You must have very discerning taste in beer.
I have made many good beers:(from grain and extract) about 1 week in the carboy fermenting and 1 week in the bottle carbonating. Done in a corny keg with a regulator and CO2 eliminates the 2nd week. My award winning stout and porter were done in 3 weeks. Lagering does take more time due to lower temps and all grain recipes can add some time, but lots of excellent beer is made using malt extract without lagering. Some beers do get better with time in the bottle, too. Barleywine ale, for example, can improve over years in the bottle.
I love that scene, too.

oh, they will sell a shitload of these!!! -- j
.

Yes, all grain is a more complex process that this appliance is not designed to do. Still part extract, part grain is better than what the average beer drinker is accustomed to drinking, takes less space, too. Your setup sounds great, IronMan.

FFA: There are some big elements missing for the home brewer in this process.I suppose you could make an extract beer with just this equipment; however, all grain has really picked up in popularity. I understand more than 1/2 of the home brew these days is all grain (if you include the brew-in-a bag) process. I bought two 11 gallon coolers and a false bottom three years ago and haven't looked back. Taste improved a lot, but the lighter color sealed the deal.

Additionally, the risks of contamination in transfer are infinitesimal if you clean and sanitize. I've only lost one batch in the 50+ I've made and that was from using a smack pack of yeast that had gotten too hot in shipping.

Big caveat. I live in Central Illinois and my basement allows me to ferment ales below 70F all year long. In the winter, I have to use a wrap for the fermenter to keep them warm enough, but a home made $25 controller does that just fine.

The best tool I've run into is MUCH cheaper. FastFerment makes a food grade plastic 7.9 gallon conical for about $100. It is awesome. I can lull the trub off the bottom and then harvest the yeast. Secondary happens in the primary without worrying about yeast autolysis. For a really big beer it is easy to gravity transfer to another secondary if you want to get the FastFermentor back in the game for another batch. I have a second one that I use for making wine.

Kegging is the next step, but I have 15 and 20 year old sons. It is much easier to track bottle inventory than the balance left in a keg....

Here in the Tampa Bay area there are micro breweries all over the place. Since I must be circumspect I will get around to trying some eventually.

Disclaimer- I am not advising that you do something to shorten your life. I enjoy your posts here!
If you get the chance, try some from the micro-breweries. You may find the variety as refreshing as the beer ;^) Unfortunately the prices are somewhat higher than Bud and Coors. Trader Joes has some under their own labels that are tasty and start at $7/6-pack. In Phoenix (10 yrs ago) they would even let me buy a mixed six pack to try several different beers.

Bud, Coors, planning to try some of those flavored beers. Due to meds, I'm very limited to how much beer I'm allowed to consume, but one or two per week only shortens my life a wee bit.

Ok...then the pantry should be fine.

Yes...sadly, I would love to add on a multi-tasking room to this 135-year-old house that would give me some floor space that wasn't broken up by windows and doors.

There are so many Hill haters that she might not survive long enough to be sworn in. Besides the split that will happen in November will have con-gress doing the heavy lifting. No way a dem gets in there. How will GOP states vote? For the hated Trump, or for a likeable savvy former GOP governor? Could there be a method in Johnson chosing another GOP governor as running mate and arm twister? The hard part is that Johnson must win at least 1 electoral vote (possibly Nebraska or Maine.) What a great demonstration of the idiocy of the current system: a candidate who wins one electoral vote could be chosen president by the House.

Thanks for the wake up call.
That would be one thing that sleeping around on his divorcing wife tax hiker got right.
I'll go figure something else to invest in.

Politics!
He could have legalized home distilling, too, but he didn't. Wonder how much $ he got from the distillers...

You want an excuse to build an addition?
I often set my carboy in a corner of the kitchen. As long as its not getting direct sun or heat, you should be ok.
Lager requires cooler temps to make, IIRC.
http://www.homebrewing.org/How-to-Mak...
IPA is more forgiving. (I made lots of good hoppy IPA's in the past, but I like malty dark beers better now.)

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/05/gov_r...
You are legal for home brewing, dino.

What beer do you like, Herb?

Credit where due: Jimmy Carter signed the bill that made it legal to brew up to 200 gallons a year.

thanks...there is post-apocalypse hope...

Does it ferment for lager?
I prefer pale ale or lager.
My pantry has too much light, I think.
Will have to consider this...
... or build an addition....? 😎

For the fermentation vessel (bucket/carboy) it should be a space that doesn't vary in temperature very much, won't be distrurbed (bumped), and not brightly sun-lit. Your pantry might be perfect. It will have an airlock on top that allows CO2 to escape but doesn't let any outside microbes to get in. It will sit there and ferment for at least a week for ale.
Papazian's book covers all the equipment and supplies you will need. If you plan to bottle your brew, I recommend trying to accumulate swing-top beer bottles, like Grolsch or Fisher beer bottles. They can be used repeatedly, easily reseal (so your bottle doesn't go flat if you get distracted while drinking) and you won't need to keep buying bottle caps. (I bought lots of them online when I was brewing in Auckland at about $1 to 1.50 each.) Ebay has some but the sellers are asking prices as if they were still filled with beer. (Get green or brown, not clear glass.)

My "wet" Birmingham area is surrounded by "dry" counties I could bootleg Fermentors into while driving in "dry goods" so to speak.
Hmmmmm!
Maybe I could relabel the boxes as "slow cookers" or something.

Home brewing?
I'm sure that it's an enjoyable hobby to some, As for me, so long as there are brewers willing to make it at a reasonable price and all I have to do is pop a long neck, well, that's the way I roll.

Sweet!
Thanks for the input.
Now...where can I carve out a space for it?
Perhaps my pantry...