Biab Hoisting Or Pulley System?

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ahhh "lateral thinking"......cheers.....spog..
Another tweak, I sit the urn on a wooden board on a tool trolley so when I'm doing a double batch with 2 urns, the trolley moves along but the hoist stays at the same location, I run the 2 batchs half an hour apart. Also handy for doing a side sparge in a nappy bucket, which I do occasionally with a very high gravity brew such as Midnight Train or a massive AIPA. Hoist bag and do the 'main' drain, move trolley along, lower bag into nappy bucket sitting next to urn, sparge, lift & drain while the urn comes to boil..................


View attachment 46800
 
So how do you squeeze the bag or do you to get the liquid out ?. When I steep grains a whole load of liquid comes out when I tighten up the bag and press the sides and that is only about 300g of grain.
 
Hi guys, just wondering how much my bag will weigh after the mash is done, im brewing tomorrow with about a 14kg grain bill, set up a pulley system today, tested it with the dry grain and wasn't too bad but im worried that after the mash it will be way heavier and i will drop it and ruin everything..
 
Typically biab retains about .75L water/kg of grain. So you can add another 10.5kg to it for a total of 24.5kg.
 
Haven't BIAB'ed for a while but grain will absorb .7-1L per kg of grain...

So at a rough guess, a litre of water being 1kg, I am thinking 14 kg of wet grain would be about 25-28 kg.

First thought, others will know better.


EDIT: See argon above.
 
it will be a lot heavier than that though when you first pull it out. the bag itself will be full of wort, and it'll take a while to drain.

i use an electric winch to lift mine . . . and i'm only doing single batches.
 
it will be a lot heavier than that though when you first pull it out. the bag itself will be full of wort, and it'll take a while to drain.

i use an electric winch to lift mine . . . and i'm only doing single batches.

It shouldn't be....

I am fairly easily able to pull the bag from a single batch BIAB (say 5kg of grain) with one hand and I do so at most of our BIAB demos to prove that things aren't as heavy as most people seem to assume they're going to be. We dont even have a pully at demos, just a hook hanging over the pot and lift the bag up to hang on it. I'm only 5'9" and no weightlifter.

I suspect i "could" pull the bag from a double batch by hand, although I would certainly need both hands and i question the safety of doing so. You'd certainly be better off with a pulley of some sort, but there should be no need for winches etc... Just a rope over a sturdy hook would get the job done in a pinch.

If your bag is retaining liquid to the extent that its very heavy, then I suspect its made of less than optimal material or perhaps you are crushing your grain way to fine. I've had this happen once or twice, but only on brews where i used a massive proprtion or rye or raw wheat in the grist and the wort was very viscous and sticky.
 
I'm a pretty well build bloke, I woudn't want to be lifting a bag with 14kg of grain in it and trying to hold it until the main juice has run. I've done it with a 10kg batch and that was enough. A 10kg batch seems to weigh 4 times a 5kg batch when your standing there holding it. Also I don't think I would like to trust my bag with 14kg of grain, I think it would be the limit for it. For my big batch I use 2 bags side by side and put half the grain in each. Here is the thread on it Here

QldKev
 
My bag is the standard polyester Swiss voile, though not really a bag as much as a 1.5m^2 sheet.

With 5kg grist will retain 2.5->3 L of water, but there would be at least double that initially.

Still easy to lift with one hand, but that would mean climbing onto the bench, and i don't want to stand there holding it for 30 minutes to drain.

I did have a single pulley and cleat before, but I'm lazy and the winch is much easier. Plus there's the bling factor :D
 
Fair enough, but you made it sound as though you "need" an electric winch for a single batch - and its obvious that you dont.

People also need to remember that while your spent grain holds perhaps 0.5-1L of water for every kg of grain you started with... You are leaving behind 70+ percent of that weight of grain in the tun as sugar.

For a 5kg grist, assuming you are sensible about how you pull the bag out, the peak weight of the bag is about 12kg.

Now while i definitely think people should organise themselves a hook or pulley of some sort as it makes life a lot easier, for single batches you simply do not need one. For double or bigger batches... Get a pulley, but it doesn't have to be a block and tackle, the bags simply are not all that heavy. Give yourself a 2:1 mechanical advantage and you will be able to hoist the bag with one hand without putting down your beer.
 

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