How do you dry? I don't use SS yet, and I don't have a vibratory tumbler either, currently I use ultrasonic. Its cheap and it gets the brass clean enough, but its not sparkly.
To dry brass, I either wrap it in a towel and shake it, then lay it in the dryer (my dryer has a sweater shelf you can put in) and let it do the work, or I put it in the oven at 170.