2 Pot Stovetop Ag With Lauter

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I know the criticism that will occur from this topic - I've reinvented the wheel, it's just adaptation of another method and so on.

I don't care. Because someone, somewhere will learn something from this. It might get a kit brewer to AG (hell - I've done it with half a glass of beer, why not do a how to). More importantly it's to say to any newb just a bit concerned about the learning curve - there's many ways to skin a cat, what's the worst that will happen? You'll make beer and necessity is the mother of invention - adapt to what you have, your budget and facilities - AG is so forgiving for this.

This is the method I made my latest bitter - English Best Bitter. I no-chilled. I'm not a no chiller (I consider my house APA to require crash chilling, but that's another story), but given it was all early hop additions, I only nee ded a basic adjustment to simplify this brew.

The method is my standard two pot stovetop method. Rather than BIAB, I made a lauter tun, a la Ghetto method BABBs brew wars lauter tun. Now, my DIY skills are shoddy at best, so if I can make a lauter, then anyone can.

The lauter (youtube - BABBs system wars, ghetto method to catch up), is a bucket in bucket system, as follows. In newb speak a lauther is simply a sieve for wort. The grain bed that forms serves as a sieve for proteins, so you end up with far clearer wort. I did.

Edit:

see post 69 in this thread for videos of how I went about this method.

2 buckets from Bunnings ($6 each):

Drilled holes in the bottom of one:

It slots in top of the other bucket:

Stick a hole in bucket 2 and put a tap in ($1.50 from bunnings):

Heat up strike water:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

When strike water is at the right temp, bung in the grain and the water into my mash tun (a 25L esky I happen to already own). Put a lid on the esky, I'm only photographing this without it to show the mash in the esky. Lid it! If you have larger headspace than this, some alfoil on top of the mash can help reduce temperature fluctuations.:

After an hour, put the grains, et al, into the lauter tun (giant sieve):

At the other end, we start sparging (ie. rinsing grains to get maximum sugaz from them) - this requires a preheated amount of water at the required sparge temp (in my case 14 Litres at 81 degrees for a 77 degree sparge):

In order to evenly distribute the wort, I transfer half the pure wort into the 2nd pot (which had the heated water, but is now empty), and sparge 50/50 into each pot.

Now I boil these for 60 minutes:

Whilst it's working its way up to boiling, I'll continue to gather sparge runnings:

Advantages of this:

Less effort (my knee is shot, this is good for me), and considerably less mess in the kitchen (pleases SWMBO).

Requires little equipment, over and above BIAB or anything else.

2 pots, means I will get better efficiency than Maxi-BIAB for a similar amount of effort.

Can be done in the kitchen on the stove top.

Far clearer wort, with far less break - a distinct advantage for 2 pots, given I do lose a considerable amount to trub.

Can do it whilst under the influence.

Disadvantages:

Costs an extra $14 for a lauter tun. If you don't 2 pot, then another pot as well (my 2nd pot was $12 on special at Big W).

As noted above, this can be adjusted to chill or no chill. If this were my house APA, I'd be chilling, but seriously the brew day was over in 3 hours, and I'll run off the wort and pitch tomorrow.

Hope this helps someone. I'm a big believer in sharing info for the common good and this is my contribution.

Goomba

 

[goomboogo]

It's redundant.

 

[Fish13]

cheers goomba. I may explore this further.

 

[Spork]

Id need another Paulener stein, but I have the rest of the stuff.
Nice simple "how to" LRG.

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

did you realise the bundy bear was in you wort.... h34r:

Nice therad mate, well done

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Sorry about the dodgy camera work - blame iPhone 3 and Becks 4 (or possibly more).

Broke my normal rule not to drink until brew day is over.

One thing I forgot to put in, is the hop additions into the wort at 45 minutes - hopefully this is implied in the text, but if not - after I got the 2 pots to boil, hop additions went in 45 minutes from end of boil. This was a single hop addition - though I may do a bit of minor dry hopping in secondary.

Goomba

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

did you realise the bundy bear was in you wort.... h34r:

Nice therad mate, well done

Naah - he's off captaining a hit n giggle cricket team.

Goomba

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

It's redundant.

I don't care

 

[rehab]

Cheers for sharing. This is pretty simple to follow so after I crank a few BIABs I may grab a few Buckets and rip into this :icon_chickcheers:

Chris

 

[TheGregBrew]

how did you add the tap to the bucket? Did you have a nut or something on the inside of the bucket?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

how did you add the tap to the bucket? Did you have a nut or something on the inside of the bucket?

It nothing on the back end. A matter of putting a hole in it smaller than the tap and slowly increasing it until it fit - just and very tight.

It didn't leak and I'll likely glue it in, when I could be bothered.

Goomba

 

[hopie89]

OK this may sound stupid, but from the mash tun do u just scoop everything to the lauter?
Cheers,
Hopie

 

[Drowro]

I would suggest that he dropped grains and all into the bucket with the holes. Before that however he would have put a fly wire mesh in first to act as a strainer of the grains.

 

[katzke]

Looks just what Charlie Papzian does in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Only real difference is the use of 2 soup pots instead of one giant one. Not sure he used the cooler for mashing. If you did not have one you could do a stovetop mash. And no need for a screen in the bottom of the bucket. The key is to drill the correct size holes.

A bit of control when transferring the mashed grains and pouring the hot water to rinse them out and I am sure you made good beer.

 

[tiprya]

How do you account for hop utilisation in your two pots?

The first pot that you take the first running with will have higher gravity than the second, so equal hop additions in each will not produce equal bitterness.

Looks like a very good method though - do you just pour everything from the mash tun to the lauter by tipping the esky?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I did say "look at youtube for the BABBs systems war Ghetto method".

Yes, mashed in the esky, use the steins you see to put into the bucket in bucket lauter.

Hop utilisation is a matter of splitting them in 2. I did get the gravity fairly even in them (courtesy of splitting the inital runnings and getting the sparge runnings fairly even between the two), so a fairly consistent result.

As I mentioned in the outset - it's merely a means to show that at home, without expensive specialist burners and gas, one can brew a full sized batch on the stove, without high grav brewing. Also, that with a drill and a few dollars worth of buckets and a tap and little DIY skill, one can make a lauter - which has a massive effect on efficiency, makes sparging a cinch and reduces trub losses to protein.

I suppose the biggest lesson to learn, that a bit of adaptability and little DIY skill means that you can brew AG on anything. Nick_JD's thread on stovetop method has done this for BIAB and getting people to try AG, because "hey a pot and a bit of fabric and I can make beer". This is in honour of that thread and to show that there are many ways to skin a cat (or an eggplant for any vegetarians/vegans) and that a bit of thought and looking for the stuff you have means you can make beer.

Just get the basics down pat and think.

Goomba

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Here's the original quote regarding wort gravity "evening".

In order to evenly distribute the wort, I transfer half the pure wort into the 2nd pot (which had the heated water, but is now empty), and sparge 50/50 into each pot.

 

[yardy]

Also, that with a drill and a few dollars worth of buckets and a tap and little DIY skill, one can make a lauter - which has a massive effect on efficiency, makes sparging a cinch and reduces trub losses to protein.

it would be less work to drill that esky/tun, fit a basic manifold and reassign that bucket into a camping shower.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

it would be less work to drill that esky/tun, fit a basic manifold and reassign that bucket into a camping shower.

I'm under strict orders from SWMBO to not alter any eskies - after I did some irreversible alterations to another one.

That's the difference - if someone with my dodgy DIY can do a lauter bucket, anyone can.

But glad to have opinions - this is an attempt at another demystifying thread for less experienced brewers/thinking about switching to AG - and I love hearing other opinions that further knowledge.

Goomba