I held off saying it before but it is unfair to compare what you have bought to the $7k estimate for the electric brewery as you are not comparable in what you are getting:
10G vs. 20G kettles
Stainless vs. plastic pumps
HERMS vs. RIMS (not saying one is better than the other here)
CFC vs. Plate chiller (again not saying one is better than the other)
And then you also haven't included all the hoses, fittings, additional valves, stand, ventilation, grain mill.
I think I did a quick breakdown as far as I could and I would expect the 2 to be comparable price so you are right you get the benefit of reduced DIY - but you also loss a bit of functionality with no timer, one less temp sensor (I actually don't understand using $100+ just to read a temperature), etc.
Also does the blichmann gear come pre assembled, I would be expecting to have to assemble the stuff as shipping the kettle with the sight glass, thermometer and valve already attached would be awkward and also highly likely to get damaged.
Fair point,
Just to be clear my setup is good for up to 10 gallon batches.
I use a 13gallon stainless boil kettle, a 15gallon keg for the HLT it does have a 25ft herms coil installed (ok this was repurposed)
At the moment I am using a 10gallon igloo beverage cooler for my mashtun until I figure out if I'm going to bother with an insulated stainless one or not for an upgrade.. I have a homemade autosparge with a stainless float sensor.(I'll admit this would be mainly a cosmetic uograde)
bk and MT have bazooka tubes with fine screens.
I use 2 4500w elements for the boil and HLT that now have quick disconnects and 1 1000w stainless element in my rims tube.
My chiller is a long 20 plate model. (duda diesel)
I use stainless fittings,quickdisconnects and silicone hoses from bargain fittings.
I do use three 12v food grade composite pumps that are on pwm speed controllers. (these work perfect for me so no desire to upgrade?) They make it very easy to dial in mash, sparge and chill temps.
All 3 of my pids do have the alarm function hooked up and I do have a dual stage din timer with alarm also
I use a 300micron 6x14 stainless hop screen from Arbor fabrication. (also have a smaller 4x10 I just upgraded from)
That $700 also includes the spa panel and 100ft of 10/3 and breaker as well as misc stuff like my stc1000 fermantation controller, wine chiller for fermentation chamber I picked up on craigslist and refractometer, siphons and stirplate setup.
For an additional $350 I got 15, 5 gallon kegs and 5 10 gallon pepsi kegs and 5 co2 tanks with regulators (used) and a few more which were donated by homebrewers who left the hobby.
The point im trying to make here is it in no way has to be that expensive to be functional and work well..For another couple hundred I could have focused on looks which are nice and do have thier place here but I built mine to make beer and I was on a budget. for2-3k you CAN have both.
theres also a big difference from even $4200 and 7k
For 7k you can likely have a custom made 20 gallon hard plumbed conical system made for you according to what I've seen on ebay.