All-in-ones - the future of homebrewing?

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DrFuggles

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I'm wondering what the consensus is about all-in-one brew systems like the Grainfather and the Braumeister. Is this the direction home brewing is going to go or will this always be fairly niche?

Will everyone be using these in a few years or do you plan to keep separates?

I for one would feel a little sad if the whole process wasn't a bit McGuyver/make your own. It's part of the charm IMHO!
 
Yeah, I think it just reflects the various approaches different people take to brewing. Some people have little patience for assembling a system and tweaking it, and just want to make beer with little fuss.
 
I think that they may become more popular but I don't think they will ever replace regular brewing as most of us do it.

For one thing, the machines would be cost prohibitive for a lot of people (even though some people spend a lot more on their traditional brewing gear).

I also think that there are a lot of us who love the tinkering of building a personalized system and love making the beer with our hands and feeling invested in the product at the end of the day. I love this sort of thing and don't see myself stopping brewing this way even if I could afford a picobrew or something similar. But there are definitely times when I'm hankering to try a recipe but have too much going on to spend a whole day brewing. I wouldn't hesitate to use one at times like that. I can also imagine doing it if I had to live in a really tiny space for a while and couldn't have a basement full of brew gear out all the time.

Plenty of purists get really bent out of shape about these all-in-ones. I think that there are times they can be fantastic when you don't really have the time but want to keep brewing because you love it. Owning one wouldn't stop me from brewing the traditional way most of the time, but I can't make a compelling case against using one on occasion as a way to brew more beer.
 
At the prices of braumeister here, i can brew for about 5 years with all my raw ingredients covered before i get at the cost of a basic 5 gallon set ::cross:
 
I think it's the "fture" in the sense of it being the newest technology. But I don't think it will take over the more traditional approach that most home brewers use. For multiple reason. Cost being a huge part, and then like others have said.. the craftsman's joy of actually being hands on with their product. The Fully Automated thing sounds cool, but I think most of us still like to build and create our brews/equipment more.
 
Kharnynb said:
At the prices of braumeister here, i can brew for about 5 years with all my raw ingredients covered before i get at the cost of a basic 5 gallon set ::cross:
Click to expand...

You're not wrong! I just checked the price of the Braumeister. Holy Hefeweizen, Batman! I'll be rocking it old school for a while!
 
I think the all in one brew in a bag systems will continue to grow in popularity. There are very affordable systems out there right now. The Brau Supply systems are very affordable. a 110 v 5 gallon system with a controller and a pump is under $700.00. Right now we use an electric turkey fryer for our all grain biab and partial mash. it cost us only 100 bucks. and despite what you may have heard these work. We have a 3 tier system too and we almost never use it any more.
 
The Braumeister has been around for a while now. Some people have purchased it, but it hasn't taken over homebrewing or anything. The biggest problem that I saw with it (similar to other newer single-vessel systems and BIAB) is in crafting high gravity beers. You are limited by the amount of water and grain that you can put in a single kettle (unless you add extract). The benefit to using a separate mash tun is that you can store the wort in the BK while you sparge in your MT. If you are interested in building your own similar system, people have been buying electric urns and making BIAB electric systems out of them. If you wanted to add a pump to make it more similar to a Braumeister I'm sure you could rig something up.
 
I can't imagine ever using a single vessel system after using a HLT/MT/BK system. I'm a creature of habit and that would be stretching things a bit too far for me. I wouldn't feel like I was brewing.

To each their own, of course. I don't see those systems as inferior as far as the end results.
 
To each their own...

I am a photographer and I still shoot film a lot... Old school works


Same with brewing. I do not need all the automated stuff. A Brew pot, a mash tun and a burner...
 
This is the beauty of this hobby. I started out a decade or so ago with an old kettle on top of my stove with dusty cans of liquid malt, some hops and washed bar bottles. The beer was good. moving on to a home made mash tun and bigger kettle with propane fire, all grain, the beer is good. I know have a Brew Boss system, yes I am older and this is simplers but the beer is good.
We do what we do because we like the beer, we are creative, we enjoy the different processes. But always remember to make good beer. Cheers
 
To me, those all in ones are like buying a finished build pc. You can buy parts and piece it together cheaper for at least as much performance... or if you are looking for no hassle then you spend the extra coin.
 
All depends on the brewer, and the amount of money they want to invest.

To me, these all-in-one systems are for folks who have a lot of extra cash to throw around, who may not be the DIY-type in a mechanical, gear sort of sense, but want to instead work on crafting recipes and let the machine do the hard work. Nothing wrong with that.

Then there are the DIY types who want to build a fully automated system completely custom to do exactly what they want. Lots of work, but probably cheaper and more powerful than the all-in-one systems.

And then there's those of us with no problem doing it completely old school and completely manually. Of course, I'd rather be in the camp above, but can't afford all the fancy gear I'd need (and don't have the space for the tools or the space to work).

So I think those things will have a market. But I don't think they'll become the standard.
 
A friend of mine recently bought an all-in-one...he has young children that require a lot of time, so this allows him to continue brewing without sacrificing time with the family. Once the kids are older and he no longer lives in a high-rise apartment, he plans to get back into using a "traditional" homebrew system.
 
I think those fancy, all in one systems are nice, but mostly bling. I can't afford it anyway, as is likely the case with most home brewers. Besides biab is about the cheapest way to go that does a good job. I think it'll be a while before any all in one systems get cheap enough to take over.
 
This looks like a BIAB system basically.

I like the building vs. buying a computer comparison.

Personally, it's a lot easier to justify the little purchases over time, and more fun to tinker :)
 
I think the cost of the all in one brew machines will keep most beginning homebrewers away. Yes, you can get one ready to plug in and go for $700, but you can get a brewpot, a cooler w/valve and BIAB bag for $100-$150 if you can brew on your stove. That leaves $5-600 for fermentation equipment, bottling or kegging gear and all the little things you need to get started.
I think that more advanced brewers wanting to set up something in their basement or other dedicated space will be the target market for the all in one brew systems.
I'm considering building my own, using mostly off the shelf components and it would be mostly manual, and as simple as possible. I'm hoping someone does a side by side comparison of the recirculating mash/fly sparge/batch sparge/no sparge someday. The reported beer quality from the all in one brewing setups has been good.
For now, I'll keep brewing with the simple cooler/brewpot setup I have.
 
But there are those of us who can't brew on the stove. Swmbo had to have the ceramic top.( And you can't say no when she looks at you like that. .. ) For those of us with ceramic top stoves, especially in winter, these all in one's have appeal. But like I said we've been using electric turkey fryers with no problems. So I can't justify the expense right now.
 
I'd definitely consider the picobrew, I love the fully automated nature and the small footprint, however, I also like the ability to make quite a good deal more beer, and none of the other all-in-ones call to me quite as much, so I'll stick with my 3 vessel setup, for now anyway.
 
I'm sticking with my Cajun injector for now. But I definitely will consider the brausupply 110 v set up if I get some extra cash. Or the high gravity system.
 
Brewie looks like a nice option. The only reason I would ever consider it is simply time. With family responsibilities, house work/care, time goes by quickly. Being able to set it and forget it while I mulch the yard or play with my son is becoming more and more appealing. Still, I'm a creature of habit and don't see a change coming anytime soon.
 
electrolight said:
To me, those all in ones are like buying a finished build pc. You can buy parts and piece it together cheaper for at least as much performance... or if you are looking for no hassle then you spend the extra coin.
Click to expand...

The problem is, you can't buy parts these days for the price of a finished computer. 10 - 15 years ago you could, but not now.
I've been building my computers since high school, but these last couple times, after shopping out parts, factoring in software, it just doesn't pay anymore. Yes, you can choose exactly the brand and model of, say, video card you want if you build, but for similar performance, you can almost always find and off-the-shelf machine.

For the topic at hand, I do think that all-in-one machines will have a niche market, but most of us homebrewers prefer the flexibility of multi-vessel brewing. I might consider it if I was a professional, and wanted a pilot system to experiment with (I don't know the levels of automation and how much you can tweak with those all in ones)
 
off the shelf pc's tend to have hidden cost-savers, that very likely will cost you either extra parts or a whole new system to fix...

all-in-one systems like the braumeister are great for someone like me space and time wise, but the cost is WAY to much.
 
The all in one systems fill a pretty small niche right now. The only people who would spend $700+ are people who are into the hobby. You are going to find very few beginners who want to spend that much to get started making beer. People who are "experienced" home brewers might be more open to spending $700 on equipment - but experienced home brewers also know how much farther their dollars would stretch building their own setup.

In the end you are left with a small cross section of home brewers who are - experienced, looking to spend big money on equipment, and unwilling/incapable of building their own setup.
 
fishhead202 said:
I like the building vs. buying a computer comparison.
Click to expand...
Not even close. If your hobby is building computers, buying a Dell won't do it for you. If your hobby is homebrewing, how far do you remove yourself from the process and still consider yourself a brewer? Do you brew so that you can tell your friends you brew, or do you brew for the love of brewing?
 
I dont know.. Have a buddy the just went straight to an all in one because of the footprint. They seem less intimidating when you are looking at them, as opposed to building a full multi vessel system with hoses and switches and pumps and everything all over the place. I think it might actually draw more new comers than old vets.
 
An all-in-one system sounds great to free up time while brewing, but the cost up front is too severe for me. I have the classic ghetto system using a home brew starter kit, a turkey fryer setup, a Zapap tun, and a couple of 5 gallon paint strainers. Well below $200 in all.
 
I might be the type to whom the all-in-ones are marketing.
I'm a 20 qt stock pot (previously owned and still used for soups and stocks) with two plastic buckets brewer. I'm a cook who will tinker with recipes, not a tinkerer of equipment. A panini press is two cast iron skillets with a sandwich sandwiched between. And If our one-cup Starbucks brand coffee maker (received as a gift) dies, then we will go back to one cup plastic Melitta pour overs.
I'll spend for ingredients (Bush de Noël in the primary) but I haven't seen many upgrades of interest. Hmm, bucket lid opener, funnel with screen, longer handle spoon, autosiphon, bottle tree. I think that covers my upgrades with nothing on my wishlist.
Retirement is close enough to consider, and if we go to a location without a natural gas stove, or my back regresses, then these systems are attractive.
What I dislike about the systems are cost, seemingly harder to clean than my current setup, and not enough track record about repairs/replacement. What I'd miss the most is the smells of the brewing.
 
When I win the lottery it would be fun to have a turnkey system, that would not just brew but chill the wort and transfer it to fermentors, so all I'd need to do is pitch the yeast. Until then BIAB offers the biggest bang for the buck. Get a turkey fryer (and a second pot for dunk sparging), and a couple of plastic buckets and you have all you need.

In all seriousness - it would be neat to have a totally automated small system, that would let me test out variations in hops and grain without having to spend a lot of time to make a 1 gallon batch. If I'm going to spend hours brewing, I'm making 5-10 gallons. No way I spend hours for a couple of 1 gallon batches.
 
I look at them and think that they'd be cool to own, but don't think I could ever justify it. Unless I get more friends:( to drink my beer.

The only thing I could really think of that I'd use it for is, like, if I want to make some basic pale ale or hefeweizen. Simple recipes that I've gotten down perfect on my manual system. Then I could brew two batches at the same time, basic low gravity pale ale in the automatic system, on my manual system do some recipe I havent tried or some experiment (technique/ingredient).
 
Yeah, it's the future of homebrewing if you have a lot of money and no DIY spirit!

No offense to those who have automated breweries or all-in-ones, obviously. I just prefer the hands on do-it-yourself style. I get upgrades here and there, and it's like Christmas, but only after I've used a DIY version dozens of times first.
 
BIAB is the system for the masses when it comes to all-grain! I started with three vessel and have stepped back to BIAB very happily.
 

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