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In the second part of this series of articles on investigating how viable electric brewing is we take a look at HERMS-based systems which utilize a Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) together with a Heat Exchanger to indirectly heat the mash.

An investigation into whether or not it is possible to have a brewing system that allows me to homebrew year-round and also improve the amount of control over, and automation of, the brewing process. This article covers the investigation to find out what the alternatives and associated costs are plus examine the pro's and cons of each identified solution.

Happy Valley's annual beer festival was held once again on Saturday August 16, 2014, at Tussey Mountain Ski Resort just outside of State College, Pennsylvania. State College Brew Expo has been held for 16 years now and also has a new slogan "Good Beer, Good Music, Great Cause!".

Whilst attending the NHC 2014 we met with a number of product suppliers at the Homebrew Expo including Cool Brewing LLC. They were showcasing their Fermentation Cooler which is "an inexpensive and easy solution to keeping your homebrewed beer fermentation temperatures in control".

As our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin started to draw to a close, we departed from Milwaukee and headed south around Chicago and onto Interstate 80 to head due east through Indiana towards Cleveland, Ohio.

We continued our stay in the city of Milwaukee, as part of our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin, by spending our last day checking out a couple of breweries to the south of our downtown hotel.

Our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin began with a visit to Madison, then the small town of New Glarus, next it was time to move on to one of the USA's original major brewing cities, Milwaukee, which has seen the likes of Leinenkugel, Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, as well as many others.

The second destination on our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin, following our first stop in Madison, was to visit the brewery which initiated the whole idea of making this trip - namely New Glarus Brewing Company. Whilst at the GABF 2013 we had tasted their fruit beers and were so impressed that we just had to visit the producers of these fabulous beers.

We embarked upon our Summer Brewery Tour of Wisconsin by starting out from our home town of State College (Pennsylvania) and stopping overnight in Cleveland (Ohio), a mere 4 hour drive away, before making the 8 hour journey to our first brewery destination city of Madison.

Whilst at the National Homebrewers Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we met with a number of product suppliers and were fortunate enough to sit down with Annie Johnson, 2013 AHA Homebrewer of the Year, to discuss PicoBrew's Zymatic in more detail.