When I first started brewing on my own, I bought a cheap turkey fryer with an aluminum pot, a cooler and a 5-gallon bucket. I went through MANY iterations of my brewing system. I bought a bunch of 2x4s and built three stands to brew on a gravity fed three-tier system. I did away with the stands and bought pumps. I bought nicer, stainless steel kettles that looked really cool. I bought a nicer sparge arm, nicer fermenters, nicer everything.
I could never really settle on the brew system that worked best for me, but at least it looked cool.
And then I found brew in a bag.
It was sort of happenstance that I even gave BIAB a chance. I had just moved into a new house that had a gas stove. All of my brew equipment was stashed away in the garage. It was cold outside. So I decided to brew a small batch on our stove and see how it turned out.
I quickly realized that the small batch I brewed on the stove was easier to brew than anything I'd previously done. And it tasted just as good, if not better! A few months later, I convinced my wife to let me splurge on an electric BIAB system. Since then, I've probably brewed close to 200 beers on my little one-kettle system. People are constantly surprised when they see how easy, fast and efficient it is to brew in a bag. It takes me roughly 20 minutes to heat my ground temp water up to mash temp....IN THE WINTER! From mash temp to boil takes about 10 minutes. My brew days, with cleanup, take around 3 hours.
So when I started looking at brewing equipment, I immediately thought GIANT EBIAB!
I did a lot of research and learned that there aren't a lot of options out there for microbrewery sized electric brew in a bag systems. And no one in Kansas City was using them. I remember a friend asking me if people would take me serious brewing on an giant sized brew in a bag system.
I hopped on a flight to Colorado last March to go watch my brew system in action. I remember standing in the production facility looking at a map on the wall with tiny pins that represent breweries around the world who are using this system. There were none in Kansas City.
Fast-forward to now, and you'd be shocked to know just how many Kansas City breweries are using this system. I can name four others without even having to think about it, and these breweries are putting out some of the best beer in Kansas City right now.
Last Monday, my giant EBIAB system arrived, along with eight fermenters. Since then, I've also received my canning equipment, glycol system, keg washer, eight barrels ready for beer, RO system and lots of other fun stuff.
For months I've been waiting on my equipment to arrive, and it's finally here!