I have resisted the urge to respond in kind to the negative posts and rather post a few more of what I see as positives of this system
Making good craft beer is a lot more scientific than a lot here give credit for and is certainly not standing around some sort of boiling cauldron mumbling weird phrases and spells. You need a lot of very specific knowledge of the process, ingredients and how to use them to best effect. Yes a bit mother hood and apple pie I know but some on this site need to be reminded of that from time to time. Use very basic budget cans of goo or grains and hop oils and ferment at whatever the ambient temperature on any given day is and you will reap the your reward by producing basically pretty awful alcohol. The other end of the scale is to use quality grains, the very best and freshest hops and modern well engineered equipment that will enable you to consistently produce high quality wort and then ferment that wort with quality fresh yeast in a well engineered controlled environment and you will produce the quality of beer you want and will enjoy.
The Braumeister revolution got a lot of brewers away from the "witch craft" model and enabled, in my view, quality wort to be brewed consistently with a minimum of effort.
The Williams Warn, again in my view, is the next step along the continuum of excellence as it replaces a whole range of DIY systems that have been developed by guys trying to replicate/emulate what the quality craft breweries achieve. Go into any of the better craft breweries and you will not see pots of boiling wort attended by "old hags" mumbling secret spells or multitudes of devices trying to replicate conical fermenters, pressure fermentation, natural carbonation and maturation of their beers.
The guy from SA I referenced above who also owns a WW stared out with a 3V Bilchman set up, then went BIAB, and finally to a Braumeister and now compliments that with a WW and comments that he has never made better beer as easily. He lives near McLaren Vale and is very friendly with the owner of the local medium sized Craft Brewery and the owner comments that the BM/WW set up makes better beer than he does at the craft brewery and I guess to some extent there is a bit of pissing in the pocket going on as well
Making better beer would have a fair bit to do with the quality of inputs as well as a controlled and repeatable process and if no expense is your criteria and you have unlimited resources at your disposal then you will make better beer as indicated by this quote by the owner of Bacchus Brewery taken from an interview published in a recent James Squires e-mail mail out.
We have an array of ingredients that probably every brewery would be jealous of- we've got a selection of well over 100 different grains, 100 different yeasts, 100 different hops, so we never have to think about what we're using. We can brew anything we want with no regard really to cost or how we operate - we make the best beer we can from the ingredients we have and then charge accordingly for the finished beer. The beauty of our situation is that it allows us to experiment on an unparalleled scale.
The full article can be vied here
www.jamessquires.com.au/beer/craft-beer-tasting/bacchus-brewing
Much has been said about the cost of these units and individuals have used their resourcefulness to replicate the Braumeister but along the way there have been quite a number of issues with putting together the electronics, sealing the malt pipe and pump selection to mention a few. Not that I want to take anything away from these guys efforts but from where I sit it seems to be as much about the DIY challenge as it is about trying to produce better beer.
In my youth guys spent most if not all of their money on trying to make the FJ Holden go faster by rebuilding the engine with larger valves, polishing cylinder head ports, planed heads, fitting turbo chargers, race cams and water injection systems. Now those rev heads that want to go fast just go out and buy the latest V8 Holden of 'Fraud" because it's not a continual money pit, does the job better than anything their predecessors DIY jobs did and is not subject to continual break downs.
With all the references to the high cost of these units (Braumeisters and WilliamsWarn) and comments like "I would never purchase one in a fit at those costs" I often wonder how much they invested in the "significant other half" when she said "put a ring on it" both for the ring and the subsequent one day event that followed. I bet a lot didn't get much if any change out of $30 - $40K and didn't think anything of it. Hey if it floated their boat well good on them and go for it.
What's the connection I hear you saying probably nothing it's just another example of how some of us guys spend our money for what ever it is that turns us on at the time
Wobbly
I'd have a row of them if they were priced a little more my pocket friendly, the quote I was referring to was stated in Post #150 of this topic
