D.I.Y or machine - POLL.

I saw this video on the forum yesterday and wondered what members would do if they had the spare cash, would you buy a Grainfather, Braumeister or similar machine or is putting the recipe together and making the beer a labour of love?

Skip to 2:28 for the relevant part of the video.

Don't forget to vote in the poll above.


[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2-O0GT9XIo[/ame]

for me the faffing about is half the fun...although at the end of a brew day when i can hardly move i sometimes have my doubts.

Niman said:

for me the faffing about is half the fun...although at the end of a brew day when i can hardly move i sometimes have my doubts.

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If I could like this twice (or more) I would!

I voted DIY, but that may be because I can't justify spending £500+ on brewing equipment.

Hops_and_Dreams said:

I voted DIY, but that may be because I can't justify spending £500+ on brewing equipment.

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;-)

wait till ya have to spent a couple of grand to house the stuff u accumulate....at this point i should add im panicking....

I know I am new to all this but I love the making process and the anticipation of what you could be producing. Will it work? Will it be nice? What have I learned? What can I use next to make something new?

Believe it or not I am not a big alcohol fan but I absolutely love the whole process of starting with basic ingredients and making something that has the history of alcohol and even the ability to affect the human brain like wine or beer can.

I loved sourcing and using oranges, honey, sugar, beetroot, lemons, blackberries, ginger, lemon, raisins and even teabags to produce brews and see if I can produce something drinkable at the end.

I have made alcoholic punches and alcoholic ginger beer and I'm now using a Cooper's stout kit even though I originally joined purely to find out about making wine but the allure to brew beers has proved too strong to resist, this has happened a lot faster than I thought it would. I'm now working on wines, punches and beers - albeit at a very basic level to most on the forum.

I used to drink one bottle of wine a week (maybe two occasionally) but now I don't buy wine since my first products are bottled and good to drink and give me that alcoholic buzz I enjoy (it's the gallons of fruit punch in my shed at the moment I am very slowly working my way through at the moment while my various wines slowly ferment and age).

With the small amount I drink I think I will be producing far more than I can consume so friends, family and neighbours may be soon fed up with the gifts of my products in the future.

The whole process right from sanitizing through to bottling and drinking is interesting and the anticipation of what I can produce is what makes me most interested.

braumeister id go for if i had the funds. having used one a few times i think their a quality bit of kit

Chippy_Tea said:

would you buy a Grainfather, Braumeister or similar machine or is putting the recipe together and making the beer a labour of love?
]

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Even with a grainfather you still have to put the recipe together, unless you buy a packaged kit, in which case you can still alter it to your taste.

There's just lass faffing with a machine.. the results are pretty much the same
I reckon this is the same as gas v leccy kit in that it's all boils down to personal taste.
I like the ease and convenience of ' bung it in and leave it',.. afterall the difficult part is in putting together a decent recipe and achieving the brew you planned

mickthetrick said:

braumeister id go for if i had the funds. having used one a few times i think their a quality bit of kit

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I like shiny, but I like cheap better. Grainfather £550 - £600, Braumeister 2, 3 times as much. My set up, less than £150. Is my beer 10 times worse? People often say 'you get what you pay for'. In my experience, in this game, money can buy you everything EXCEPT quality (apologies for shouty except, but I'm using phone, can't underline). Quality comes from ingredients, cleanliness, sterilisation and patience. Be it done in a hobo can or a gold plated bath - you get out what you put in. More to the point, grainfather at the cheapest £500, my set up £150, leaves me £350 for ingredients. That works out at lets say 20 brews at 23 litres each. No contest.

ManseMasher said:

I like shiny, but I like cheap better. Grainfather £550 - £600, Braumeister 2, 3 times as much. My set up, less than £150. Is my beer 10 times worse? People often say 'you get what you pay for'. In my experience, in this game, money can buy you everything EXCEPT quality (apologies for shouty except, but I'm using phone, can't underline). Quality comes from ingredients, cleanliness, sterilisation and patience. Be it done in a hobo can or a gold plated bath - you get out what you put in. More to the point, grainfather at the cheapest £500, my set up £150, leaves me £350 for ingredients. That works out at lets say 20 brews at 23 litres each. No contest.

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understand that fully. i brew 3 vessel too that i made up for about £150. im happy with that but if i had the funds id definitely buy the braumeister and probably the 10 ltr version. health is an issue for me and the braumeister will enable me to keep brewing in the years to come.

Then good luck mate, and long may you continue to brew. Anything that helps goes a long way.....

I dunno really I always considered the slightly stressful parts the mess and the dealing with things and always keeping an eye on the boil and mash temps a part of it..

However If the grainfather or Braumeistre automatically cleaned up after me and sanitised my bottles I would be all in

If it did a bit extra I could get rid of the wife....

I love the dream of being able to create my own setup but the reality is I'm a bit hapless. If someone is going to go through the hard work of creating a machine to so everything I need then it's going to be safer for me to buy that rather than get the tools out.

ManseMasher said:

If I could like this twice (or more) I would!

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You haven't even liked it once.

I wouldn't get a grandfather or a brau meister, or any other machine with a daft name! What exactly is the advantage? It doesn't save time. I don't really get it to be honest. I'm the most hapless person that anybody I know knows! I just use a big pan, a cloth bag and a plastic bin. And a coolbox for mashing bigger batches.

But I hope I don't sound rude, I'm sure it's lovely owning and using a grandfather.

Brewing is not only about the end product. It's about brewing which is an end in itself. My inlaws used to have a bread maker from which they produced really quite good bread. But they weren't baking. I bake bread and it just happens that the product is infinitely better than anything you'd buy from Tescos. But that's not why I do it. I like baking. And I like brewing.

I've never tried the braumeister but I have Grainfather...

It saves time by having the mash and boil in the same vessel,
It saves time in the clean up afterwards
It saves time because it has a highly efficient reverse flow cooler instead of a submersed coil
It easier for those wot aren't as mobile as others
It takes up less room when stored
It requires only one journey to take from storage to brew area instead of numerous journeys....and back again
It's not everyone's cup of tea or should that be mug of beer

Cwrw666 said:

Brewing is not only about the end product. It's about brewing which is an end in itself. My inlaws used to have a bread maker from which they produced really quite good bread. But they weren't baking. I bake bread and it just happens that the product is infinitely better than anything you'd buy from Tescos. But that's not why I do it. I like baking. And I like brewing.

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Oh come on, you can't compare a bread maker with a grainfather. I bake my own bread at times, I tried a bread maker and bin it as the end result wasn't anywhere as good as hand made. Whereas with the grainfather the results as as good as, if not better than a multi-vessel system.
The fun for me is coming up with a recipe or tweeks to an exsisting recipe What it's mashed and boiled in doesn't really matter so long as it get the job done.

ghb said:

I've never tried the braumeister but I have Grainfather...

It saves time by having the mash and boil in the same vessel,
It saves time in the clean up afterwards
It saves time because it has a highly efficient reverse flow cooler instead of a submersed coil
It easier for those wot aren't as mobile as others
It takes up less room when stored
It requires only one journey to take from storage to brew area instead of numerous journeys....and back again
It's not everyone's cup of tea or should that be mug of beer

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I don't think most of that is true, to be honest. Or is exaggerated in terms of value. But not looking for an argument, just my opinion. We all want different things.

I don't think anybody doubts they are amazing pieces of equipment.. And some people have very elaborate setups. All costing a lot of money

However that said you can achieve the same with a pot and a bag.. Perhaps my view is a bit clouded because to me spending that sort of money on the GF let alone a BM I cannot justify at all.. But I would feel sticking in the sack of grain and pressing buttons a little less involved..