# Worms - Bucket



## nala (15/10/11)

I begin this topic by acknowledging that Bribie G is the instigator of brewing in a bucket, I have merely embellished
what he conceived as a good potential method, I have introduced a recirculating method to his original efforts.

Firstly a geometry lesson for Michael in readiness for next bucket trial :





This picture shows the bottom of the handy pail, firstly cut off the centre projection and drill a 6mm dia hole.
Around the rim there are equally spaced projections, bisect these through the central 6mm hole and mark a line with a pencil.
Mark a drilling point on each alternate line so that the hole you are about to drill is inside your 9" false bottom,
mark drill point on the other lines as per the picture, to drill the holes use one of these :




This is a 10mm dia drill with a little point and is designed for cutting wood or thin gauge metal.

For the false bottom I have used utility items, the first is a collander/sieve from Woolworths, I cut off the handles, flattened the base a little so that when the colland/sieve is lowered into the bucket you get a good fit around the rim.
Below the collander I have a disc of fly screen and a piece of coarse material, the fly screen acts as a clamp to the material,
I pierced a hole with a screwdriver through the flyscreen and material and secured them in position with a small nut and bolt.




This a before and after picture of the collander/sieve with and without handles




This shows the false bottom assembly inside the bucket.




This the setup ready for launch on Monday or Tuesday, will be using the recirculating pump and will attach my pulley to the handle ( I cut the white plastic handle in half squeezed in some 2 pack araldite and created a gap so that the bucket can be lifted in a balanced way by the small hook on the pulley) I will try the bucket at a level where I can create a compact grain bed and use the recirculation as a kind of sparge.
To complicate things and give it a good workout I am using the Braumeister stepmash technique with mashout.
I am also using my STC1000 temperature controller to control the various step temperatures, this was very sucessful 
on my previous WORMS- BIAB trial.
PS: the sparge bar is "D" shaped only because that was all the copper tube that I had left from the previous effort.


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## datamike (16/10/11)

Pretty cool!

It'll be interesting to see how it works. I think it will do fine. Is the height of the "recirc ring" adjustable?

Michael




nala said:


> I begin this topic by acknowledging that Bribie G is the instigator of brewing in a bucket, I have merely embellished
> what he conceived as a good potential method, I have introduced a recirculating method to his original efforts.
> 
> Firstly a geometry lesson for Michael in readiness for next bucket trial :
> ...


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## stux (16/10/11)

Love your geometry 

Too be fair, BribieG has re-invented brewing in a bucket, as bucket-in-a-bucket, is a very old technique, popularised by charlie papazian 

BUT, Brewing in a Bucket (or a Pail) in an Urn, now maybe that's something new?

Brewing In A Pail/Urn, BIAPU


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## nala (16/10/11)

datamike said:


> Pretty cool!
> 
> It'll be interesting to see how it works. I think it will do fine. Is the height of the "recirc ring" adjustable?
> 
> Michael



The sparge ring is adjustable within reason and is also variable in terms of volume,I included an inline tap.


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## nala (16/10/11)

Stux said:


> Love your geometry
> 
> Too be fair, BribieG has re-invented brewing in a bucket, as bucket-in-a-bucket, is a very old technique, popularised by charlie papazian
> 
> ...



Should be good to make Pail Ale.


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## jyo (16/10/11)

Good job, mate. Love the ingenuity of some of the people on this site.
Just make sure you do a "D" rest...





















Sorry


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## edschache (16/10/11)

Wondering if you could achieve the same thing with BIAB just by making a solid ring (thinking 6-8mm round bar) to hold the bag open while hoisting and sparge or recirc through the top as desired. Given the height of the BIAB bag I have from craftbrewer you'd want a fair bit of vertical room and a pulley setup (fortunately I have both). Maybe BIAOB(Open Bag)? No doubt if I read the forum more I'd find that BribieG has already given it a shot.


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## Bribie G (16/10/11)

The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.

Now, who needs a system when you can get a Nala? Nala is a one man wort production machine in his own right  

It seems obvious now... I just popped up to Woolies and got the $8 sieve which is metal mesh in a plastic rim. I just "hoofed" it into a pork pie hat shape.






Cut handles off and tried it in my *Queen Brand* bucket... a bunnings *Handy Pail* would be too tight for this one, so go the Queen. 
Tested it to fit, with a light duty silicone hose as sealer, no need to waste a hose (I'll continue to use this one as my keg filler) , just keep coiling and pressing down between the strainer and the sides of the bucket till it overlays the bottom layer. 






Ok, that works so wrap the strainer in a Ross lightweight grain bag that gets used as a hop sock later






Putting it all together.






Sweet. Tight as a drum.

I also got a $3 trivet from Chinatown yesterday to sit the bucket on so it's not sitting on the element. 






I'll be trying it with my 1960s Brib E Tavern Tankard keg bitter, probably this evening if I get home early enough. 


Nala - on that point, did you need to solder / braze / bend your copper tubing or does it come like leggo and just slide the bits together?
Reason I ask is that I'm going to the grand opening of the Masters Store in Morayfield this afternoon (ticket event, my son now works there love 'im) so I'll have a look in that dept, also check if they maybe sell little plastic centrifugals as well. 

Hope Mark Bastard is getting this, I'll bump my other thread.

Edit: I can't see me getting round to that Toucan Stout in the forseeable,  anyone want a couple of freebies on Bribie Island?


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## MHB (16/10/11)

Bucket in bucket was invented not long after someone started making cheap plastic buckets; Wheeler refers to it in some of his first books, so it was well established in the late 70s or early 80s. Amazing really how little is truly new, Fix talked about Pillow Case brewing in the 1960s I believe.
For a bucket in bucket, if you used a smaller drill say 1/8 and made lots of holes you wouldnt need to do all that mucking about with dissected kitchenware. Obviously you are going to have to look closely at you grind or put some type of filter in on top of the holes.
The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
MHB

Sorry Bribie


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## nala (16/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.
> 
> Now, who needs a system when you can get a Nala? Nala is a one man wort production machine in his own right
> 
> ...



I did solder them,they were the leftover bits from my other sparge ring, the "D" shape is not by design merely the shape they were. I am attaching the bucket to the "Bribie Pulley System" so that I can raise the bucket, when I get the flowrate 
right, so that I am just covering the grain bed with the recirculating wort - just a theory. Plenty of variables to work with !


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## Bribie G (16/10/11)

MHB, what you say is correct. However this Bucket in Urn system has advantages over both BIAB and Ghetto:

Wort is directed through grain bed, not out of sides of bag
So recirculation is possible and there is an on board heat source already built in, so it doesn't need to be a "passive" mash tun.

thus step mashes are straightforward

No need to sparge if simply looking for similar efficiency / yield to bog standard BIAB, but sparging is an option if you can be arsed.

The sparge water can be pre-prepared in the urn and quarantined in a bucket or your stockpot (we all have a stockpot - we're brewers  ) for later and tickled up with an immersion heater. 

I take your point about the millions of little holes - I'd already drilled the bucket so how many buckets can one man kill in one week? :blink: 
Just cost me around $8 on top of gear I already own. 

I may have some bags and a false bottom for sale shortly :lol:


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## nala (16/10/11)

MHB said:


> Bucket in bucket was invented not long after someone started making cheap plastic buckets; Wheeler refers to it in some of his first books, so it was well established in the late 70s or early 80s. Amazing really how little is truly new, Fix talked about Pillow Case brewing in the 1960s I believe.
> For a bucket in bucket, if you used a smaller drill say 1/8 and made lots of holes you wouldnt need to do all that mucking about with dissected kitchenware. Obviously you are going to have to look closely at you grind or put some type of filter in on top of the holes.
> The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
> I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
> ...



This not a bucket in a bucket method !
The method is a bucket in a Crown Urn, using the bucket as the mash tun/lauter tun.
I reckon the mucking about would be drilling 3mm holes around the bucket,the novelty is in the use of utility items which can be modified to achieve the same effect as some proprietory expensive items like S/S false bottom's, this is about trial and error, once the trials are over real money can be spent on the bling.


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## Bribie G (16/10/11)

When you think about it, there are vast numbers of yet unexplored systems just waiting to be implemented.

Nala's next challenge:

Big one of these








coming sooner than you think


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## nala (16/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> When you think about it, there are vast numbers of yet unexplored systems just waiting to be implemented.
> 
> Nala's next challenge:
> 
> ...



Michael, I have something in mind, I will PM you to let you know my thoughts - I don't want to embarrass myself with what I have in mind.


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## Robbo2234 (16/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.



what sort of pump would you use I can imagine that when the grain becomes wet and more resistance occurs, wouldn't the wort just spill over the top?


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## bradsbrew (16/10/11)

Just put a ball valve in the line so you can cut back flow. Well at least thats what I'm doing with mine.

Cheers


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## ShredMaster (16/10/11)

Bribie, you mean something about this size? Perhaps a little bigger?


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## MarkBastard (16/10/11)

MHB said:


> The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
> I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
> MHB
> 
> Sorry Bribie


Same can be said about the 3+ grand brewmeisters you are constantly pimping.


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## Bribie G (16/10/11)

Heads up on Handy Pails

The 20L buckets with lids at the new Masters Stores are identical to the Queen Brand I've been using - shorter and fatter than the Bunnings Handy Pails so ideal for bucket-in-urn usage, and only $6.75 each. 
I grabbed a couple when I was in there this afternoon, who knows I might have the urge to destroy a few more during the week  


Anyway, add a Woolies strainer and a bit of voile or something similar and your'e into BAIBucket for around $15 B)

Edit: use as an outer pail, fit a $5 tap and use a drilled Bunnings Handy pail, which fits neatly in it with about a cm space all round, and you've got a ghetto mashtun for around $20.

Add a second pail with a tap and a kettle element and you're into a full ghetto setup for less than $50


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## sim (16/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> Wort is directed through grain bed, not out of sides of bag



hey how about a BIAB bag made with the regular swiss voille for a bottom, and double thickness bed sheets or whatever for the sides - to encourage path of least resistance to be downward through the grain bed?


sim


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## MarkBastard (16/10/11)

Bags are annoying though


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## [email protected] (16/10/11)

sim said:


> hey how about a BIAB bag made with the regular swiss voille for a bottom, and double thickness bed sheets or whatever for the sides - to encourage path of least resistance to be downward through the grain bed?
> 
> 
> sim



would be interesting to see what difference this would make?

These should do the trick for the sides.... http://www.amazon.com/Thread-Count-Egyptia...C/dp/B0019WAD00


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## matho (16/10/11)

this is a scan from dave line's book brewing beers like those you buy, not trying to piss on anyone, it was just the talk about a bag with impervious sides that jogged my memory

View attachment Scanned_Document.pdf


cheers matho


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## QldKev (16/10/11)

ShredMaster said:


> Bribie, you mean something about this size? Perhaps a little bigger?



more like this?


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## [email protected] (16/10/11)

matho said:


> this is a scan from dave line's book brewing beers like those you buy, not trying to piss on anyone, it was just the talk about a bag with impervious sides that jogged my memory
> 
> View attachment 49201
> 
> ...



Hmm ive got some old pillow cases that are almost like canvas, very very thick.
Might have to get the wenches sewing machine out and have a muck around. :unsure:


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## matho (16/10/11)

:icon_offtopic: 
yeah the book was first printed in 1978, there was no way back then a man could sew

my apologies too nala for the off topic

cheers matho


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## Feldon (17/10/11)

Regarding the coffee plunger idea. Been contemplating this over recent weeks too. For what its worth here's what I've thought about so far...

Use a stainless steel Big W 19L pot (cost about $20, less on special) for the outer pot. For the inner pot (viz malt pipe, but here its a malt pot) use its little sister (the next pot size down, I forget the literage, costs about $12 or so). This smaller pot fits exactly inside the 19L pot, but you might have to crush in the tubular handles a little to make fit with a room to move freely (suggest using a woodworker's clamp and two pieces of wood to do this so as to make a neat job of compressing the handles. Don't savage the handles with vise grips like I did - made an ugly mess of it) 

The handles on the inner malt pot ensure it centres nicely within the 19L outer pot. To elevate it above the bottom of the outer pot, make a rack by bending a length of stainless, brass of aluminium rod or wire into a three-legged stand The same sort of thing that comes with some kitchen pressure cookers to keep the meat basket above the base. (simple cheap device and three points is more inherantly stable than a four-legged cake rack).

Need to fabricate the equivalent of two coffee plunger-type filters discs (Not there yet - any ideas? - thick plastic chopping board with hols cut to mimic real coffee plunger design came to mind, but not sure if food safe). The malt grain would sit between these two discs inside the inner pot. 

Instead of a metal plunger rod screwing into middle of the filter disc, as in a coffee plunger, my thinking is to bore a 7/8 inch hole there to take a length of 1/2 inch (internal diameter) brass pipe threaded on the outside (seen these at Bunnings for about $15(?)- looked like about 8 inches long which should be OK). The brass pipe would go through the centre of the two fabricated filter discs sitting inside the inner malt pot - one disc near the bottom and the other higher up with the grain bill inbetween. The filter mesh and the brass pipe would be fastened together with nuts (and washers) engaging the threaded outer surface of the 1/2 inch brass pipe.

My cheap little brown 12V pump (the highest power one (ha!) - about $25 from the www.solarproject.co.uk) would pump wort from a ball valve at the bottom of the 19L outer pot to the top of the brass pipe. The wort would flow down into the small chamber created at the bottom of the inner pot - ie. the space between the bottom of the inner pot and the bottom of the lower filter disc. The wort would flow up through the lower filter disc, up through the grain, through the upper filter disc, and overflow in ever increasing sugary sweetness into the outer pot, and recirculate etc. etc

If in the early stages of mashing flour and grit tended to block up the lower filter and prevent the little brown pump from forcing the wort through, I'd grab hold of the top of the brass pipe and plunge the two filters it up and down a few times (like a coffee plunger!) to get things going. I'd also do this if at any time the flow through the mash looked like chanelling, or just to mix things up a bit.

Anyway, my 2c. Sorry no pics of a sketch (at work at mo). Hope all that made sense.


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## kymba (17/10/11)

matho said:


> this is a scan from dave line's book brewing beers like those you buy, not trying to piss on anyone, it was just the talk about a bag with impervious sides that jogged my memory
> 
> View attachment 49201
> 
> ...



reminds me of a sea anchor or a camp shower bucket


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## Bribie G (17/10/11)

Aha, dead right - I was racking my brains yesterday to think what it reminded me of... camp shower it is. However it could get a bit manky and hard to clean.


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## Robbo2234 (17/10/11)

I have an idea, 

Instead of having a grain bed stuck in the bottom of a bucket why not have it in suspended water column?
If you used a strong enough pump you could keep all the grain spinning around in the water column, there for there is no path of least resistance.
After the pump has been turned off the grain would settle and then the pail can be removed.

Or should I of just lay off the beers?


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## NickB (17/10/11)

Brew in a Whirlpool? Interesting!


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## MarkBastard (17/10/11)

I always thought the french press would work better in reverse.

Picture an urn with a sort of malt pipe that was like a french press, but instead of pushing down to compact the grain onto the bottom you pulled up to compress the grain against the lid of the urn. This would be to squeeze the liquid out.

Then I was thinking if you had compressed grain and ran liquid through it would it still act like a filter? If so the top of the lid could be spraying recirculated wort through the compacted grain bed.

Although I like the idea of just having an inorganic mash filter and just throwing the grain away once fully squeezed. Would love to be able to filter the wort before and after the boil somehow.


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## stux (17/10/11)

Robbo2234 said:


> I have an idea,
> 
> Instead of having a grain bed stuck in the bottom of a bucket why not have it in suspended water column?
> If you used a strong enough pump you could keep all the grain spinning around in the water column, there for there is no path of least resistance.
> ...



Would love to see that...

Brew In A Washing Machine


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## stux (17/10/11)

Stux said:


> Would love to see that...
> 
> Brew In A Washing Machine



Wow, talk about Synchronicity



http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=828632


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## Bribie G (17/10/11)

I'll continue this on Nala's thread

OK it's on, just doughed into my ghetto Woolies strainer malt pipe. I'd have to say that it went against every BIAB nerve in my body  




Hit 66 spot on, will report as I go, interested in the clarity after recirculation


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## pk.sax (17/10/11)

Michael, have you tried just drilling the bottom of the bucket itself a bit finely and trying to recirculate and let a natural grain bed form rather than put in an extra metal mesh?

Except for channeling against the walls of the Pail, I think you might just get the advantages of a 3G mash run with manifold happening in a solid bucket without anything extra having to be used.

In fact, if you could be bothered cutting out the bottom of a pail - leaving a bit of a lip - and fixing a splash guard screen in there, that might give you bag standard flow, sitting on top of that trivet. Less things to clean eh?


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## Bribie G (17/10/11)

I've bought a couple more buckets at Masters and will indeed do the hundred hole thingo and try it out with my next brew. Only have $6.75 to lose.


Ok, recirculating with jug, and not crystal but acceptable IMHO






And now the ultimate heresy which will surely get me banned for all time:




The BribiePressinartor mk 2 with a full handy pail 
fck yeah


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## stux (18/10/11)

Next time put the rack on top of your urn


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

Hmm. leaning tower of death methinks  

Ok, checked her out this morning and final washup was bang on 75% efficiency which is what I've been getting with standard BIAB. I didn't frig around with a sparge or anything, just simple isothermal infusion with a ramp to mashout temp whilst recirculating. Ive ended up only losing about half a litre to trub. I'll get a pump to try it out, but as it stands at the moment it's given me what I want: reasonable efficiency, brew day as quick as BIAB and excellent wort yield. Cleanup is about the same. In fact the "press" only gave me about half a litre if that, the system is freer draining than a voile bag. 

I'm sold. 

Ex BIAB now, but would certainly recommend BIAB to any newcomer to get the hang of the system first. :icon_cheers:


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## MarkBastard (18/10/11)

Nice. If your squeeze only gave 500ml of wort you could easily just do a single kettle sparge and go even better.

1.7L of kettle water plus 300ml to top up to 2L of water at what I'm guessing would be the right temperature by the time you put it in. Let that drain through instead of squeezing. Too easy.


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## MarkBastard (18/10/11)

All you need is some sort of bracket that allows you to sit the inner tube at the top of the urn for free draining. Got any ideas bribie? Would love the urn itself to support the weight. No need for pullies etc.


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## Tim F (18/10/11)

I don't know if a plastic bucket would be strong enough but I plan to rivet a little upside down hook kinda thing to my lower side of my pot so it can just hook onto the rim of the outer pot and drain.


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

I stand the urn on a tool trolley on castors and whilst that's great (and a good trolley for milling on as well), I do need the pulley system as it's too high to do much direct lifting. However in reality the bottom of the urn would only need to be on a stand tall enough for a no chill cube to fit just under the tap, and if you commit to using Ross cubes rather than Willow cubes the rig could be quite low indeed and would give fit young chappies like yourselves ample "purchase" to just lift up the bucket and clip it in place. Basically that's what I had to do with the bag at the Systems Wars day but I brought the BribiePressinator along to make things easier. 

I'm having a think about that "clip" idea - not sure how you could make a safe "non slip" thing.


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## MarkBastard (18/10/11)

I was thinking maybe two pieces of wood that are approximately the dimensions of the inside of the handles on a crown urn.

You then slide them into the urn handles vertically and they then hook under the lip of the bucket.

Of course at the bottom end they'd need to slot into something as well so they don't slip around.





That's just a very basic starting point.

I basically like the idea of using the urns standard handles and using the surface the urn is sitting on to hold the weight of the bucket.

Whatever the easiest way to achieve that is, while having a sturdy solution, is something we should be working towards IMO.


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## stux (18/10/11)

Mark^Bastard said:


> All you need is some sort of bracket that allows you to sit the inner tube at the top of the urn for free draining. Got any ideas bribie? Would love the urn itself to support the weight. No need for pullies etc.



The braumeisters use a U shaped bar which sits on the rim and mates with the two bars sticking out of the malt pipe. That holds the malt pipe above the boiler while it drains, also allowing you to run sparge water into the maltpipe if you want.

I suspect it should be easy enough to build a bracketty thing which will support the bucket by its top lip


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## MarkBastard (18/10/11)

Yeah that's not a bad idea, though it'd have to be a lot different because you'd want the lip of the bucket a lot higher than the top of the urn.


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## stux (18/10/11)

Stux said:


> The braumeisters use a U shaped bar which sits on the rim and mates with the two bars sticking out of the malt pipe. That holds the malt pipe above the boiler while it drains, also allowing you to run sparge water into the maltpipe if you want.
> 
> I suspect it should be easy enough to build a bracketty thing which will support the bucket by its top lip



Picture

http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/na...er/P4150600.jpg


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## stux (18/10/11)

Stux said:


> Picture
> 
> http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/na...er/P4150600.jpg



Actually, if you're using a pulley to pull the bucket out of the urn... just lock it off at the right height and let it hang

...

Now I just need to find a plastic bucket with a diameter slightly less than 40cm


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## Tim F (18/10/11)

The easiest way of all is just to sit the bucket on a rack on top of the urn. I've been using a spare bit of wooden play pen


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## nala (18/10/11)

nala said:


> I begin this topic by acknowledging that Bribie G is the instigator of brewing in a bucket, I have merely embellished
> what he conceived as a good potential method, I have introduced a recirculating method to his original efforts.
> 
> Firstly a geometry lesson for Michael in readiness for next bucket trial :
> ...



I attempted the Worms Bucket trial yesterday and make the following comments and observations :




Doing a wet test to ensure all joints are secure and no leaks.




33 litres of water and 5.3 Kg of grain gave it a good mash and started the pump.
I began with the bucket on a trivet because I was not sure where the water/wort level would be, with the pump fully open
and pumping potentialy 6 litres per hour, I quickly saw that I would need to adjust the inline valve that I had inserted into the tube connected to the sparge/spray head.
The drainage from the bottom of the bucket I assesed as about 1 litre per minute, I later raised the bucket by the pulley to a level where I could see the top of the grain bed, the grain bed was very well compacted and only a small amount of husk was floating on the top.




The temperature control within the grainbed was spot on and the STC1000 was doing a great job with the wort temperatures.
After the mashout I raised the the Bucket so that I could see the the wort draining from the bottom of the bucket, this I presume would be about the same as I estimated when adjusting the pump flow when mashing about 1 litre per minute.
After the draining I lowered the bucket into a plastic tub and pressed on the top of the grain with a glass saucepan lid in an attempt to extract more wort. With BIAB I would normally get 30ish litres of wort by squeezing the bag with 2 glass saucepan lids, I managed about 2 litres, I was 3 litres short of my pre-boil volume of 31 litres so I topped this up with boiling water. The boil went well after I had an electrician disconnect the boil dry and thermostat, I got a good boil and did not need to scrape the disc above the element.
Taking refractometer readings after the boil I find that I am woefully short on Brix/Sg readings which I put down to the fact that I had a lot of fermentables still left in the unsparged grain. I am not overly concerned about this, the experiment went well although I will have to think of ways to increase the effiency, I could have sparged the grain whilst it was still in the bucket but I wanted a true indication of what I had produced.
Next time :
I intend to leave out both the flyscreen and the coarse fabric filters, I think the grainbed was good without the need for these, I am hoping this will improve both the recirculation and the draining after mashout.
I will have to sparge in some way either by a second vessel and my pump or by hand when I remove the bucket from the HLT.


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## felten (18/10/11)

hmm my old coopers barrel FV fits nicely into my kettle... h34r:


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

So does my 25L Bunnings Style fermenter, that's what I was considering doing about a year ago when the crazy idea started nagging at me. Also they have lifting "dimples" in the sides that could be useful. 

Nala, I know what you mean about sweet wort trapped in the grain. With BIAB you can Sumo-Wrestle the bag but in the case of BIAU you either need to press the grain or do a sparge with say 5L and boil longer. The longer boil doesn't faze me, many Euro Breweries do 2 hours and even UK gurus such as Graham Wheeler regularly wave their handbags in frustration at the one hour "cheapy" boil that seems to have become the default with home brewing. Electric is cheaper than NASA or Rambo burner at the moment, I'm definitely thinking of employing a 90 min boil as part of my new regime.


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## kymba (18/10/11)

can't you just mash with 5L less and use that for your sparge, eliminating the need to boil longer? surely your grain bed isn't that high?

or you could cut out a disc of thick chopping board or something and press down on the drained grain bed, sorta like your pressinatorthingo. or will your bunnings fermenter fit in there? maybe that filled with water would do the same?


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## nala (18/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> So does my 25L Bunnings Style fermenter, that's what I was considering doing about a year ago when the crazy idea started nagging at me. Also they have lifting "dimples" in the sides that could be useful.
> 
> Nala, I know what you mean about sweet wort trapped in the grain. With BIAB you can Sumo-Wrestle the bag but in the case of BIAU you either need to press the grain or do a sparge with say 5L and boil longer. The longer boil doesn't faze me, many Euro Breweries do 2 hours and even UK gurus such as Graham Wheeler regularly wave their handbags in frustration at the one hour "cheapy" boil that seems to have become the default with home brewing. Electric is cheaper than NASA or Rambo burner at the moment, I'm definitely thinking of employing a 90 min boil as part of my new regime.


Thank you Bribie,
the benefit of posting a topic is to get as many ideas as possible, my initial thought was to mash in with less water - say 25/26 litres and do a sparge to get to my pre-boil volume of 31 litres. With the pulley system I have enough headroom to incorporate a sparge using my pump connected to a small HLT. Alternatively a sparge when I have removed the bucket from the Urn.


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

_Exactement_ B) - the first BIU I did with the SS false bottom I did a thicker mash and sparged with about 5L on hoisting, and it turned out bloody good eff. - as always I had a taste of the spent grain and it definitely wasn't as sweet as the standard BIAB spent grains. 


So what do you think of BIU as a new term "Bucket in Urn" ? It's got a nice ring to it, pronounced "Bayou" as in 
Snappy hey 

Edit: and yes of course the ol' Roy did a really nice original version - a ripper


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## RdeVjun (18/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> Edit: and yes of course the ol' Roy did a really nice original version - a ripper



Yeah, I prefer the harpsichord as a single manual, the voicing on the French styles gets a bit ordinary, give me a Flemish Virginal any day.  Nice song though!


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

RdeVjun said:


> Yeah, I prefer the harpsichord as a single manual, the voicing on the French styles gets a bit ordinary, give me a Flemish Virginal any day.  Nice song though!



Wouldn't a Flemish Virgin be as rare as a white-faced sheep in Wales?


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## Tim F (18/10/11)

I have a much better


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## Bribie G (18/10/11)

Tim F said:


> I have a much better



:lol:


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## RdeVjun (18/10/11)

Bribie G said:


> Wouldn't a Flemish Virgin be as rare as a white-faced sheep in Wales?


Yep, could be, wonder why I might prefer them?


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## RdeVjun (18/10/11)

Tim F said:


> I have a much better


Brilliant! :lol:


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## MaltyHops (18/10/11)

Mark^Bastard said:


> I was thinking maybe two pieces of wood that are approximately the dimensions of
> the inside of the handles on a crown urn.
> You then slide them into the urn handles vertically and they then hook under the lip
> of the bucket.
> ...



What about some brackets (like 3) folded from metal strips like those shown
below? Provided there's enough gap between the buckets to fit the hooky part
of the brackets in between and the bottom of the inner bucket has a lip.

When the inner bucket is lifted up higher than the brackets, the outside arms
of the brackets should fall down and swing the inside parts out towards the
middle and if the inner bucket is then lowered, its bottom edge should snag
on the hooky part.


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## MarkBastard (19/10/11)

Yeah that's a nice idea.

Regarding sparging.

If you normally get say 28L preboil after squeezing the heck out of your bag and with the bucket system only get 26L without squeezing, can't you sparge with 2L of water and you should then get another 2L of runoff? I thought that's how it would work.


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## nala (19/10/11)

Mark^Bastard said:


> Yeah that's a nice idea.
> 
> Regarding sparging.
> 
> If you normally get say 28L preboil after squeezing the heck out of your bag and with the bucket system only get 26L without squeezing, can't you sparge with 2L of water and you should then get another 2L of runoff? I thought that's how it would work.



Agreed, I was unprepared and had not thought that I would be that much short.
I will sparge in some way next time, thinking about best to do it, either by hand or with the pump.


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## stux (19/10/11)

A whole thread on the yanks taking BIAB+No Chill and devising a 2 vessel recirculating no-sparge system

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/i-love-no-...brewing-140972/

Basically, MLT recirculates via Kettle and then back to MLT. At the end, drains into kettle and boils.

No Sparge.

BIAB like efficiencies...

clear wort.


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## 1974Alby (26/10/11)

anyone tried this in a keggle?...I dont have an urn and have just acquired a keggle and burner and was going to buy a BIAB bag...now thinking a bucket with hundreds of holes, and recirculate with a jug...??


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