Okay, I think it's my turn:
On the brewhouse side, I would love to upgrade to a 20 gallon kettle with recirculating eBIAB and a hoist for hanging the grain bag over the kettle and a bigger, better immersion chiller. Big enough for 15 gallon batches of session-strength beers, probably small enough to manage a 5-6 gallon batch if I so desire.
On the refrigeration side, I'd scrap my mess of refrigerators (it's an abomination, especially for an apartment dweller) and simplify to a chest freezer with my existing STC-1000 controller, probably with heat tape around the sides for warmer brews in the winter. I'd save space and get much better temperature control and range, including the chance to brew lagers and cold crash on a larger scale.
On the fermentation side, I'd like to go with these 25L food-grade plastic jerry cans that they use in China for stuff like bulk cooking oil and storing big batches of baijiu from the local distillery. The low footprint means I can ferment more beer in the same space, they're cheap so replacement wouldn't be an issue, and the mouths are a lot bigger than those of carboys or better bottles so they'd be easier to clean (for the most part).
For packaging and serving, I'd like to have a few 20L kegs for personal use and a bunch of 5L kegs with those regulator/tap/mini CO2 canister setups for bringing to parties and sharing beer with friends. I often share the same volumes of beer with friends here because of the Chinese system of guanxi, which is a "friendship by exchange of gifts and favors" sort of thing, but it's a much bigger pain to do when you have to clean, delabel, fill, cap, condition and then cart over a case of bottles. 5L kegs would make the process a lot easier, and they'd be a lot more likely to return the keg than the bottles, which many of them see as garbage regardless of how much I emphasize that I'd like them back, preferably rinsed out (and I can't emphasize it all that much without devaluing the gift a bit and messing with the guanxi). I wouldn't give up on bottling entirely, but kegging most of my beer would be a nice way to save some time and space.
Since many things in China are very cheap, I'd estimate that I could get the eBIAB (if I build it myself, meaning I need to learn some skills and probably buy or borrow some tools that I don't currently have), fermentation, and refrigeration stuff for probably $400-$500 US. Unfortunately, kegs are not cheap here so I'd probably have to spend another $300 just for a basic setup with a couple 20L's and a couple 5L's with those dispensing setups, and $500 or more to get to where I'd like to be with a couple extras of each size.
), do it right.
