On a mission to help more people homebrew

Hi everybody!

I joined this site to learn how homebrewers think, what motivates them, and find some insight into how I can get more people into this wonderful hobby.

I'm the owner of LINK REMOVED, a brew kit company, and the inventor of what's possibly the easiest to use, cheapest brew kit ever made. As much as I wish that were enough, it's going to take a ton of reading, listening, asking questions, and flat-out guessing to make this work.

I'm running under the assumption that if other people tried basic homebrewing just once, even with unconventional equipment that they'll throw away when they're done, then maybe they'd move on to something bigger and really get into it.

What do you think?

I don't see anything on your site about homebewing...Just making hooch in three days with fruitjuice and yeast. I don't want to sound mean, but that's not really homebrewing, people in prison and teenagers do that. We usually try to dissuade folks from doing that in favor of making quality beverages, with a little skill, attention to sanitary practices, proper yeast pitching rates, aeration, nutrients, and patience.

Quite frankly when we come upon an ad for a product like yours...especially one with such a "lofty" mission, we start threads on here where we laugh at it, and how bad the product more than likely be, especially if it's to be done in ONLY 3 days.

But getting into semantics, homebrewing is the hobby of making beer, a product made from Barley, Water, Hops, and yeast.....nothing on your website indicates any of that. Wine making is the closest to what you're selling....but only just, because even "quick wines" take longer than 3 days to make. Cider making is the art of hard ciders, and mead making is making a beverage from fermenting honey.

If you're on a "mission" to help folks homebrew...maybe you want to understand a little about what homebrewing is, before selling a product.

We here are on a mission to help more people homebrew, the right way.

Yeah, I'm with Revvy on this. That's not home brewing. I could do the same thing with a simple stroll into the kitchen and it would undoubtedly turn out better. Why? Because I've leasrned how to brew and wouldn't just be throwing juice into a sack of yeast. Ugh.

Like this product like yours from Thinkgeek we have a bunch of threads laughing at it....14% in 3 days...


Threads like this.

Or this

Or....

And this one....

or this one.

Not to mention Hilarious Intro to FermentationWith this great comment.

cclloyd said:

Hey kids! Make your own "Ass in a bottle"! Amuse your friends! Be the life of the party - get yours TODAY!!

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As you can see few of these products are much respected on here.....It's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to make something that tastes remotely good the way you suggest AND ESPECIALLY in the timeframe you suggest. Rather than drawing more people into this great hobby, products like yours usually turn folks AWAY from home fermenting.

And get us the kind of reputation that the Buffalo Wild Wings Commercial poked fun at.



If your hearts in the right place, and not your eyes on dollar signs, you WON'T peddle a product like that, and in fact look for selling products that would represent the hobby, more realistically......

Homebrewing for the rest of us....lol

To be honest, even though there is a link to HBT on the site, it's a very long stretch to call that homebrewing.

It's at best winemaking. You really don't have any instructions on how to make beer with that kit.

I agree that more people would enjoy homebrewing if the equipment and process were simplified, but if it were really possible to make high quality beer easier, we all be doing it. The Mr. Beer is pretty close and lots of people use it, but then if they like the beer and the hobby, they upgrade.

Revvy said:

And get us the kind of reputation that the Buffalo Wild Wings Commercial poked fun at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zM5P5iOKzI

.

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I've sworn to never go to another BWW since that ad. bless that, I make better beer than anything that place has and my wife makes better juice wine that that thing could.

I think the bottom line here is that calling a pack of yeast designed to ferment juice a "home brewing" kit is kind of off putting to a group of (mostly) very heady home brewers. Fact is, many of us take measures to expand our processes in order to make better beer, not simplify them. And as for that being a good way to get a beginner into the hobby, I call malarkey on that too. A beginner should be given the best chance possible to make a quality first brew. That way they get the same good feeling as I do when they taste their beer. They like it, and want to brew more.

I think the vast majority of people in this forum find brewing to involve skill and actual moments of thinking about the process involved, not just dumping **** in a bag and making ass juice hooch.

Ass juice hooch!!! Do I detect a new "recipe forum" thread?

I´m a noob too I do have 35+ batches under my belt anyway but I haven´t been homebrewing for long (I started in March). I wasn´t new at beer or beer/wine tasting or homebrewing theory, I´ve read for almost three years before I started brewing (saving money for the equip I wanted meanwhile), and I literally read everything I could get my eyes on, I´ve even learn english (I still struggle with it) to be able to read some books... so I have put a lot of effort (and I´m still doing it) to improve my technique and my beer. That website it´s a little misleading for unexperienced people wanting to learn what homebrewing is... that´s not homebrewing... that´s as stated above hooch-making. A little advice from a noob: learn first sell later. HBT is a great source of practice advice from experienced brewers and there is a big effort from a lot of people to make homebrewing as Reevy said "the rigth way", take advice from them and search trough this website. Read at least a couple of homebrewing books any of the classics will do and see where you want to go from there.
Just my 2 cents.

Looks like your mission should start with a LOT more research. You came to the right place. We might be blatantly honest sometimes, but at least wer're honest. If you're looking for a new kit to offer, you should check this out. It was an idea posted in another thread.

Jacob_Marley said:

My neighbor who makes wine has been thinking about Halloween treats and asked for an alcoholic suggestion, so I suggested he ferment juice boxes and hand them out.

I said EC-1118 would probably work if injected through the foil seal - and probably wouldn't need an air lock if a hypodermic syringe was used for the yeast injection ... maybe just a piece of tape over the seal afterwards.

Not for handing out to the kiddies ...

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+1 on what everyone said here. I did not look at any links do to the post ive read already. It seems to me that this could be almost insulting to home brewers that want good beer and for the hobby and not to make "@ss juice" (lol).

Eaten alive in under and hour, nice

Seriously though, I appreciate the honesty. And it's great to hear what the homebrewing community thinks vs other groups of people. I've already been able to draw a few conclusions, notably that experienced homebrewers are proud of what they brew.

QuickDraw is not perfect yet, I know. The biggest piece I can fix is the messaging. Like it or not, it's sterile, water-tight, safe for food, and includes and airlock. It must have some application that's useful. Nothing says you can't ferment a well-composed wort in the container and use your own yeast, right?

Instead of putting my head in a hole and giving up, I'll use what criticism I find to improve what I'm offering. Regardless of what it's called, what would you do with it? Small-batch recipe experiments maybe?

No self promotion without a vendor license.