2 Pot Stovetop Ag With Lauter

[yardy]

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.

get off the crack mate, seriously.

 

[Nick JD]

get off the crack mate, seriously.

You bore me.

 

[yardy]

You bore me.

no thanks, btw your bruises are showing :icon_cheers:

 

[geoffd]

Good thead Lord Raja. I brewed my first AG with the bucket in a bucket, but found the head space under the false bottom too big & requiring far too much recirculation, I got a proper false bottom for the very next brew & i'm still using it in the 20L handy pail 5 years later. for the first couple of years my mash tun pot doubled as my boil tun, by giving it a quick wash after transferring the mash into the lauter tun.

One pitfall early on is buying equipment that will require replacement down the line, especially if you're mini mashing. I bought a high quality 20L s/s pot which turned out to be a bit on the small side, still use it today as a mash tun, & picked up a 36L second hand along the way.

So my only advice is to try & get gear that will cover all steps, if you steep grains or even contemplate it, then it's only a matter of time before going all grain. Sometimes the only impediment to progressing is storage space, & you'll eventually move. I chose my latest rental on the basis of being adequate for brewing. I have a man cave now instead of having to take over the kitchen. yay.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Decided to do a 30L batch, just to see if I can push the equipment so far.

The big changes are:

Bigger esky to mash in (I'm not mashing in the lauter tun - the separateness of it means I can actually mash without high grav).
Takes longer to bring strike volume to size.
Takes longer to lauter - the bigger volume of grain means that there is more height for the runnings to get through.
Takes longer to get to boil temp.

Otherwise a pretty good day, although a bit longer.

Goomba

 

[manticle]

Nice one Goomba for demonstrating an interpretation of wort production from your experience. Pity it became another esky/3v VS BIAB thread.

Yardy - I use an esky with a copper manifold inspired by your instructions on how to make one (my second to do so and both have so far worked a treat). Alternatives to this are only a good thing for brewers. More than one one way surely? Maybe it depends what you have in the back yard at the time?

Nick: As mentioned, I use a copper manifold and esky. I'd never bag the bag but your assessment of manifolds is lacking at best. Only time I have used hulls was with a weizen and that was only for security. Manifolds and braids work, as do bags.

Less of the dick measuring pollution

 

[hirns]

Decided to do a 30L batch, just to see if I can push the equipment so far.

The big changes are:

Bigger esky to mash in (I'm not mashing in the lauter tun - the separateness of it means I can actually mash without high grav).
Takes longer to bring strike volume to size.
Takes longer to lauter - the bigger volume of grain means that there is more height for the runnings to get through.
Takes longer to get to boil temp.

Otherwise a pretty good day, although a bit longer.

Goomba

Goomba,

good thread to help others. I too use two 19l Big W pots at the moment in a similar manner to your original posts. I've found that a 28l (2 x 14l )pre boil volume is the go calculated with beersmith and this will generally produce a 21 to 23l batch after trub loss etc(and depending on style of beer). I tend to find that I get issues with boil overs when adding hops if I push past 14l in the pot.

Hopefully, in adding to the thread I will say that my process differs from yours in the following ways.

1. I took the tap out of a 27l esky and added a brass ball valve and braid and I did this by unscrewing the oringinal esky bung and found that I did not need to mod the esky and it can be changed back to the original bung in about three minutes. Didn't need DIY skills for this in my case.

2. This esky is too small for the entire sparge water so I split the sparge water and I add the first half at 91 degrees to get the grain up to sparge temp, let it sit for 15min the drain. The second half of the sparge I add at 82degrees to keep the same sparge temp for my system and leave for 15mins. I do belive that I may need to stop the 15 minutes on the second half as I think that i've at risk of over sparging. Having said that I usually make my preboil gravity.

3. As Ive got three fermenters(but you still only need one) after recirculating the first two liters I sparge into a fermenter so that I have a consistant mix and then take a gravity reading.

4. My modern stove won't bring any more than about 12l to boil so I leave one pot on the stove and boil a for 90 to 60 minutes on a three ring burner outside. I boil hard for 60 or ninety to increase the evaporation rate as once the boil is over I had a frozen block of ice (preboiled water) to the pot and whirlpool before syphoning into the fermenter which then sits in an the bath tub whilst I repeat the process for the second half of the batch before adding this to the fermentor. The heavy boil allows me to add the add the 4l of ice and I usually still need to add chilled water to bring the og down to where it needs to be. My brewtime is almost doubled, as the second 14l has been on the stove it comes to the boil after only a few minutes but I still need to do the second 60 to 90min boil so this is my biggest PIA. A larger pot would bring things back under control and this will be my next upgrade.


I will probably try no chill one day but I'm a bit concerned that when I add the second 1/2 of the batch to the cube then the overall temp may not be enough to kill any nasties even if I have sterilized the cube.

Thanks for sharing your process.


Hirns

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

No worries hirns.

I have an advantage in that I pushed it to about 17L per pot and didn't experience boilovers and my ceramic rental home quality cooktop can do two pots in one.

I do no-chill for the occasional batch - mainly those with no late additions, only 60min additions reeled back appropriately.

Like I said at the outset - the biggest reason for it, is that AG brewing can be done with almost any equipment, any budget, any DIY skills. It's just a matter of being adaptive and understanding the basics.

Goomba

 

[Truman42]

Great tutorial Goomba

I have just acquired another 18 litre urn and was thinking about using it to acheive 22 litre batches utilizing 2 x 18 litre urns.

The plan was this.

Calculate a grain bill for a 22 litre batch in brewmate. Mash in urn number 1, then pull the bag and drain half of the volume into the second urn.
Check the SG and dilute with boiled water to reach my expected start of boil gravity in both urns.

While waiting for the boil to start in both urns, sparge in my bucket and split the sparge between both urns.

Do a second sparge and split again pouring half into each urn and saving the remainder for evap loss at 20 mins to go.

Split my hop additions between both urns.

At EOB I should have around 12-13 litres in both urns which should give me around 22 litres into my fermenter.

Im thinking this will be easier to manage than my current practice of keeping the volume as close to 18 litres as possible and then only getting around 16 litres into the cube. Any reason why this wouldnt work?

 

[Steve@PMF82]

Great tutorial Goomba

I have just acquired another 18 litre urn and was thinking about using it to acheive 22 litre batches utilizing 2 x 18 litre urns.

The plan was this.

Calculate a grain bill for a 22 litre batch in brewmate. Mash in urn number 1, then pull the bag and drain half of the volume into the second urn.
Check the SG and dilute with boiled water to reach my expected start of boil gravity in both urns.

While waiting for the boil to start in both urns, sparge in my bucket and split the sparge between both urns.

Do a second sparge and split again pouring half into each urn and saving the remainder for evap loss at 20 mins to go.

Split my hop additions between both urns.

At EOB I should have around 12-13 litres in both urns which should give me around 22 litres into my fermenter.

Im thinking this will be easier to manage than my current practice of keeping the volume as close to 18 litres as possible and then only getting around 16 litres into the cube. Any reason why this wouldnt work?

Just my 2c, but for me it would seem a lot easier to split the grain bill in half and do 2 single infusion, no sparge, mash in each urn, boil and split hop additions, combine in cubes at the end.
A lot less stuffing around.

 

[Truman42]

Just my 2c, but for me it would seem a lot easier to split the grain bill in half and do 2 single infusion, no sparge, mash in each urn, boil and split hop additions, combine in cubes at the end.
A lot less stuffing around.

I buy my grain from G&G already milled but I suppose theres no reason why I couldn't order it as two single duplicate 11 litre batches and do it as you say. Certainly would be easier than sparging etc and the grain bill would be a lot easier to handle.

 

[Nick JD]

I buy my grain from G&G already milled but I suppose theres no reason why I couldn't order it as two single duplicate 11 litre batches and do it as you say. Certainly would be easier than sparging etc and the grain bill would be a lot easier to handle.

If you are going to do two duplicate batches ... why not do two different ones?

Or, why not get some bigger gear if you want bigger batches?

 

[Steve@PMF82]

I buy my grain from G&G already milled but I suppose theres no reason why I couldn't order it as two single duplicate 11 litre batches and do it as you say. Certainly would be easier than sparging etc and the grain bill would be a lot easier to handle.

Do you have kitchen scales? weigh it out yourself, no need to get 2 separate bags, i have done this many times with pre milled grain from G & G.

If you have dead space at the top of mash in your urn, insulate with foil and / or polystyrene.
Temp loss is the only down side to doing smaller mashes, as long as you insulate well, around and above its fine.

 

[Truman42]

Do you have kitchen scales? weigh it out yourself, no need to get 2 separate bags, i have done this many times with pre milled grain from G & G.

If you have dead space at the top of mash in your urn, insulate with foil and / or polystyrene.
Temp loss is the only down side to doing smaller mashes, as long as you insulate well, around and above its fine.

But if I get one bag and split it, will it matter if I dont get the same grains of equal quantities in both batches, with regards to sg etc? I suppose it doesn't because if my sg is different in each urn it will average out once combined in the cube anyway.

 

[Truman42]

If you are going to do two duplicate batches ... why not do two different ones?

Thats a good point Nick, I suppose I could and even just use the one recipe as a duplicate for styles Ive done before and really like.

Or, why not get some bigger gear if you want bigger batches?

Because Ive spent enough money on Brew gear as it is and the missus is cracking it with me. I was given both of these urns so for now want to make the most of them.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

If you have a grain with DMS precursors, adding sparge water with 20 minutes to go might give you some DMS in the brew.

And rather than dilute the original runnings with boiled water, why not put the first lot of sparge runnings into it?

The other major thing I have, is that I really put this together to show that with little cost and a bit of ingenuity, you can do a full size batch on the stove.

To be honest, if you want to buy another urn, I'd have to agree with Nick_JD and say 'why not get some bigger gear'.

My 2nd big w pot was $12 - it's a low cost alternative. And the extra bit of pfaffing about with grain is worth it, given the budgetary constraint.

A 2nd 18L urn won't be low cost ( assume), so the extra pfaffing about mightn't be worth it, given you can pick up an urn for around $270 from CB. I'm assuming that 2 18L urns would be at least this much, whereas 2 x 19L pots from big w won't be. I know the bird has flown the coup - given you have already acquired it.

For the record, given you have the 2nd urn, if you had the esky and the desire to do the lautering, I would:

Heat strike water in urn (or two).
Mash in esky (and heat sparge water in one of the urns)
Lauter, recirculate, then run the high grav runnings into urn 1.
Pour in sparge water from urn with hot water. Split high grav runnings into now empty urn.
Run off sparge runnings 50/50 to each urn, and boil.

Otherwise, just do a dual BIAB.

Maybe do a batch with each method and decide which works for you - if you have an esky, then it'll cost you $12 in buckets to have a go at lautering. If you like this method, great. If not, you know how to BIAB, so you can continue with that.

Goomba

 

[Truman42]

Thanks Goomba, another method to consider. I do have an esky well suited for the job. I acquired both urns for free so thats why I dont want to upgrade to a 40 litre just yet.

I also have a BigW pot but my stoves a convection in the new house so it wont work, unless a buy a gas burner which is more expense.

 

[Steve@PMF82]

But if I get one bag and split it, will it matter if I dont get the same grains of equal quantities in both batches, with regards to sg etc? I suppose it doesn't because if my sg is different in each urn it will average out once combined in the cube anyway.

Sorry to keep taking this thread :icon_offtopic:

I think you will find that the grain , especially after weighing it out will be mixed well enough that both mashes will be pretty close to the same.

As i said i have done it, i have ended up with exactly the same gravity coming from both mashes, this does rely on all other things being equal.

 

[Deebo]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask. but I'll ask anyway

I went straight to BIAB and was wondering how long does an average mash tun take to drain with a manifold? (I realise this is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string.. just after a rough idea).

Reason I ask is that I was watching the guys brewing on Neil Morrisy's Risky Business show on SBS2 the other day and watching them waiting for their mash tun to drain looked really slow? (It was their first time so maybe they just did something wrong?)

Have a few of the handy pails.. probably slightly easier to clean them than a BIAB Bag and looks like might end up with clearer wort and possibly less trub.
Any trick to drilling all those holes without cracking the base ?

 

[sim]

trick to drilling plastic without it cracking is to stop it flexing and moving as the drill goes in and out, so put a block of wood underneath. also always keep the drill spinning from before it goes into and untill its pulled out of the plastic.

heating up a piece of wire and pushing that through works well too. like a hot knife through butter!