Most traditional beer fermenting methods can take a month or more to produce quality home-brewed beer. Whirlpool has decided to tap into the home-brewing beer industry by crowdfunding their own system for making beer at home. Whirlpool’s Vessi is a system that can ferment, carbonate and dispense home-brewed beer in as little as seven days and requires no expertise.
Specifically this product comes out of Whirlpool’s W Labs. Noel Dolan, Senior Marketing and Open Innovation Manager at Whirlpool explained, “It’s a sealed, temperature- and pressure-controlled system that will help you manage the complete fermentation process. Once you’ve created your wort and you put it in this unit, this unit will keep it sealed and it’s pressured and it’s temperature controlled, therefore creating the optimal environment to create great-tasting beer.” Dolan claims the inspiration behind the Vessi is the result of several Whirlpool employees hoping to get rid of some of the issues with cold brewing, “We’ve had the pleasure of working with some Michigan breweries that have provided substantial feedback as well as home brewers. Our Brewmaster works on our Global Consumer Design team, and he has over 29 years of brewing experience. We’ve also identified about 40 home brewers who work at Whirlpool, that have been nicknamed our ‘beer group.’ We have involved them every step of the way, from naming the product to using it to ferment their beer.”
The Vessi is perhaps best for serious home brewers as it is 24 inches by 24 inches and 36 inches tall and will take up a little bit of kitchen space. It features an 8-gallon tank, temperature and pressure controls, an adjustable valve for releasing byproducts that come with the fermentation process and a sediment removal system. A tap is also conveniently placed onto the machine. Dolan believes the Vessi system is a game changer amongst other home brewing systems that are already on the market. Since the Vessi provides the ability for temperature control, brewers can ensure that the yeast is always active and therefore there is a smaller chance of an off-tasting beer being produced. The brewing of beer is a two-step process, the brew process and the fermentation process. The Vessi specifically focuses on the fermentation process as Dolan explained, “We didn’t want to mess with the part that they [brewers] feel is their specialty and creating their art. What we wanted to help them with is the pain points we were hearing, which is the second part of the process, the fermentation process, managing the temperature and pressure and carbonating.”
Currently the Vessi is being crowdfunded through Indiegogo, where you can back one now for $1,400 or get one for about $1,800 if you decide to purchase later on.
Images via W Labs
Article Written by Mila Medonaite for Design Engine, June 2, 2016