Those are nice pots. These days I use it for CIP.
Homebrewing is not growing. The new automated electic systems are what new homebrewers are attracted to. If I ever move my halfbarrel propane fueled system would probably have to be given away, and i would get an automated all in one electric system.
PM sent to see if we can work out the details.
Just my opinion but I think it’s a bigger issue in general and not just homebrewing.
The whole “DIY” culture has been on a decline for decades. Farmers are probably the epitamy of DIY and that industry is not anwhere near what is was 20 or 30 years ago. The manufacturing industry (in the United States and probably elsewhere) was everywhere but has mostly all up and went to countries with humongous populations and easily exploitable labor forces. I think that industry used to foster a ton of creativity. People would work with the same laborious process for a 10 or 12 hour shift and sometimes it would spark certain individuals to “do it better”. That mindset branched out into many other areas - like homebrewing - where people wanted to do “do it better”. I think the DIY’ers are still out there but they don’t have the same impetus to get them fired up, or challenged. I dunno… Maybe I just got too many hypothesis…
and yeah, the electric brewing systems are hard to beat. Less to clean, take up less space, no fuel “to buy”, can be used indoors and the Foundry comes with a nice chiller to boot. 
Like any other “skill”, making good beer at home takes time, practice, and patience. And although one can get away with using relatively primitive equipment, it still takes hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, as well as many many many brews, to get to the point where your homebrew rivals what you can buy at the store.
I’m not sure I buy that homebrewing has become more popular due to the pandemic. Certain LHBS’s may have increased sales, but…does anyone have any (current!) data that suggests a direction for the hobby? Perhaps it is indeed a regional thing. In my region (Sacramento area) it definitely appears to be on the decline.
It’s a very niche hobby. And among all the other pressing concerns of our modern era, many being an actual existential crisis, I can understand why fewer people would take up the hobby.
It’s an imperfect proxy, but Google trends is the closest thing I’ve seen regarding data about homebrewing’s popularity. If you go to trends.google.com and punch in homebrewing as a topic you’ll see it peaked around 2011 and has been declining since.
Anecdotally that peak is around the same time I remember running into lots of random people from diverse backgrounds who were into homebrewing. I can’t recall the last time I ran into another homebrewer in the wild, outside of beer-specific events.
The DIY Maker thing has moved on to the BBQ and Meat Smoking area, as i see it.
Agreed on the diy focus on food. Baking had a brief moment during the early days of the pandemic as well. I’m still surprised at the number and variety of people I meet who still follow great British bakeoff.
I must say that among homebrewers that I meet, a majority are also “foodies” with either/and a baking, cooking, smoking meat or barbecue passion. I can’t say that the reverse is true. But cookbooks and niche cuisine has always seemed popular (just watch PBS on any given Saturday afternoon). Homebrewing has received occasional mention in those venues, but not much of a focus on it.
But that is ok. Most people who know me start every conversation with “what have you been brewing lately?” That and asking for a beer.
I sure hope the hobby has viability, even if the numbers are declining.
It is interesting to look at the Google trends. It works great for them what people are looking for (and try to monetize those words).
On the other hand just because I am
Looking for something does not mean I am doing it or buying it. Or in the reverse just because I am not searching for something does not mean that I am not doing it (absence of data).
I compare two car companies. Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen. First company had much more searches then second but there is more cars driven by second company then first.
It is not just kettles and mash tuns. All used gear is moving much more slowly than I have seen previously. On a bright note, I forgot about ready source of buyers; namely, members of my old brewing club. I managed to sell off several items to club members. I also moved a kettle and the mash/lauter tun earlier this week and moving 5-gallon kegs tomorrow. It was a good week for selling used homebrewing gear.
(Colorado)
I was at my LHBS last week and it was busy. They have everything too it’s great.
They also have contracts with a few breweries to supply ingredients so that helps too.
Also from an equipment standpoint I just use a cheap 48 qt Coleman for a mash tun and a brew kettle and a small kettle for strike/sparge water. I don’t see myself upgrading anytime soon.
thats exactly what i have. this used to be the most common intermediate level setup for a long time i thought. should make a term for it:
cooler&kettle ? i call the kettle a pot i guess even though its 8 gallons. second one is 2.5 gallons
Yeah my strike/sparge kettle/pot lol is 8 gallons, boil kettle is 10 gallons, and my mash tun Coleman is a cooler I think I missed that. I heat up my strike sparge on my kitchen stove and then boil on propane.
I can see how it can be hard to sell equipment though especially when one can drill a couple of holes and get some fittings and they are off to the races.
It depends on what one wants. My first all-grain brewhouse in 1993 was DIY because that was the only way one was going to brew all-grain beer. I also kept a yeast bank on agar slants for a very long time. There is no longer a need to DIY a brewhouse any more than there is a need to keep one’s own yeast bank.
The stuff I sold was all top-shelf gear. There are people aspire to have top-shelf gear, but do not want to pay the cost of new. That is where used comes into the equation. The lowest end piece of gear I sold was my 10-gallon industrial Igloo cooler-based mash/lauter, but even that cost me the better part $150.00 to build. Heck, the cooler alone cost $75. The false bottom cost $40.00. I used a custom-machined bulkhead and other quality fittings (I have paid my dues dealing with off-the-shelf standard NPT parts for bulkheads). It all adds up. However, the mash-tun was optimized for continuous sparging. False bottom and tun design are critical when continuous sparging.
One can use any 10-gallon stock pot to boil wort, but one cannot use any 10-gallon stock pot with a portable 3500W induction range. The stock pot has to be induction ready and better quality than the Bayou Classic garbage if one wants to be efficient. I have not brewed with propane in a long time. Same thing can be said about a mash/lauter tun. If one wants cheap, nothing is cheaper than a Zapap lauter tun. As I mentioned earlier, what one desires dictates cost.
Yeah it’s a hobby and it depends what you want out of it. All of my pots are induction ready if need be but I got them at a kitchen supply store for a very good deal a few years ago. My Coleman mash tun with stainless fitting and bazooka screen costs around $60-70 all set and done. In it around $200+ dollars for this equipment.
Some people like the bling and ease of use.
Now I do have a homemade kegerator for fermenting and serving so I’m down the rabbit hole somewhat to that end. I also have a tilt so another convenience lol. The rabbit hole is hard to avoid.