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New brewing Method Means Faster Beer, Less Waste
thatshortkid writes "A brewmaster in Germany has invented a cylinder that fuses yeast to the sides, allowing the yeast to do its fermentation job faster. A process that normally takes 10 days now takes a few hours. Also, yeast that normally has to be changed out after three brews can now last up to six months to a year."
will beer prices actually go down?
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain.
They'll be a downside. It will all taste like shit (coors, heineken) or something.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
*hic*
Now if you can just add a clock and a timer this thing could brew my morning beer before I get up, just like my coffee maker. :-)
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Less Expensive Beer!!!
"I only speak the truth"
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Faster doesn't always mean better.
What does it taste like?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Makes me wonder if the idea doesn't scale well. That said, IAAB (I am a brewer; I worked in a brewpub and brew on premises for several years and home brew), and I wonder if it might not still be a boon (boont? mmm...amber...) to smaller breweries, brewpubs, and especially brew on premises. Most brewpubs go through much smaller amounts of any given beer than they brew, and this might be away to "brew on demand" or the like, and give a fresher product.
For brew on premises customers, instead of brew, wait two weeks, come back and bottle, it could be brew in the morning, bottle in the afternoon, and might appeal to more people that way. I recall a fair number of people who were put off by two week wait.
And all that said, it seems like there will still be call for the more traditional brewing process, as different beers, etc. use different fermenting processes (lager = cooler, bottom-fermenting yeast; barleywine = two fermentations, one with wine yeast; lambic = 'spontaneous' fermentation)
I modded you down for picking on the best beer in the world. Coors does suck though.
The higher profits will be a signal to others that there is money to be made. They will step in, and in order to make money they will use the more efficient methods, undercut the price and sell more, trying to make money like the original pioneer.
The pioneer will then lower their price (or raise their quality) or go out of business.
Since there are more players in the market than before, productive workers originally laid off will be hired by the competition or become the competition themselves.
The winners are consumers who enjoy better quality, lower prices, or most often both.
When another development in efficiency or quality changes the production cost point again, the new profit margins will again signal to ready entrepreneurs that there is money to be made. Consumers enjoy another round of lower prices and higher quality.
If the governments weren't printing money like it was going out of style, a steady deflation would be the rule (again) as this progression of improvements in quality and efficiency continues to occur in every field and industry.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
This sounds cool, but what about mead? I love the stuff but it can take months to find out if the batch is good.
Ahh well some things are worth the wait.
Its Time for NanoBrews! (I'm heading to my lawyers this second to trademark it.. :) )
Personally i don't like beer, i prefer mead. Wonder if we can use this or something similar to make mead faster.
It does however open up faster production of things made ith GM yeast. Possbily if they can get Yeast to produce insulin use this technique to make insulin for diabetics cheaper.
So would this same process work for producing ethanol fuels more efficiently.
I was going to ask "so when does this wonder invention come to home brewing, 'cause I really want to get back into it and my time is a premium" but then I came across this quote from the article:
"Heiliger says that his device takes up about 30 square meters, whereas traditional systems can be up to 300 square meters in size."
Damn. I know a few home brewers out there who would like to be able to go "hm, I have a good idea for a beer", make it in a day, tweak it when it doesn't taste like they expected, and try again as opposed to waiting a couple months for the batch to ferment and such. Some day...*sigh*
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
so he'd want to get water with less in it to duplicate a Northern brew, or switch to a brew that works well with harder water like the other poster suggested, perhaps a pale ale.
So, the only additive that would help would be distiller water.
I just use the freeze-dried instant beer crystals.
Next you'll tell me Jesus turned water into wine with freeze-dried instant wine crystals.
A system to make 15-year single malt scotch in 15 days?
a beowulf cluster of these.......
*thud*
I put it on your tab. Hope you don't mind.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.