Like many homebrewers, I’m also an amateur chef. I recently purchased a sous vide device which is a trendy bit of gear that lets you cook food slowly and evenly in a hot water bath. It’s great for making lengua tacos, venison roast, and more, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how it could be a useful brewing tool. My first idea was to use it to keep the mash or kettle warm for a quick sour, but it was a short leap to realizing that I could brew a small all-grain batch with it.
The challenge with all-grain brewing is hitting and holding your mash temperature. The sous vide cooker solves both of those problems with a minimum of fuss. The only caveat is that it depends on having enough water present to circulate through the device, and you need to keep the grain from clogging it up. That makes it very well suited for no-sparge brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) brewing.
I’m pretty sure that my cooker could handle a full five-gallon batch, but I got more excited about doing smaller, proof of concept beers. Part of the rationale is that the grain bag is more manageable, but the ease of use is another strong factor. I’m more willing to experiment when I haven’t invested too much of an effort. As a test, I whipped together a three-gallon batch of smoked ale.