Biab Brew Rig

[Bribie G]

Ok little glasshoppers this is serious. I'm glad this thread has popped up because this is something I have been considering for a month or so, a dedicated BIAB brew station. Now I am the worst mechanic in the world and don't have any designs to post, and will have to farm the work out to somebody but what I have in mind for a dedicated BIAB setup is:


Stainless steel stand on castors to support the urn or pot
A stable 'gallows' arrangement realistically 2 metres high, to hang the bag off, double pulley hoist of course
The ability of the gallows to swing 90 degrees so the drained bag can be swung out and dropped into a bucket on the floor

There are mobs of members on the forum who have purpose welded rigs for 3 vessel, RIMS and HERMS systems and these obviously do the job, and I would like to get something of the same quality going for BIAB.

Any thoughts on what the stainless steel and other components might cost?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Ok little glasshoppers this is serious. I'm glad this thread has popped up because this is something I have been considering for a month or so, a dedicated BIAB brew station. Now I am the worst mechanic in the world and don't have any designs to post, and will have to farm the work out to somebody but what I have in mind for a dedicated BIAB setup is:


Stainless steel stand on castors to support the urn or pot
A stable 'gallows' arrangement realistically 2 metres high, to hang the bag off, double pulley hoist of course
The ability of the gallows to swing 90 degrees so the drained bag can be swung out and dropped into a bucket on the floor

There are mobs of members on the forum who have purpose welded rigs for 3 vessel, RIMS and HERMS systems and these obviously do the job, and I would like to get something of the same quality going for BIAB.

Any thoughts on what the stainless steel and other components might cost?

gantry swing I dont like. Pots of boiling liquid on castors I dont like.

I would go with something more like a fixed pot - and then an A or Z frame on castors to hang you bag off. Lift bag out, allow to drain and roll away

like this but obviously with a bit of finese.. basically a small crane really



On a solid bench type arrangement... maybe the gantry type set-ups has merit through.

 

[BennyBrewster]

Use an engine hoist.

 

[Bribie G]

great idea to have the rig move but not the pot. So it doesn't need to swing, just roll back and drop the bag into the bucket. Now that's thinking.
How much are engine hoists from Supacheap etc????

Edit: remembering that the base of the urn or pot needs to be about knee height off the ground so it can be drained into the fermenter or cube, and then at the top of the urn the bag needs to be lifted for draining so that the top of the bag ends up about eye-height (I'm 186 cm). Would an engine hoist go up that far?

 

[Scruffy]

Engine hoist with some sort of platform welded on the bottom two 'feet' to take a burner and pot stand...

Nice!!

 

[reviled]

Bribie, what I would do is have a stand with room for 3 buckets/pots

You have your kettle with a burner underneath, next to that a sparge bucket, and next to that an HLT to keep sparge water at the right temp.. then the engine hoist would be good for moving the bag from the kettle, to the sparge bucket without the stand moving (or you could just lift it yourself )

Now I know it takes away the ease of BIAB, but I dont care, I like BIAB and I like sparging it cos to me it doesnt seem like much more hassle, plus it gives me something to do while im waiting for the wort to boil

 

[tribalfish]

What about a brew tree type design, but with 3 stations all at the same height evenly spaced around a centre post.
Gantry/Pulley setup at the top of your post.

Mash
Hoist up
spin
dunk sparge
Hoist up
spin
Drain

I think I might have a crack at rigging something up.

Tribal.

 

[mash head]

At the moment I have a stainless copper fitted in the place of a normal copper in a copper stand with built in gas burner the whole thing probably weighs 30 kg so is easy to move around, but only holds 60 or so litres. I always brew under the veranda where there is a hook for the bag. One day soon I am planning to do monster biab and will use a forklift or gantry to remove the grain bag but for now the sky hook works well. Greg
ps I bought an engine crane supposed to lift 2 ton for around $280 (for lifting engines)

 

[Scruffy]

Aussies in New Brewing technique shocker!! BIAB - NO Bag Required...!!

h34r:

 

[captaincleanoff]

heres how I take care of things - 100L aluminum pot, 20kgs grain, 65L brews, block and tackle pulley, old projector trolley taken from a school. This bag would be around 40kgs when pulled out. I have no problems with this simple pulley system.

 

[tribalfish]

Aussies in New Brewing technique shocker!! BIAB - NO Bag Required...!!

h34r:
[/quote

W T F ? :huh:

 

[Katherine]

heres how I take care of things - 100L aluminum pot, 20kgs grain, 65L brews, block and tackle pulley, old projector trolley taken from a school. This bag would be around 40kgs when pulled out. I have no problems with this simple pulley system.

That like ours except we chill so have a longer bench!

 

[eric8]

heres how I take care of things - 100L aluminum pot, 20kgs grain, 65L brews, block and tackle pulley, old projector trolley taken from a school. This bag would be around 40kgs when pulled out. I have no problems with this simple pulley system.

Captain, I work around Willoughby a lot and have never smelt any of your beery goodness mashing, lucky for me as i would not want to keep working :icon_cheers:

 

[Cocko]

heres how I take care of things - 100L aluminum pot, 20kgs grain, 65L brews, block and tackle pulley, old projector trolley taken from a school. This bag would be around 40kgs when pulled out. I have no problems with this simple pulley system.

Obviously no drama with the thermometer probe catching on the bag there captain?

 

[captaincleanoff]

katie - I chill too! I've got the chillout plate chiller attached to that stand.

cocko - nah no problems. The bag is shaped so that the weight of the grain holds the bag off the side of the pot. Never had a problem with it catching.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'll add a refinement to my design that keeps with some of the BIAB ethic - we are giving up on the "one bit of gear" ideal with a permanent frame thingy .. but we dont have to give up on the "minimal space required" goal.

That frame I drew rough pictures of... could fold up. Bolt and split pin joints rather than welded. Then when its not in use, it can be out of the way and not taking up any of your precious room.

 

[Zizzle]

Before the brewbot there was this:

It was made out of scrap and the base with wheels is a trolley I used to hold the body of my car while I did a bare metal rebuild.

Took literally 10mins to put together with the angry grinder and the mig, but definitely wasn't very straight or true. You can see that the base is actaully bigger than the frame. Did the job though.

The bit if small rope I had for lifting the bag had a loop at each end. One to make a slipping-noose that tightened on the bag, and the other to slip over a hook welded to the frame.

The fatal flaw in the design was that condensation from the boil would form on the top part with the pulley and drip into the pot. One mitigation for this would be to have a sloping bar up there so it all just ran down one side.

 

[Scruffy]

@Tribal Fish - i thought the thread was going a bit aHerms with all the suggestions of three pot solutions etc...

Anyway, here's an old picture before I realised I could just use a step ladder...