Market research for a new potential product

[Corkster]

How's it going out there, Homebrewers?

Ok, a quick rundown of a new product that I and a partner have developed.

We both work in plastics and have over 25 years combined experience in the field. Our technical adviser on this project has 27 years experience by himself.

What we've developed is, at it's simplest, a fermentation bucket liner.

It's a specially designed triple layer bag made from a highly specialized blend of high density and low density resins and is manufactured in a closed system process at temperatures exceeding 400 degrees Fahrenheit. It is then sealed at both ends thereby insuring that the inside of this bag has never been exposed to the outside atmosphere and is therefore actually sterile. A perfect fermenting environment.

For about $1.50 per batch, you can cut down the washing and sanitizing involved with homebrewing rather extensively as well as removing one piece of specialized equipment.

The homebrewer simply cuts one end of the bag open, places the bag in their bucket, pulls the excess bag over the top of the open bucket end, then fills the bucket [liner] with their wort and place a sanitized lid and airlock on the bucket.

The advantage of this product is the fact that you can use any bucket to ferment in whether the bucket is food grade or not. You also do not have any bucket washing or sanitizing to do to the bucket before or after fermentation. Before brewing you simply pop in a bag. After brewing you simply siphon off your beer, and throw the bag away. No fuss no mess no washing!

I know this product will never make us millions of dollars as it's really only useful to those of us who brew in buckets (but we hope to at least generate enough interest in the product to finance our homebrewing). However, for those of us who have a limited supply of food grade buckets, this opens up the chance to brew extra batches simultaneously without buying more expensive buckets.

So, what I'm trying to do here is find out if there is enough demand for a product like this to determine whether or not we should pony up the several thousand dollars to get the project rolling.

Any feedback or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ajwillys]

Can you make one that fits inside a 55 gallon drum?

 

[Corkster]

If we find enough interest in that field it would not be a problem at all.

Though it would cost a bit more that $1.50 or so. probably closer (without doing the actual math) around $5.00

 

[Almighty]

A few points on the product:

• I am personally not a fan of one time use products
• $1.50 could be justified for competition beers
• Or for higher gravity batches were $1.50 isn't much
• How would you rack from the bag?
• With the right price point I can see it being used

 

[saffellm]

I really like this idea. I offer a few suggestions:

- Manufacture the bags in various sizes that fit over the most widely used fermentation buckets used by homebrewers, ie 6.5 gallon ale pale, 10 gallon brute, etc.

- Would there be a way to add a spigot to the bottom of the bag? Either in the manufacturing phase, or by the homebrewer? This would be similar to the bags that come inside boxed wine. I primary ferment in my bottling bucket, just to make racking that much easier and leave all the trub and most of the yeast behind.

Keep us posted on this. Cheers

 

[saffellm]

Just did a quick search and found these drum liners:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23606&clickid=redirect

Manufactured for 6.5 gallon buckets :$1.11, all the way up to 55 gallon drums.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Reynolds makes them too for 24 pound Turkeys. Fit a 6.5 gallon bucket beautifully.

$2.50 for 3, IIRC.

 

[motobrewer]

i can see siphoning being a real PITA with the bag getting sucked into the hose

 

[Brewmoor]

I hate to be that guy but.......... Are we that lazy? Why not just save the landfill and wash out the reusable bucket. I agree with Almighty. I am not a fan of one use items. It has turned us into a throw away society that moved all of our plastics manufacturing to china. Not good any way you look at it.

Why not design a re-usable high temp bag and market it to people for a "brew in a bag" system?


Edit: Sorry to go OT on the question. I guess I really should answer you a bit better. Aside from my beliefs. I believe this product would succeed. I am sure there are many people who would go for an option like that. I myself even used system like that for my crock pot once. (I was staying in a cabin that had no running water.) Picked the bag out and threw it away. I am sure you will get lots of support for something like this.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

i can see siphoning being a real PITA with the bag getting sucked into the hose

It doesn't.

 

[jfkriege]

I could see it being something to use on occasion. One thing I would look for is very low oxygen permeability; could it be designed with this in mind to counter one of the 'drawbacks' of a bucket?

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I hate to be that guy but.......... Are we that lazy? Why not just save the landfill and wash out the reusable bucket. I agree with Almighty. I am not a fan of one use items. It has turned us into a throw away society that moved all of our plastics manufacturing to china. Not good any way you look at it.

Why not design a re-usable high temp bag and market it to people for a "brew in a bag" system?


Edit: Sorry to go OT on the question. I guess I really should answer you a bit better. Aside from my beliefs. I believe this product would succeed. I am sure there are many people who would go for an option like that. I myself even used system like that for my crock pot once. (I was staying in a cabin that had no running water.) Picked the bag out and threw it away. I am sure you will get lots of support for something like this.

Well, there is a value to throwing out a liner.

With the liner I can stack my buckets and not worry about minute scratches thusly, my buckets will have a longer useful life than many do therefore staying out of landfill.

And the Reynolds bags do break down over time from UV exposure but they are pH and heat resistant.

 

[Corkster]

I really like this idea. I offer a few suggestions:

- Manufacture the bags in various sizes that fit over the most widely used fermentation buckets used by homebrewers, ie 6.5 gallon ale pale, 10 gallon brute, etc.

- Would there be a way to add a spigot to the bottom of the bag? Either in the manufacturing phase, or by the homebrewer? This would be similar to the bags that come inside boxed wine. I primary ferment in my bottling bucket, just to make racking that much easier and leave all the trub and most of the yeast behind.

Keep us posted on this. Cheers

My buddy and I have discussed the point of various sizes and are relatively certain that it would not be too big a problem for us to do.

As for adding a spigot, well that is beyond our ability to pull off with getting other companies involved and seems to be a waaay bigger project than a simple hobby project which is our ultimate aim. Since our bags are not manufactured to be form fitting (we could pull it off but that raises the overall cost which is bad for us, and our potential customers) they have definite corners on them. One way to get around the spigot problem is to simply nip one corner off the bottom of the bag and hose clamp the bag around the spigot in your bucket. There is not a lot of extension from the spigot inside the bucket, but there is probably enough to get a tight clamp on it.

The only problem with that is that at this point you need to have all parts that touch your wort be sanitized, therefore you would have to clean and sanitize your spigot which almost makes the bag a moot point, aside from the fact that there is still very little clean up afterwards.

 

[Corkster]

A few points on the product:

• I am personally not a fan of one time use products
• $1.50 could be justified for competition beers
• Or for higher gravity batches were $1.50 isn't much
• How would you rack from the bag?
• With the right price point I can see it being used

I fully understand the apprehension against one time use products, but as the main goal of this liner is to cut down on sanitization and cleaning times as well as opening up a variety of less than food grade buckets to use for fermentation, it's a bit tough to get away from the one time use. I suppose the bags could always be rinsed cleaned and re-sanitized for reuse, but at this point, it becomes more of a hassle than a time saver.

As for racking from the bag, it's a simple siphon.

 

[Corkster]

Just did a quick search and found these drum liners:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23606&clickid=redirect

Manufactured for 6.5 gallon buckets :$1.11, all the way up to 55 gallon drums.

Well I'll be darned, I must have used lousy search words because I couldn't find these when I Googled...An I consider myself to be a Google master.

Ahh well, a little competition is always a good thing. And besides... our tri-extruded (three layer) bags have been designed specifically with the homebrewer in mind. The various resins we will use in our bags provide minimal O2 permeability as well as no flavors or smells being absorbed by the wort from the plastic during the fermentation process. Also our closed system manufacturing process ensures the inside of the bag will be sterile until you open it.

Of course this is all simply speculation.. really we've only designed a manufacturing process along with the proper combination of plastics. We hand made a couple of bags each to use for testing and thus far our results at home have been pretty positive. We are still trying to figure out if it's worth creating a small business out of this and shelling out the start-up money.

Thanks for the link!

 

[Corkster]

i can see siphoning being a real PITA with the bag getting sucked into the hose

The plastic liner will remain fairly stationary during the siphoning process. The weight of the wort and the long time fermenting will push the bag pretty solidly against the side of the bucket unless you manually move the bag.

 

[Corkster]

I hate to be that guy but.......... Are we that lazy? Why not just save the landfill and wash out the reusable bucket. I agree with Almighty. I am not a fan of one use items. It has turned us into a throw away society that moved all of our plastics manufacturing to china. Not good any way you look at it.

Why not design a re-usable high temp bag and market it to people for a "brew in a bag" system?

I understand your concerns here. and honestly, yes.. many of us have become that lazy. But honestly, the time saving benefits of this liner are only one of the benefits that it provides. The biggest benefit (in my mind anyway) is the fact that these bags (on the inside anyway) are sterile from the onset thereby much reducing the risk of contamination. And being able to use any bucket opens up the opportunity to brew more batches without spending a bunch of money on special buckets.

As for high temperatures, I know that these bags can withstand wort up to 150 degrees F. with no problems, I have not tested them beyond that temp yet to see just how high a temperature they can withstand.

 

[Corkster]

I could see it being something to use on occasion. One thing I would look for is very low oxygen permeability; could it be designed with this in mind to counter one of the 'drawbacks' of a bucket?

While these bags are not considered to be a vapor barrier, the blend of high linear and low linear density resins as well as being tri-extruded (three layer) at 3 mil thickness definitely provide a much lower oxygen permeability than a bucket alone does.

 

[Corkster]

Well, there is a value to throwing out a liner.

With the liner I can stack my buckets and not worry about minute scratches thusly, my buckets will have a longer useful life than many do therefore staying out of landfill.

And the Reynolds bags do break down over time from UV exposure but they are pH and heat resistant.

Well I'll be darned...there is a benefit I had not even considered! Thanks for the input!

 

[CoolBrewing]

Just came upon this old post and like this idea.. did this every come to production?