Exhaust Fan vs DeHumidifier

Cost wise, not sure there is much difference. Definitely easier to use a dehumidifier. How different is it from making a mondo pot of soup and you don't have the commercial hood sucking out the steam?

Not much different at all if the soup pot is really, really mondo and you are boiling the hell out of it. I don't think your average dehumidifier would be able to keep up with a five gallon full volume roiling boil. Maybe if you had a mondo dehumidifier it would, but those are rather uncommon. You could always run a test by boiling plain water to see what happens. I'm thinking it will get kind of sticky in the room and rather quickly too.

Did you every try the dehumidifier?

I run a dehumidifier in my garage all the time to keep it dry for my woodworking tools. Before I started using an exhaust fan it would take 12 to 14 hours for the dehumidifier to get the humidity level back down to normal after a 1.5 gal boil off. Now, with the exhaust fan it only takes 1 or 2 hours; probably due to humidity in the make up air coming into the garage. The only problem is that the delicious hop/malt aroma is outside now.