2 Pot Stovetop Ag With Lauter

[manticle]

Drilling backwards (ie drill in reverse) also works well.

 

[Adr_0]

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

Firstly, awesome thread and the whole point is that it may prompt a brewer to go "I didn't think of that, I might try it." etc. etc. So much like and goob job.

Just quick one on the efficiency with two pots... do you mean you essentially have two burners, so increased power and increased boiloff, rather than a single burner struggling a bit with a large BIAB volume? Otherwise, can you clarify why two pots would give better efficiency?

And on the second point, can you clarify how your wort is clearer and get far less trub with two pots?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

The increase efficiency is over "Maxi-BIAB" - which is where you use one 19L Big W sized pot (or similar) but you use less water to more grain, end up with high gravity and then dilute back. So instead of doing Nick_JD's 9L on the stove, you can get a 21L batch from the stove with the same equipment, just with diluting back.

I've spoken to RdeVjun about this at length and the idea of maxi BIAB is to get wort out at minimum fuss and less equipment than even I use. But you do drop efficiency.

You can sparge, but that's up to you.

So having two pots, lower gravity means that you're not going to drop efficiency points with 'sugaz' getting stuck in the grain. It's more fuss than Maxi-BIAB, but you get more from the same quantity of grain.

Yes, you have two burners. You get increased power and increased burnoff, over and above one large pot on a single burner. This has nothing (much) to do with efficiency in terms of 'how much sugaz you get from the grain' (which is what we generally define efficiency as), but more the fact that you don't have to waste time waiting for a stove to heat up a massive pot. You have two burners heating two smaller pots.

So yes, you get increased boiloff. It's quicker and easier in that regard. I'm currently using a 36L pot on two burners on the stove. It's a pain comparative.

2nd point - wort is clearer. That comes from the lautering process. Lautering allows the grain bed to act as filter - which generally filters out quite a lot of protein. As a result, I get less break (which is, yep - protein). Because I have 2 trubs, courtesy of 2 pots, this pegs back some efficiency I lose to trub loss x 2.

Another advantage I don't think I mentioned:

As I'm toward the end of mash time, I start heating the sparge water in one big w pot. As I put the mash into the lauter, the sparge water is ready-ish. I'll run the first cloudy runnings off (remember point 2) and recirculate manually. Then I'll start my proper runnings into 1 pot. When done, I'll put sparge water in. I now have an empty pot. I split the first runnings between the two pots and then start the tap for sparging, splitting the resultant liquor between the pots.

I'm never more than 1-2 grav points at the end different between the two pots, which has a negligible effect on any hopping regime.

Hope this helps out.

I may get a couple of Big W pots in Hobart next week and I may make a youtube video on this. One member has (more tongue in cheek) requested it.

 

[Adr_0]

Awesome. Regarding the clarity, fair enough and I didn't realise it could be a 'problem' (open to interpretation) in BIAB beers. The opportunity to recirc through the grain bed helps this - again, if it's actually a problem - and is another advantage if you decide that you aren't happy with the clarity of the initial runnings.

Nice.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Awesome. Regarding the clarity, fair enough and I didn't realise it could be a 'problem' (open to interpretation) in BIAB beers. The opportunity to recirc through the grain bed helps this - again, if it's actually a problem - and is another advantage if you decide that you aren't happy with the clarity of the initial runnings.

Nice.

I don't see it as a problem or not a problem - there's a lot of debate, lots of it anecdotal that says that protein isn't bad flavour wise, and in fact great flavour wise. Others are looking for clarity as an aesthetic thing - make sure their beer, especially if kegged 'looks' the part.

The other advantage I'm not sure I've made obvious is that with BIAB the lifting of the bag in BIAB can be a messy, burn inducing thing. I've re-found that out lately, I end up with a bit of splashed wort, though I've got it under control. Also, if you don't own a skyhook or have a missus happy with the thing tied on a door handle, you're kind of holding and squeezing and then dunk sparging in a bucket (again, can be messy, if you're unco like me).

With lautering, it's a large jug moving it to the next vessel and lots easier and cleaner in that regards.

Glad to be of help. :chug:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Big W pots obtained, video will be forthcoming when I can get around to brewing/videoing and editing.

 

[Pickaxe]

Hey Goomba,

What sort of loss to trub are you talking about? What volume from each pot do you lose?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

At a guess, probably about 2L per pot. The pots are (relatively) narrow, so the trub settles down. With trub losses taken into account, I'm generally around the 75-79% efficiency mark, and have hit 83% with this method.

If I'm no chilling, I may not even bother filtering trub, as it settles down in the cube, meaning the 2xtrub equation doesn't even exist, as it's only one cube, and therefore one lot of trub to pull the wort from.

Truth be told, I'm sort of a subscriber to the school of though that cold break doesn't seem to affect quality of my beer - certainly I've won awards with it and without it. I have no firm opinion on this, but I thought (when I made the thread) that putting that out there will provide a balanced opinion of the pros/cons of the method for those with a different opinion.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

As promised, video 1, which is how to make a lauter:

In advance, I apologise for:

Dodge camera work,
Dogdy editing
Poor sound
D-grade text.

It's all I could do on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

But hopefully this is useful

http://youtu.be/HqKk_-hZZa0

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Okey dokey, this is the first brew day video.

No ETA on when I'll do the rest, I have dinner to cook and other stuff to do.

This is the 'bringing the strike water up to temp'. Self explanatory, but hey, I thought I'd whack it in. There might be someone who will put the jargon, the process and the lightbulb in the same room and be happy to learn this way.

http://youtu.be/ZfCdwyf_-qc

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Mash in.

I didn't edit most of this, just to give an idea of how much dough ball removal is part of mash in. He he he.

http://youtu.be/EMxAxz-BKtI

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Post mash - this is the lauter (removal of liquor from grains) and sparge (rinse grains to get remaining sugaz) stage

http://youtu.be/eGQez8Lj1Qo

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

This is just to show the pots with equal amounts (ish) of liquor ready for the boil.

I put a subtitle that says "put in hops 50/50 to each pot" - obviously this is according to your hopping schedule, not necessarily during the pre-boil process.

http://youtu.be/fv4xoeV7HXw

 

[DU99]

interesting process.. ..i gather the foil in the esky is for heat retention

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

interesting process.. ..i gather the foil in the esky is for heat retention

Yep. Have a bit of headspace in this esky (as opposed to the old one in Brissie which was 25L), so foil helps with keeping the heat in between the mash and the deadspace at the top.

As I've always said, this isn't about "this is the most amazing method eva!" - it's about being resourceful and that you can make beer with cheap equipment and a bit of ingenuity.

 

[Adr_0]

Nice - love your work LRG.

 

[Pickaxe]

Just got 2 buckets and a lid for $30 from a local catering supply place. Burnings were sold out.

Drilled, tapped and ready to go next week for my 3rd AG.

Brings the grand total of my ag setup to $68. Almost regret my $27 grain bag purchase whose seem split first ag, and my 80km rounds trip to spotlight for $8 of voile.
For me, this setup is ideal. I already 2 pot boil, can't alter my esky, as i only have one, and am hoping this lessens my 6l loss to trub on my first 2 ags. Massive loss. I can't really biab coz my stove is Shit and I don't wanna grt into gas fittings and cut kegs and a chiller on my first few ags. Can't afford it anyway.

Not redundant at all. Quite relevant to me. Will post results next brew day, but this I'd exciting for a new to ag brewer to easily up eff points, get clearer wort and not be limited.in batch size. Don't have the uptime nor inclination to brew small.

+1 from me.

 

[Pickaxe]

Looks like the kids enjoy getting into a brew day too, goomba? At least when they get older they can bloodywell make there own! Hahaha

 

[Yob]

Love it... shhhh :lol:

Good stuff, invention, the ******* son of desperation

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Love it... shhhh :lol:

Good stuff, invention, the ******* son of desperation

And excessively poor DIY skills.