I did a simple single malt single hop beer with a grain bill of around 4 pounds for 1.25 gallon batch size. There are several better brewing bag options out there but the paint strainer bags were quick to find and worked fine. In a pinch they worked and with a little coaxing the elastic top of the strainer bag fit snuggly around the Oliso. It was time to test it and brew! I needed a BIAB bag so I ran to the hardware store to get a couple 5 gallon paint strainers. The Oliso SmartHub doesn’t have a circulator pump and it does just fine without one and it adds to the simplicity of the product and to the BIAB process. Some folks are mashing there small batch brews with sous vide “sticks” and having good luck but there is the cleaning concerns, bags and grain getting sucked into the circulator pumps etc and then you still have to boil on the stove. On the front is a series of LED lights to indicate heating. The “Top” comes with a sous vide bag rack which also keeps your brew bag off the bottom of the vessel. Yep, when sitting on top of the SmartHub it measures the temperature of the contents of the vessel. The “Top” is an induction compatible stainless 12 quart sous vide vessel with glass lid and an internal temperature sensor. It, in itself, is a quality induction hob but it’s the Top that sets it worlds apart from other induction hobs. It has a large glass induction heating surface, touch controls and quiet cooling fan. What is the Oliso SmartHub + Top? Well the SmartHub is a 120 volt 1500 watt induction cooktop/hob. That was fair, they already had a great sous vide cooking system with great reviews. They wanted my honest opinion about it for brewing. As you followers of my blog know I am not a big product reviewer/endorser but this was pretty exciting. Well the people at Oliso offered to send me a unit to use, brew with and send them feedback. How many companies want to know what you want as opposed to those that like to tell you what you need. The culture at Oliso has been and is that of making products that are what their customers want and the SmartHub is the result of that. I was as excited about their interest in brewing with the SmartHub as they were. A few email exchanges and we setup a phone call to discuss more. The great folks at Oliso quickly emailed me back with answers and questions of their own about small batch brewing. I quickly shot off an email to the company with questions about the appliance and explained my interest, background and advocacy in small batch brewing. Temperature control in one degree increments! It is based on a 120 volt 1800W induction hob so useable anywhere. Impressive, time and temperature control. I was intrigued and looked at the details about the SmartHub and Top induction sous vide cooker. I started reading the blog entry and it was written by an Oliso staff member that was a home brewer and it detailed his one gallon batch brew day using the Oliso SmartHub and Top. Now sous vide cooking requires accurate temperature control of a water bath for extended periods of time…hmm sounds a little like brewing. They recently delved into induction sous vide cooking. Oliso has been a manufacture of speciality irons for clothing and quilting. After going through many search results I came across a websites blog entry about sous vide cooking and beer brewing. Temperature control was haphazard at best…until now.Ī few months ago I was doing a web search for induction beer brewing to see if anything had changed in the technology. Temperature modes measured the glass top beneath the kettle and not the contents of the kettle on the induction hob. For many years I have looked at induction cooktops (hobs) for brewing but they all lacked one thing…accurate temperature control.
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