I am taking an entrepreneurship course for my masters degree and we were asked to develop a new idea or product to form a business. My team and I are big fans of craft beer and elected to choose a product for home brewers. I will clearly state that this is not currently a real product and we are not currently building this to start a business but trying to learn the process and need customer feedback.
Our idea is to create a wort chiller kit. At least when we brew, we use an immersion coil but when shopping you have to look for various fittings and hose to ensure the system will work. We are proposing as our idea an all inclusive kit that can be assembled at home. A graphic of our idea is in the google drive link provided: wort chiller.PNG - Google Drive
The goal is to provide all equipment shown (except for the brew pot and fermenter) for $149.99 (have to provide a retail price).
Our biggest questions:
Do home brewers want a kit they can build at home of all of these pieces? Or a single product that can be hooked up from brew pot to fermenter?
Is this an acceptable price point?
Is a kit something you would be interested in?
We would love to hear any other feedback you have as well.
Understood. The differentiation was intended to be supplying all of the parts. Right now, when purchasing a counterflow chiller, the user purchases the chiller and then makes separate purchases for the hosing and fittings.
The goal of this product was to provide all of the necessary parts as a kit for assembly. Options would be provided based on desired hose length and fittings required.
When it comes to equipment, I think most homebrewers either like to go full DIY and design/create for themselves, or they’re looking for something to make their process easier and “just works” right out of the box. This seems to target a middle area in between these two groups, and I’d have some concerns that there wouldn’t be much interest in this type of kit.
Also, the chiller market can be rather competitive as to what works the fastest. For the price point you’re listing, I’d want to see some real world numbers for how fast it can chill 5 gallons of beer down to pitching temps.
One comment: The item appears to be made of stainless steel. This is both good and bad. The good is the fact that stainless avoids the Fenton reaction concerns associated with copper, so some see that as a plus for stainless use. The bad is that stainless is not as good of a conductor of temperature as copper is. Others may see more in either direction to note for you. My point is that you might want to include the product composition for the consumer. I appreciate that this is just a short diagram that you have provided and I note the references to counterflow chillers made by others, which is certainly true enough.
I would also like to see some data on potential cooling efficiency. Although the idea is novel, it might not have the same cooling power as a counterfloiw chiller which spirials the wort down the inner tube to expose it to more surface area of the cooling medium in the outer jacket. Although I may be totally off base here, my gut tells me it may not be as efficient since the wort is traveling down a straight tube.
If the group feels that cooling wort is a space that is already pretty crowded, would there be interest in a product that keeps the beer at a lower fermentation temperature?
so if you are using lager yeast and need to keep it at 40 degrees, would there be interest in a chiller that does not require changing the ice every couple of hours? something that runs on electricity to cool the fermenting beer?
I appreciate the feedback. Hoping to come up with the right idea.