BIAB - chill or no chill

[Ronix81]

Im about to give BIAB a go for the first time with a 40 litre keggle and have a few questions with chilling the wort. I have made my own immersion chiller out of 1/2 copper and was originally planning on dropping the temp and getting it straight into the fermenter but I have also been reading a lot about the no chill method. I have several empty cubes from FWK's that i can use but my question is: since they are a 15 litre cube and i wont have an exact idea of efficiency until after this first batch, what do i do with the excess wort? Obviously i can put it in another cube but i will more than likely only have 5-10 litres in the second cube which will leave a lot of headspace. Any suggestions other then getting a 20 ltr cube to start with and ditching the excess or should i just chill the first batch and work out my efficiency for the next.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

put equal amounts of wort in each cube and squeeze the excess air out using your knee and a towel up against a wall or similar. or you could increase your batch size to fill 2 x 15 litre cubes and get more beer for the same effort

 

[TwoCrows]

If you can finish your boil around 25-30 litres , you could add water after the boil to fill the cube volume.

Just aim for a higher starting gravity by adding more grist/ grain.

 

[NealK]

I usually have about 28 litres post boil. A 20 litre cube holds about 23 litres and I use 2 litres for a yeast starter. The rest is mostly trub and gets ditched.

 

[Ronix81]

I usually have about 28 litres post boil. A 20 litre cube holds about 23 litres and I use 2 litres for a yeast starter. The rest is mostly trub and gets ditched.

How many litres do you start with? This seems like the best option to start with

 

[Bribie G]

I do a variety of batch sizes, from single keg to keg+bottles for entering into competitions right up to full double batches.

To cater for the varying wort sizes I tailor the brews to fit into a variety of 20L, 10L and 5L cubes. The 10s and 5s are pretty reasonably priced from Bunnings so if you have a few 15s, you can easily step up in 10s or 5s.

The trick is to test exactly what your 15s would hold hot. I know the bunnings 10s hold more like 11 litres but the 5s are fairly spot on as they are more rigid.

 

[TwoCrows]

How many litres do you start with? This seems like the best option to start with

You need to workout what your setup requires, the boil off rate of your
kettle plus amount the of wort required into cube.

 

[NealK]

How many litres do you start with? This seems like the best option to start with

I will usually have about 33 litres pre boil and about 27-29 post boil.
I have a 3kw urn and boil off about 4 litres per hour on average. Mine is now a home made Braumiser but these volumes had not changed much since I was doing BIAB.
My boil times vary from 60 minutes up to 90.
I like this method because I will usually let the starter go for a couple of days and pitch the whole lot at high krausen. Having the starter made from the same wort that you are pitching to means you are not pouring in a couple of litres of DME in to your beautiful wort.
There are lots of other ways that work equally well, trial and error and finding what works for you will come after you have a few brews under your belt.
Good luck!

 

[Fatgodzilla]

The obvious answer is how much do you want to ferment in one go? I BIAB then no chill one cube at a time. If you want to brew 28 litres, do so. I hope you can cool down 28l in Cairns. Either have less in the boil, or split you output into. 2 standard cubes. Or a Bribie says, buy a small cube. Or chill that small volume and ferment that. Simples.

And forget efficiency crap. What's more important .. brewing 17l of good brew or worrying about a couple of litres of brew that didn't t make it to the fermenter. For goodness sake, a couple of litres of unfermented wort ain't worth crap compared to 17l of fine home brew.

 

[Ronix81]

You need to workout what your setup requires, the boil off rate of your
kettle plus amount the of wort required into cube.

I figured the only way I would work out the boil off rate would be to actually boil off once the grains had been In for there for the 60 mins??

 

[Ronix81]

The obvious answer is how much do you want to ferment in one go? I BIAB then no chill one cube at a time. If you want to brew 28 litres, do so. I hope you can cool down 28l in Cairns. Either have less in the boil, or split you output into. 2 standard cubes. Or a Bribie says, buy a small cube. Or chill that small volume and ferment that. Simples.

And forget efficiency crap. What's more important .. brewing 17l of good brew or worrying about a couple of litres of brew that didn't t make it to the fermenter. For goodness sake, a couple of litres of unfermented wort ain't worth crap compared to 17l of fine home brew.

Not concerned about wasting the brew but I already have 15l and 25l cubes at home so was hoping to get a "rough" idea on a starting volume so I wasnt tipping excess down the drain. I've decided I'm going to chill this brew and have made my own immersion chiller out of a roll of 1/2 copper I already had. I've got 150litres of water chilling down to 2c that I'm going to pump thru the coil so hopefully that does trick getting the wort down to temp. At the end of the day if it's a failure it only cost me $20 for grains but the experience and lessons learnt will be well worth it. Fingers crossed it doesn't come to that.

 

[mstrelan]

You might find it's best to cool down to 40 or 50 with tap water before using the 2C water. Or give it a go and see how low it gets.

 

[Ronix81]

You might find it's best to cool down to 40 or 50 with tap water before using the 2C water. Or give it a go and see how low it gets.

Well the chilling side of things was a sucess, went from 97 down to 18 in 11mins and still had water left but that's the ferment temp I was going with. Time will tell with the actual beer I guess[emoji38]. Pretty happy for my first attempt at biab but plenty of areas for improvement and can't wait for the next one.