Have used some liquid malts early one but went to whole grain for the flexibility and it does seem to make a better beer.
I have two small chest freezers with InkBird controllers on them. You can plug in both hot and cold on these so I have one of those tiny personal ceramic under desk heaters in one. Have to drill a rather large hole in the side to get temp and heater cords inside them. One I hit the evaporator coils and got a big hiss that sounded just like "There goes three hundred bucks" lol. I use that one now for storing my shade cloths in now. Went back to Home Depot and got another and brought it home and took the drill too it with better results.
When I am fermenting or growing yeast I will set at 68F and it will stay within 2 degrees of that regardless of room temperature. The other one I set at 45F for keg aging, it will hold 4 or 5 of the 5 gallon ball lock kegs that are retrofitted soda syrup kegs.
I went all out when I set up for brewing, still a ton of shiny things I could buy but I got the essentials so as not to have to duct tape crap together making beer
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Probably spent more than I will ever spend on buying beer but its fun and like I said better beer than I have ever bought.
No wine here yet Jerry but looking forward to it as our fruit trees and grapes mature a bit. I have made Mead and it came out at 18%, took a year before it began to mellow a bit and not taste like moonshine. Its 4 years out now and just keeps getting better. I need to make some more now that we have our own bees.