2 Pot Stovetop Ag With Lauter

[Fodder]

Nice read. I'm just about to bottle my second stovetop BIAB as per Nick's thread and find your method very interesting.

Just a quick question: What size drill bit did you use for the holes in your second bucket? And I assume the pattern of the holes plays some importance? Any certain gap size between holes that should be followed?

Thanks!

 

[Spoonta]

you could rap the buckets in a camping mate so you did not need the esky at all just add your grain and water and mash in that

 

[yardy]

you could rap the buckets in a camping mate so you did not need the esky at all just add your grain and water and mash in that

or put a tap and braid in the esky.

 

[katzke]

or put a tap and braid in the esky.

Like he said, he can not modify the cooler or esky as you seem to call them.

Also if you want to cut out the esky you could stove top mash, oven mash, or as was also pointed out mash in the lauter tun by wrapping it up with something to insulate it.

I like BIAB. I have the stuff to do it. If I was looking to go AG again this may interest me. I already have a bucket for fermenting or bottling. IT would not take anything to get a second food grade bucket and drill some holes in it.

Just goes to show there are many ways to make good beer if you learn the basics of why and how. If you understand why grain is turned into sugar then you can find a way to do it with the junk you have.

I think posts like this go a long ways to promoting home brew. The picking that follows does not help much unless the reader has thick skin and desires to do it despite what others say.

That is not to say basic brewing science should be ignored and pitching yeast in hot sugar water, then drinking it after a few days, will make good beer.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

The point, as stated in the OP - is to show that with junk around the house or minimal outlay, one can add an extra step that shortens time from BIAB, and gives clearer wort and easy sparging.

As also stated I don't have the materials or the DIY skills to put a braid and tap in an esky, nor permission to ruin an esky that's going to hold some dairy or something tomorrow when I go camping.

This is a more "lying around the house stuff" thread.

And if a noob with good ability to conceptualise, but poor DIY skills (like me) reads this - they're going to go "hell, pretty easy" and if they read this and Nick's thread, they'll go "hey, if all I have create wort, and I can do it with what I have, why don't I try it out - it's not going to cost me anything" - like a perfectly good esky.

Another option would be to use BIAB material (or a bag) inside the lauter tun and mash in that.

That's the point - do what seems comfortable, affordable, available and within your skill set and get making some wort.

Drill bit was 5mm off memory, and I basically did it in a circular pattern, starting from the outside, and staggering each circle as I went in. But again - it's not these details that are important.

Goomba

 

[philmud]

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):

This seems straightforward, except for this bit (and I'm sure I'm just confused due to lack of knowledge of the process - I'm very new to brewing). Where did you heat the sparge water? I'm under the impression that you run off half of the wort into each of the pots - do you use a third pot for the sparge water, or do you simply pour all 14 litres into the lauter-tun while the first wort pot is in place?

 

[yardy]

Like he said, he can not modify the cooler or esky as you seem to call them.

Also if you want to cut out the esky you could stove top mash, oven mash, or as was also pointed out mash in the lauter tun by wrapping it up with something to insulate it.

I like BIAB. I have the stuff to do it. If I was looking to go AG again this may interest me. I already have a bucket for fermenting or bottling. IT would not take anything to get a second food grade bucket and drill some holes in it.

Just goes to show there are many ways to make good beer if you learn the basics of why and how. If you understand why grain is turned into sugar then you can find a way to do it with the junk you have.

I think posts like this go a long ways to promoting home brew. The picking that follows does not help much unless the reader has thick skin and desires to do it despite what others say.

That is not to say basic brewing science should be ignored and pitching yeast in hot sugar water, then drinking it after a few days, will make good beer.

who's picking ? like the man said, he loves hearing opinions that further knowledge, i have both, if you don't like or understand them that's tough cheddar for you bud :icon_cheers:

seriously, if you can drill 300 holes in a plastic bucket with no insulation, then surely, when your wife isn't looking, you can drill one hole (2 if you add a mash thermometer) in an esky/cooler (that you already have) and add a tap and some braid or copper manifold, my 2 bobs.

Yard

 

[Rowy]

I currently use a Hybrid of Nick and Goombas method but am thinking of getting a 40l urn as a result of a craftbrewer voucher I got for xmas. My thought was to use the urn to mash into a la BIAB and then take the bag and place it into the buckets to sparge, draining off the result then back into the urn for boil off. Can anyone see a problem with this. I see this method as a way of getting around having to have a pulley or something to drain the bag. Comments would be appreciated I'm pretty new at AG and may be missing something that may effect efficiency or something else.

 

[katzke]

I currently use a Hybrid of Nick and Goombas method but am thinking of getting a 40l urn as a result of a craftbrewer voucher I got for xmas. My thought was to use the urn to mash into a la BIAB and then take the bag and place it into the buckets to sparge, draining off the result then back into the urn for boil off. Can anyone see a problem with this. I see this method as a way of getting around having to have a pulley or something to drain the bag. Comments would be appreciated I'm pretty new at AG and may be missing something that may effect efficiency or something else.

You have to be disabled or a little girl to worry about draining the bag. My one big gripe about some misinformation about BIAB. Sure it is easier to let the bag hang from something to get every drop. Not needed to make beer. Any normal human can pull the bag a little at a time and hold it up with one hand after most of the liquid is out while spinning it with the other. It can then be hung from the proverbial doorknob or set in a bucket with some form of strainer or colander under it to get that last drop.

BIAB is only as hard as you make it. It should not be called brew in a bag. It should be called any one can do it if you can follow instructions. I guess that may not make a very good acronym. For all I know it may make something that is the same in Australian for your mother and father were never married.

 

[Rowy]

You have to be disabled or a little girl to worry about draining the bag. My one big gripe about some misinformation about BIAB. Sure it is easier to let the bag hang from something to get every drop. Not needed to make beer. Any normal human can pull the bag a little at a time and hold it up with one hand after most of the liquid is out while spinning it with the other. It can then be hung from the proverbial doorknob or set in a bucket with some form of strainer or colander under it to get that last drop.

BIAB is only as hard as you make it. It should not be called brew in a bag. It should be called any one can do it if you can follow instructions. I guess that may not make a very good acronym. For all I know it may make something that is the same in Australian for your mother and father were never married.

I was thinking from the point of view of using it to sparge. As for your other point, I find comfort in the knowledge that I know who my father is unlike yourself who needs to send cards every fathers day to most retired members of the US 7th fleet, being sure in the knowledge that mom said it had to be one of them as the New York Yankees were touring away that month. Must be an expensive exercise sending all those cards in the hope of finding someone you can call daddy

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

This seems straightforward, except for this bit (and I'm sure I'm just confused due to lack of knowledge of the process - I'm very new to brewing). Where did you heat the sparge water? I'm under the impression that you run off half of the wort into each of the pots - do you use a third pot for the sparge water, or do you simply pour all 14 litres into the lauter-tun while the first wort pot is in place?

The lauter tun has enough volume to hold the sparge runnings (over 20L and I rarely need more than 16L of sparge water).

So what I did was run the initial heavy volume wort into empty pot 1, whilst in pot 2 I heated the sparging water to temp on the stove.

When it was at the right temp, I poured it into the lauter tun (with the tap off), used an empty Stein (I own 4 or so) to transfer half the heavy volume initial runnings into now-empty pot 2, and then sparged half the water into empty pot 1 and half into empty pot 2, so we had approximately the right volume in each. The photo showing the two pots was closer to the end - I reckon one of my burners goes harder than the other, which might account for the difference as well.

I certainly get more evaporation than beermate calculates I should.

Goomba

 

[Rowy]

+1 on the low Beermate evaporation calculation!

 

[yardy]

For all I know it may make something that is the same in Australian for your mother and father were never married.

 

[Nick JD]

who's picking ? like the man said, he loves hearing opinions that further knowledge, i have both, if you don't like or understand them that's tough cheddar for you bud :icon_cheers:

seriously, if you can drill 300 holes in a plastic bucket with no insulation, then surely, when your wife isn't looking, you can drill one hole (2 if you add a mash thermometer) in an esky/cooler (that you already have) and add a tap and some braid or copper manifold, my 2 bobs.

Yard

Who wants to wait for ages for a stupid esky mainfold to drain? Half-witted apparatus at the best of times.

The mere existance of rice gulls illustrates a broken system that requires a bandaid solution.

Why don't you use a bag and throw your esky away if you love simple and obvious solutions so much?

 

[philmud]

@ Goomba - cheers, I plan on doing a BIAB for my first AG brew, but this seems like a simple way for me to knock up full brews on my stove with a couple of Big W pots.

 

[yardy]

Who wants to wait for ages for a stupid esky mainfold to drain? Half-witted apparatus at the best of times.

tsk tsk, poor form nicky, you'll need fresher bait if you want to get a bite mate :icon_cheers:

as an aside, a %70+ grain bill of either wheat or rye, without gulls, is not a problem on my system, just adjust your mash and sparge to suit, try a %100 rye mash in your bag and see how you go cobber, when you've done one let me know.

Yard

 

[Nick JD]

when you've done one let me know.

For this kind of crap you get the inaugural "Stupid Post of the Year" award for "Exellence in Misunderstanding Other Brewing Methods".

This year's award is in the form of a Bunny stealing a cookie.

 

[Jazzafish]

My first mash tun was a bucket in bucket system and a hand held element. Heated strike water in same design 2 x bucket MT, put element in coopers fermenter holding the sparge water (which eventually fermented the beer too), mashed in grain and wrapped up with bubble wrap and a blanket. Only lost 3*C in winter. My 2nd MT was a converted esky with braid manifold and this lost 2*C in winter. Infusing with boiling water to step mash or maintain temp solved this minor issue. Both systems made award winning beer.

So potentially, you could avoid using your esky at all.

I still use my bucket in bucket to make small batches of starter wort and have plans to use it as a hop back

 

[yardy]

For this kind of crap you get the inaugural "Stupid Post of the Year" award for "Exellence in Misunderstanding Other Brewing Methods".

wow, i see you set aside that special time to humiliate yourself in public again, thanks for that, i'm suprised it didn't go to you again for the 4th consecutive year, but feck it, a win is a win, thanks again nick, without you we'd all be stuffed. :icon_chickcheers:

btw, brewed that %100 Roggen yet ?

 

[Nick JD]

Rye tastes like old dishcloths soaked in stale cheese.

I have no problems removing any grain from any wort, for I have yellow rubber gloves.

And BTW - I'm my head's up bum, not arse. Check the other thread. He's being a smegma foreskin too.