I once saw a post by a person who was attempting to make beer using their immersion circulator. It inspired me to jump in the game and see what it was all about. I tell you it's a lot of fun and I'm hooked! I never made beer before so as a novice I threw caution to the wind using my sous vide knowledge. Now 10 batches in from Porter's and American Amber's to IPA's and APA's this tool makes a huge difference when making the wort and beginning the mash. While making the wort it's really important to keep the grains at a consistent 154 degrees or so for usually 60 minutes. I don't know what better way for a home brewer to manage this feat than an immersion circulator (especially if you have one laying around). The process is great for partials as they are called when using specialty grains for flavoring and liquid or dry malt extract for the alcohol contact and base malt flavor. I'm using the Polyscience Pro and bringing water up to a 154 degrees.

Take the specialty grains which usually weigh in at 2-4 lbs and divide them among 2-3 gallon zip lock freezer bags. Then I take the circulating water and add half gallon of water to each bag, press out air and place in the circulator. Move on to bags 2 and 3 and then let sit for an hour in the water bath. Strain liquid and sparge grains with 2 more gallons of 154 degree water. This will yield roughly 3 gallons of liquid which is the beginning of your mash. From here it's the normal process of making beer. I'm getting some big thumbs up on the beer's quality and my ability to manage well rounded beer profiles. The flavor extraction methods for brewers without immersion circulators can't be nearly as efficient. The normal method is to pour hot 165 water over the grain and let steep in a cooler for an hour. This means you have a higher temp to begin which can ruin the flavor by giving an unwanted corn taste. After an hour the cooler has dropped to 140 degrees and it's not extracting the sugars or flavor as efficiently. My latest batch is a french saison dry hopped with cucumber and chai tea at about 5.7% alcohol. Anyone else making beer using sous vide equipment? Have you any improvements on method or any suggestions on doing all grain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wort