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I'm considering purchasing a brewtree. Right now I brew in Gott coolers and it's okay but a lot of shuffling things around. I'm considering 1) The SUB 2) Ez-Access 3) Hard shell mash-tun. I'm wondering if I actually would benefit from the hard-shell. I'll be brewing in Seattle, and sometimes in the winter, and would like the temperature to stay pretty consistent.Do you think the hard shell would be overkill? How many batches have you done w/ the brewtree? Still like it? Better than a HERMS?

I'm considering purchasing a brewtree. Right now I brew in Gott coolers and it's okay but a lot of shuffling things around. I'm considering 1) The SUB 2) Ez-Access 3) Hard shell mash-tun. I'm wondering if I actually would benefit from the hard-shell. I'll be brewing in Seattle, and sometimes in the winter, and would like the temperature to stay pretty consistent.Do you think the hard shell would be overkill? How many batches have you done w/ the brewtree? Still like it? Better than a HERMS? Dear Garrett, I don't think you can buy a better system than the Brewtree, and I looked at everything on the market before getting my system last December. I've brewed about 10 batches using my SUB without any major complaints. I wouldn't spring for the easy access option unless the overall height of the conventional SUB is an overriding issue... more to go wrong, and I'm not too crazy about fooling with electricity while standing on wet concrete. But if you can't fit it in your garage because of the height, or if you're physically unable to make a half-dozen trips up a ladder, I'd go for it. The standard mashtun holds temp pretty well. I typically get a 4-6 degree temp drop over a 60 minute mash. The coldest weather I've ever brewed in was the low 50s, but the wind was howling, and my MT dropped from 156 to 148 over the hour. If I was brewing in really cold weather it might be attractive, but you could also add a little hot liquor midway through the mash as well. I'm interested in the hard shell primarily because of long term durability issues, as the standard foam might be a little more prone to damage. If something ever happens to my current MT, I might go with hard shell next time. I've never brewed RIMS or HERMS. I must admit, it seems attractive in some ways, but my brewing philosophy has always been to keep everything as simple and trouble-free as possible. Most of my brewing is single infusion mash without mashout, because most of my brewing is ales using highly modified malts. However, I've brewed a great wheat beer (Dunkelweizen) with 60% wheat malt using a protein rest step with the SUB. The supplied BeerSmith software calculates the temp and volume of the liquor additions quite well. It's more work, what with adjusting the HLT burner, but not much more, and probably a hell of a lot less than messing with a HERMS. If one ever wanted to go to a HERMS system, it would be fairly easy to modify the Tree, especially the EZ access, but then the major beauty of the system (simplicity) would be lost. I've noticed that most of these guys who post pictures of their fancy computer controlled HERMS breweries are engineers! Feel free to email any further questions or comments. Regards, Jim Waddill