What was - or will be - your first "serious" upgrade?

[steveoatley]

Not my first "serious" upgrade- but has contributed to better beer for me

My dedicated Basement Brewery
Having 1 place
to store your stuff
to make your stuff
to only have to clean up one place
to not have to brew in a 5 F detached garage
to not have to carry everything up a flight of stairs to brew
to not have to carry everything up a flight of stairs to keg

I had everything stored in my basement, and brewed in our garage
Having a dedicated Brew SPACE in the basement - with sink & 220V
has shaved 2 hrs off my brew day

and given me the consistency i had been looking for.

just my 2 cents - that an another $ 4000 will get you a basement brewery
Yup, i'm in 4 K just to do the build out, and it's not even done yet

S

 

[Stillraining]

Lucky you!.....If only I had a basement...I dont think 4000,00 would even touch the hand digging required..

 

[JimEb]

For me...I kind of went all in.

I got hand-me-down equipment that got me started doing extracts on the kitchen stove.

Did that for about two years, the whole while contemplating a move to all-grain. Gave me lots of time to plan it out and then I went all in building a semi-automated electric brew stand in my basement.

Then from there I naturally figured I needed a kegerator. Was planning on building one and I bought a used dorm style fridge off Craigslist. Was kind of small and ugly. Then after adding up the cost of all the other stuff to build a kegerator, I decided it wasn't worth it. I bought a commercial kegerator and then turned the old fridge into a temp controlled ferm chamber.

 

[SGTSparty]

Not my first "serious" upgrade- but has contributed to better beer for me

My dedicated Basement Brewery
Having 1 place
to store your stuff
to make your stuff
to only have to clean up one place
to not have to brew in a 5 F detached garage
to not have to carry everything up a flight of stairs to brew
to not have to carry everything up a flight of stairs to keg

I had everything stored in my basement, and brewed in our garage
Having a dedicated Brew SPACE in the basement - with sink & 220V
has shaved 2 hrs off my brew day

and given me the consistency i had been looking for.

just my 2 cents - that an another $ 4000 will get you a basement brewery
Yup, i'm in 4 K just to do the build out, and it's not even done yet

S

That sounds 1) Amazing and 2) like you should rent it out to other brewers to recoup some of the cost. I know I'd pay a few bucks to use it come December

 

[steveoatley]

That sounds 1) Amazing and 2) like you should rent it out to other brewers to recoup some of the cost. I know I'd pay a few bucks to use it come December

SGTParty

Shoot me a PM !
Heck, we are both in the same city !!!

We can work out some kind of plan

S

 

[PADave]

My first major upgrade was a bigger brew kettle from Spike Brewing.
The next major one was the chest freezer fermentation setup.
Next on the list is a grain mill.

 

[Twobrokebrewing]

I'm a welder so I built all my equipment. Never considered it a big purchase. I've out grew the garage and now in the process of building my brewery.