James Veitch

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University of Nottingham > Engineering > Departments > Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering > PDM Exhibitions > 2024 > MEng students > James Veitch

Designing a comprehensive beer homebrewing machine.

I am a 22-year old graduate designer from Yorkshire, UK. During my free time I like to ride mountain bikes, cook new dishes, listen to history podcasts, do pub quizzes, and travel - in the summer of 2024, I will be doing the Mongol Rally with some friends, a challenge to drive a ridiculously unsuitable car from the UK to Mongolia.

I decided to study Product Design and Manufacture at the University of Nottingham due to my love of prototyping and getting hands on with the design process with testing, as well as the emphasis on manufacturability, which provides the satisfaction of finishing a project and knowing the design that was produced is able to be manufactured and used in the real world. Since coming to university, I have also developed a passion for rendering with my main software learnt so far being Keyshot, I have completed a Will Gibbons course in Keyshot to further my skills, and have started to learn new software including Lumion.

I am looking for a graduate position that could offer me the chance of being involved in all stages of the product design process, or one that focuses more on rendering.

James Veitch, MEng Product Design and Manufacture

Behance

Brewhaus - Home Beer Brewing Machine

For my Major Project I designed the Brewhaus, a beer homebrewing machine.

I was inspired to pick this product after completing my first homebrew, where I spent several hours sporadically changing the temperature of a large pan over a stove, a tedious and inaccurate process, and one that inevitably produced a stale-tasting and almost undrinkable beer. After looking at existing alternatives to this homebrewing system I found that they were expensive, unrewarding to use, or unpractical and required excessive fridge and kitchen space to use.

I decided to design the Brewhaus to appeal to both novice and experienced users by enabling users to make the process as simple or complex as they are comfortable with. The brew can be automatically or manually set up, with the user able to load default recipes or set their own parameters for water flow and temperature, allowing for experimentation with new recipes. Users can source their own ingredients for use in the product from a homebrew store or online, so are not reliant on a specific company providing compatible ingredients. The addition of the water tank also allows for water adjustments, with experienced users able to make pH or water hardness changes. After setting up, the product automatically controls the temperature and water flow, for an accurate brew with predictable results. I designed the product to be representative of what you'd find in a real-life brewery, with each sub-assembly having its own specific function in the process, so the user is able to see the beer progress from raw ingredients to a finished product as it travels through the product.