Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

How many people out there brew electric style? and or hybrid? i know there are a few but i bet there are more that i dont know.

I brew all electric, and have for awhile, its nice brewing indoors.

I still brew with an electric HLT. I switched over to a gas BK but am seriously considering going back to electric with the new Blichmann Boil Coil.

Will let you know how it works when it's up and running. This buying and selling a house has cut into brew time I have a new shiny boiler maker and boil coil I haven't used yet

Why did you switch back to gas?

I bought a new kettle with a whirlpool arm and wanted to play around with it for awhile before punching a hole for an element. I also wasn't convinced it would whirlpool very well with a standard heating element. Having used propane for 18 months, I'm mostly just looking for something more convenient - i.e. natural gas or electric. Gas has a lot of nice features - improved steam management, heating through the entire sparge process, & heating up a cold garage in the winter.

Well for what it's worth. I had pretty good luck with my using the standard element and a kettle the placement of th grub pile was slightly different than expected.
It was off center by worked well

Cold garage is what drove me to electric brewing

I'm working on a hybrid system. Electric for hlt/herms and propane for the bk.

Herms is nice. I took the suggestion of Lee and my stainless counter flow wort chiller is doubling as a Herms coil nor fittings but less holes to drill

The downside of the CF chiller for HERMS is that you need 2 pumps.

carrisr wrote:The downside of the CF chiller for HERMS is that you need 2 pumps.

Wouldn't you want 2 pumps with a traditional HERMS or a CFC acting as your HERMS? You still want to recirculate the HLT fluid to keep temps more stable?

I've seen systems where folks use aquarium air pumps to blow bubbles in the HLT to churn it up. Cheaper than a second pump.

Good point, but you would still need to mix the hlt

I have 2 pumps. I am just on the fence about adding automation (propane or NG) or waiting a while to do electric. Either way I think I will go the CFC route for a 2 fer 1 utilization.

I am very happy I did