Those of you that have researched the wonderful world of bottling in a effort to start your own line will know that kit isn't cheap. We were told that unless we have 150k (£) - about 300,000USD, then don't even bother. We of course ignored that advice and managed to do it on a lot less.

Nevertheless the problem still exists. Doing it yourself is fine, but you still need large amounts of money as you grow to expand.

We're something of the tinkering kind here at the Fizz Factory. We built our own Pasteuriser, and now we build them for sale. 25% bigger and 33% cheaper than the competitions in-bottle pasteurisers, and a darn sight more insulated and stronger too.

Now we're working on the next step. How long it will take we don't know, so don't expect something this month, or even the next 3-6 months, but it's coming.

We want to build a scaleable, semi-automated bottling system that we can supply either as fully built, as a kit, or simply a schematic that you can source your own parts for.

It uses micro-processors to control the fill levels, so no having to worry about staff making mistakes. It would also allow for expansion with conveyor belt feeding and the like.

The idea is that it uses cheap, inexpensive parts that can be purchased from many places. It won't be designed to last 10 years, but it will be designed to be fixed for £20 or so, irrespective of what part goes wrong.

If you would like a single filling head as a home-brewer and would like to build it yourself then you would be able to. Alternatively if you expand to become a micro-brewery and need to have 10 filling heads operating simultaneously then you simply buy 9 more filling heads and they would work. Simples.

We'd just love to know if people are interested, so please let us know.