Hello everyone! My friend and I are working on a National Science Foundation project that can assist beer homebrewing enthusiasts by alleviating the issues they face often during the process.
We are hoping to speak to homebrewers and ask them about their experiences on the topic (their process, what they find enjoyable/challenging about brewing, and so on). This valuable input will help us refine our project so it can tackle common brewing difficulties and provide brewers with thorough information on their batches. If you are a homebrewer and would like to share your experiences with us through a short phone interview, please send us a message and we will respond back.
Any input you can offer will be greatly appreciated, and will help towards creating something that we hope is beneficial to all homebrewers. Thank you for your consideration!
How are you going to help home brewers if you have little or no knowledge of the hobby?
First, I would suggest you gain the knowledge needed to be more specific in your requests. Second, brew a few batches using various techniques. Third, refine your process until you brew great beer. Then, and only then, will you be qualified to address the things home brewers face.
I can’t help but say, simply read the posts on this and other fora and you will easily glean all of that information, other than each person’s specific process. That likely can only be generalized based on equipment implemented, anyway…but I wish you the best in your research.
Thank you guys for your input.
Just to clarify, our project leader is actually a homebrewer and has been brewing for the last 7 years. The idea for this project arose from his own experiences and the issues he has faced while brewing beer. However, we realize that not every homebrewer will run into the same problems our project leader has faced.
This is what our project is about: compiling the issues that brewers encounter from as many people as possible, using their first-hand accounts. Once we have a large-enough pool of these known issues, we can start finding ways to alleviate them.
If anyone would like to offer their brewing experiences, please let us know. We would greatly appreciate, since each first-hand account is unique and would give us good insight into how the brewing process varies between different people.
The issues and challenges of making beer are as varied as the number of brewers. Overcoming these are part of what I enjoy about the hobby. Most of the answers are already out there for those curious enough to look.
I will throw this out there for you. Brewing takes time and patience. It can be a lengthy process. One step that might be worth looking into is the process of bringing wort to boil. Specifically how to quickly bring the wort to boil without scorching it, without boil-over, and without having to watch it like a hawk. This is one step in my brew day that takes time, and anything you can do to help shorten a brew day, or free up that time would be beneficial.
My biggest issue is running out of gas when I get my hlt going or when I’m in the middle of a boil. If you want to learn about my experience brewing perhaps you can join me in my backyard one afternoon. You can help stir my mash and I’ll even let you pitch the hops. If you’re really into it you can pitch the yeast after we crash the beer and if you’re really really wanting to know about my experience you can wait around for 2-4 weeks to sample the final product.
OK they sound like they are developing a product and want input for free to make some money but, heck that is kind of how it works.
OP not the right approach, as you probably have guessed.
If you want participation you need to help your self a bit. What are you asking about? I know you are developing something so you are paranoid someone is going to “steal” your idea ( I worked for inventors once a long time ago), but that is not going to get you anywhere here. So share a bit about what you are looking to do. You should be able to do that with out exposing too much. Then maybe you will get some answerers. The question as posed is pretty meaningless. What causes me problems?
Cost of, well everything.
Time, of well everything.
Are you going to “fix” any of that? No!
So we all guessed that you will eventually want to sell us something. That is OK just ask about what you want to know. Also it would not hurt to know the topic a bit. If your lead is a brewer then have him ask so he asks something that makes sense.
