Wondering if there may be room in AHA on-line or in Zymurgy magazine for a Do-It-Yourself brew system section? I like to look at the brew set ups in “Pimp My System” for the same reason I like to look at restored and tricked out cars at the auto shows, they are interesting and awesome to look at but largely unattainable by most people. Most of these systems cost in the thousands of dollars if not more. Nice but only a few can afford to build them. They may be owner built and operated but still the club is limited.
Wondering if a similar section about systems costing in the hundreds of dollars could be developed. “Charlie Asks”, a system capacity survey on the AHA home page, reports that 60% of respondents have 5 to 10 gallon systems. I believe most of these brewers have just moved out of the kitchen and into the garage, built a simple plywood bench, heat with a 10" propane burner and brew by hand without automated computer controlled pump systems.
With so many brewers using a simple but cost effective garage based home built system I suspect there would be a lot of interest in a DIY brewing system section. A DIY section would also attract advertisers with $200 8-10 gallon brew pots, $100 propane burners, $50 cooler / mash tuns and various accessories.
Would anyone else be interested in getting ideas of how the average working person moved from the kitchen into the garage and the affordable brewing systems they put together?