My Starter Bit arrived, Yay!!! Not enough light left to put the Maslow together and fire it up today so I’m going to brew a 5 gallon batch of beer, or 19 liters for my non US peeps. As many of us have overlapping skill sets i thought I’d ask if anyone else here is into brewing? I think it would be awesome to develope a wood brew sculpture.
Thanks
For those interested, the Beer was dry pitched wit US safe ale 05 yeast. Fluctuation started within 35 min. It is a last Extract Brew Kit I had laying around. It is a morebeer berry beer kit. Fermentables were to be 4lbs of Ultralight Extract, 2lbs of Bavarian Wheat, 4oz of Maltodextrose
The kit was missing the Maltodextrose & Bavarian Wheat. With the brew underway I used the included 4oz of corn sugar, added 2 cups of mccain’s oatmeal & 2oz of Malted Milk. We’ll see how it turns out but it’s fermenting well so far.
If you want to see the kit 
https://www.morebeer.com/products/berry-beer-extract-kit.html
Just getting back into brewing after too long of a break while I re-built the house. That’s been a LONG project, but the inspections have all been passed and the permits are all final.
I have only brewed extract beers, but have wanted to try all-grain for a long time. I am modifying a 3-keg sculpture I bought a couple weeks back, I’m automating it and converting it from propane to electric. Hoping I can make some headway on that project this weekend.
I still do a full boil in a 7 gallon stainless pot over propane. I went to all grain and had this 1 kit left.
Have you seen the Grainfather system? Very cool on the brew sculpture. Where are you located roughly?
It’s been a little while, but brewing is on my long list of hobbies. I prefer doing the boil on gas myself, I tried once on an electric and it took fooooooooooooreever! Maybe that was the stove I was using, but I like gas much more myself.
I use my Maslow to make furniture, so a sculpture would just make sense. Thanks @Bee, now I have more projects for my machine! 
The trick to Electric brewing is using the element from a hot tub/spa. I prefer that gas is analog. I can brew in the woods if I have the ingredients. It can be off grid. If you’re into all grain and don’t mind electric the Grainfather is as close to a 1 stop shop for brewing. It’s slower on US AC power. it was developed in europe. I am considering a Grainfather for it’s convenience. I can tell you every few years I go to brew and run out of gas, I have to race out to get a refill. It’s nice to not have to worry that could happen.
I’m up in the Pacific Northwest, between Seattle and Tacoma.
I brewed over propane for years, but at the advice of some brewing friends, I am switching my all-grain setup to electric. All the guys I know that do big batches (10 gallons or more into the fermenter) run electric systems. I’ve run propane tanks dry mid-boil, I always made sure I had a full spare tank on hand on brew-days.
According to the guy I bought it from, my sculpture wiped out a tank of propane in a typical batch if he ran it hard (hour long mash, 75 to 90 minute boil). That’s like $20 in propane per batch. Once converted, I won’t use more than a couple dollars of electricity per batch. Also a LOT less noise (like none) with electric.
I’m using an ULWD water heater element in the kettle and the HLT, each one is 5500 watt, so I should be able to get a nice rolling boil in my keggle without waiting too long. I’ll use a PWM controller to reduce the chance of scorching once it is at a boil. I have a 60A circuit wired in to run the brewing rig, just need to assemble the rest of the parts, finish up the welding, and wire up the control panel.
Yeah, I looked at the new all-in-one systems. Those are pretty neat. I went old-school, 3 kegs and a couple pumps, namely because the price was right.
Have you guys seen the Tilt wireless fermentation monitor? Those look REALLY cool.
For 5 gallon batches I do it all the hard way, stainless steel top, & glass carboys so far. I carry it around manually. I’m both lazy and see it as a exercise program. My brewing budy is trying to get me to go to the Grainfather. If you like to brew it’s pretty nice setup.
My sister sent me this -
it’s sort of a Mr Coffee of craft brew. I tried to tell her it’s too expensive that way. If I go electric I will probably never to back to propane. I only brew a few times a year at the moment.
Your system sounds pretty solid. Keep up the good work.
