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What if there were a machine—a beautiful shiny machine—and all it did, with almost no work from you, was make you beer? Such was the dream that drove PopSci staff photographer John Carnett to spend weeks building what he simply refers to as “the Device”: a stainless-steel two-cart brewing system that starts by boiling extract—concentrated wort, or pre-fermented beer—and ends with a chilled pint.

  • Dept: You Built What?!
  • Time: 3 months
  • Cost: $4,315
  • Difficulty: easy | | | | | hard (Editor’s note: 4/5)

In most home-brewing setups, each step in the process requires moving the beer to a new container by hand, which increases the chance of contamination and requires you to lift stuff. Carnett’s machine keeps everything in the carts’ closed system and requires only that he swap a few CO2-pressurized hoses to move the liquid along. It also employs a complex temperature-control system to regulate the fermentation (often done in a corner of a basement) to within a degree or two. A couple weeks later, the same system chills the beer on its way from keg to tap, so the Device is always ready with a cold pour and consumes no power when it’s not serving or fermenting.

The next step: adding a third cart to make wort from raw grain instead of extract. But, says Carnett, there’s a lot of “testing” of this design to be done first.

The boil keg entry point for a beer-brewing device.
Concentrated wort extract goes into the boil keg along with water and hops. A propane burner heats the mix for about 90 minutes. John B. Carnett
Some plastic tubes moving boiled wort through a beer-brewing device.
After the boil, the wort moves through a heat exchanger, cooling it to between 53 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit before it reaches the fermenting tank. John B. Carnett
An electronic temperature controller and some copper tubing moving water through a beer-brewing device.
An electronic controller monitors the temperature inside the fermenting keg; When it needs cooling, a pump circulates water through a nest of copper tubing sitting on a cold plate—chilled by Freon in its interior—and wrapped around the keg. John B. Carnett
Steel tanks in a beer-brewing device.
After 10 to 15 days, depending on the brew, the wort becomes beer. Carnett swaps hoses and turns a valve to move the beer to one of two settling kegs, where the CO2 tank adds carbonation and debris falls to the bottom. John B. Carnett
A keg spigot and a glass full of amber beer.
Finally, the beer moves into one of two serving kegs. Pull the tap, and the beer travels through the cold plate, so it’s chilled on the way to your glass, eliminating the need for constant cooling and ensuring a frosty brew anytime. John B. Carnett
The ultimate all-in-one beer brewing machine

This story has been updated. It was originally featured in the September 2007 issue of Popular Science magazine.

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