it had to be practical!

 

[Ironsides]

Yeah i was thinking about an Ipad/Iphone stand, as i'm aware that a lot of people use them for brewing software or following recipes (also for cooking not just beer ha ha)

The imersion heater is an interesting idea, and probably not too hard to do. Probably doesnt fit the brief as it would need to be powered. So the idea is to maintain mash temp? Sounds like it could be a good side project.

 

[pk.sax]

Brewing related?

A gadget that collects the CO2 off a fermenter and delivers it into a cask of ale to push it out without gassing it up. Might incorporate a prv in there to vent excessive pressure from the fermenter and a nrv to keep CO2 from going backwards.

Also a setup inline to sanitise the CO2 going into the cask.

Another idea, design a sort of stone grinding mill that has pockets in the bottom grinding wheel which limit the length the grain is dragged between the grinding surfaces, will allow the mill to have multiple intermittent grain 'in streams', increasing the speed of the grind without increasing the rpm. An alternative to roller mills that would also be great at making flour for other purposes. Basically, it's cheaper and easier to grind a stone flat than to knurl rollers.

Ps: idea one is yeast powered

 

[MastersBrewery]

stainless hydrometer with thermometer incorperated.... drop it all you like. I looked couldnt find one!

 

[Ironsides]

Brewing related?

A gadget that collects the CO2 off a fermenter and delivers it into a cask of ale to push it out without gassing it up. Might incorporate a prv in there to vent excessive pressure from the fermenter and a nrv to keep CO2 from going backwards.

Also a setup inline to sanitise the CO2 going into the cask.

Another idea, design a sort of stone grinding mill that has pockets in the bottom grinding wheel which limit the length the grain is dragged between the grinding surfaces, will allow the mill to have multiple intermittent grain 'in streams', increasing the speed of the grind without increasing the rpm. An alternative to roller mills that would also be great at making flour for other purposes. Basically, it's cheaper and easier to grind a stone flat than to knurl rollers.

Ps: idea one is yeast powered

Oh and i actually have to be able to biuld the thing, or at least a 1:1 model. The mill sounds pretty interesting, and i dont have one currently. were you thinking of the sort that has a round stone on a flat surface, and the grain is poured in through a hole in the centre?

 

[Feldon]

A small capsule, about the size of a box of matches, made out of 316 stainless steel.

Inside it would contain an electronic thermometer and some sort of radio transmission technology (eg. induction coil like used in ID cards?).

The capsule would be placed in the mash and would transmit the temperture at two second intervals to an external hand-held reader device that would display the transmitted temperature signal.

The capsule would have air space such that it would have neutral buoyancy in liquid with a specific gravity of about 1.050. During the early mash it would sink down to sit on the grain bed, and as SG increases towards the end of mash it would start to float up to the top.

 

[pk.sax]

Oh and i actually have to be able to biuld the thing, or at least a 1:1 model. The mill sounds pretty interesting, and i dont have one currently. were you thinking of the sort that has a round stone on a flat surface, and the grain is poured in through a hole in the centre?

Yep

Now I go back to designing my frankenstein monster.

 

[Ironsides]

A small capsule, about the size of a box of matches, made out of 316 stainless steel.

Inside it would contain an electronic thermometer and some sort of radio transmission technology (eg. induction coil like used in ID cards?).

The capsule would be placed in the mash and would transmit the temperture at two second intervals to an external hand-held reader device that would display the transmitted temperature signal.

The capsule would have air space such that it would have neutral buoyancy in liquid with a specific gravity of about 1.050. During the early mash it would sink down to sit on the grain bed, and as SG increases towards the end of mash it would start to float up to the top.

Thats a properly good idea. it would also be handy if it could tell you the SG (we'd need to get a boffin to figure out how). It could transmitt to Iphone which could do the SG temp conversion on the fly. I think it would be useful in the ferment as well.

 

[Tilt]

A small capsule, about the size of a box of matches, made out of 316 stainless steel.

Inside it would contain an electronic thermometer and some sort of radio transmission technology (eg. induction coil like used in ID cards?).

The capsule would be placed in the mash and would transmit the temperture at two second intervals to an external hand-held reader device that would display the transmitted temperature signal.

The capsule would have air space such that it would have neutral buoyancy in liquid with a specific gravity of about 1.050. During the early mash it would sink down to sit on the grain bed, and as SG increases towards the end of mash it would start to float up to the top.

To build on this - and not sure if it suits the hand powered element of the brief - but as a floating temp probe it would also be able to be flipped over into the kettle and measure specific gravity. It would adjust the measure for wort temp then transmit adjusted gravity reading along with temp of the wort to the display device so the brewer could tell when target gravity had been hit.

 

[Ironsides]

Yep
View attachment 53792
Now I go back to designing my frankenstein monster.

Sweet thats what i thought you meant.

 

[pk.sax]

Thats a properly good idea. it would also be handy if it could tell you the SG (we'd need to get a boffin to figure out how). It could transmitt to Iphone which could do the SG temp conversion on the fly. I think it would be useful in the ferment as well.

http://para.maxim-ic.com/en/search.mvp?fam...mp;tree=sensors

http://t-tec.com.au/

 

[Feldon]

Thats a properly good idea. it would also be handy if it could tell you the SG (we'd need to get a boffin to figure out how). It could transmitt to Iphone which could do the SG temp conversion on the fly. I think it would be useful in the ferment as well.

Cheers, Ironsides.

Further thoughts... the capsule could also contain some vibrator technology (like used in mobile phones) and some little motorised robot feet or vanes, so it could burrow down deep into the mash bed and move around to detect the temperature at different places, as well as mix up the grains.

And maybe an infrared temperature sensor might be a better option than thermocouple?

 

[bignath]

Ever seen one of those chip maker things where you put the potato in then push the handle down and it pushes the potatoe through the grid to make chips. How about if you had a 300mm x 300mm grid that sat above a chopping board of the same size and was hinged similar to a toasted sandwich press. Then you could upstand heaps of peeled potatoes and push down on the grid and have heaps of chips ready to go.
Not brewing related but I wish I had one in the kitchen.

Cheers

that's a brilliant idea!

I'd buy one of those for sure....making chips at home to throw in the deep fryer is a prick of a job.

It'd be easy to make, and as far as the cost's to build it go....well, it'd be cheap as chi...




thanks folks, i'm here all night....

 

[Florian]

If hypothetical, how about an instant chilling "wand" a bit like a small hand held immersion heater, except that it will be an immersion chiller. The coolant will come from a small central unit that it's attached to via a flexible hose delivering coolant using glycol (as in frozen fonts). So you can make instant chilled milk by waving the device in a glass of milk, or cool a pan of bolognaise quickly to pop in the fridge......

Funny, I've been thinking about exactly that for days now. How cool would that be to chill your wort? Without coolant though, just plug it in and the thing gets ice cold instantly.
Shame it's such a pain to generate coldness compared to generating heat.