My bucket in urn system is going well, but I still had a hankering to do BIAB - you know it just didn't feel right not having a lovely hot squishy bag to cuddle up to. However Darren's recent posts have been haunting me. How stupid of me to realise that - despite several years of successful brewing, several thousand dollars in prizes thanks to our excellent BABBs club, and a very welcome champion lagermaker's cup awarded for 2011, what I really need to do, as suggested by our long serving forum member, is to:
How could I have been so blind as to deny the simplicity and speed of Darren's method, the lack of messing around, the self evident rightness and centrality of the Holy Braid in the inherently hierarchical map of the Brewing Universe?
So, finally compliant and humbled, I headed off to Masters to get some braid (whatever that looks like). However on the way I saw Spotlight and remembered that I needed some stuff for my Friday Quilting class - and there it was, a roll of lovely Swiss Voile - so I bought a couple of metres. The braid (not to mention the Lousiana gold lamee bows and Kentucky organza triangles ) now forgotten, I rushed home excitedly.
It occurred to me that whilst a bag is all well and good, an even simpler system would be a big circle of voile, hemmed around the circumference to avoid fraying - hoist her with a hangman's noose and the cleaning couldn't be simpler, just tip into compost, then flap- flap and basically a grain-free sheet ready to stuff in the bucket o' perc, rinse out later and pin on line. No weak seams and as perfect a tear-drop shape as you could wish for.
I took a fairly accurate stab at cutting out a circle, then tackled the Janome for the first time, pretty scary and I wouldn't pass dressmaking 101, but good and cheap result, around $8 all up. I'll give it its maiden voyage this afternoon with a Viennale B)
- Insert a length of copper braid into the urn
- mash in the urn
- drain the wort into a couple of buckets
- sparge using hot water from a third bucket, (up to 4 vessels so far)
- carry the urn full of wet grain over to the compost, tip it out
- wash out the urn and clean the element
- remove the braid
- carry it all inside, pour the by now cooled (and enzyme zapped) wort into the urn
- reheat
- clean out the plethora of buckets already used
- hope that by this stage the wort still remotely resembles the original recipe.......
How could I have been so blind as to deny the simplicity and speed of Darren's method, the lack of messing around, the self evident rightness and centrality of the Holy Braid in the inherently hierarchical map of the Brewing Universe?
So, finally compliant and humbled, I headed off to Masters to get some braid (whatever that looks like). However on the way I saw Spotlight and remembered that I needed some stuff for my Friday Quilting class - and there it was, a roll of lovely Swiss Voile - so I bought a couple of metres. The braid (not to mention the Lousiana gold lamee bows and Kentucky organza triangles ) now forgotten, I rushed home excitedly.
It occurred to me that whilst a bag is all well and good, an even simpler system would be a big circle of voile, hemmed around the circumference to avoid fraying - hoist her with a hangman's noose and the cleaning couldn't be simpler, just tip into compost, then flap- flap and basically a grain-free sheet ready to stuff in the bucket o' perc, rinse out later and pin on line. No weak seams and as perfect a tear-drop shape as you could wish for.
I took a fairly accurate stab at cutting out a circle, then tackled the Janome for the first time, pretty scary and I wouldn't pass dressmaking 101, but good and cheap result, around $8 all up. I'll give it its maiden voyage this afternoon with a Viennale B)
