Big Biab

[mash head]

Hi people of brewland. Has any one taken biab to the next level of say 200 litre batch or taken it comercial?
Cheers Greg

 

[Wardhog]

Can you lift 100+ kg and hold while the mash drips out? I can't. I doubt the bag could either.

BIAB, while a worthwhile thing, does not seem to be a really scalable method.

 

[mash head]

Can you lift 100+ kg and hold while the mash drips out? I can't. I doubt the bag could either.

BIAB, while a worthwhile thing, does not seem to be a really scalable method.

I think we could work around any problem encountered eg lifting jig and making external bag to take weight out of stainless chicken wire like on cray pots. Any more hurdles? Think outside the square.
Cheers Greg

 

[PostModern]

If you're going to that much trouble... consider that you have to empty that huge sack of really hot, wet grain and remove it and clean it. Anyone brewing on that scale will want to be able to safely handle materials, safely remove waste, produce very bright wort, and have a clean brewery. Cover all those bases and you might be onto something... :wacko:

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Hi people of brewland. Has any one taken biab to the next level of say 200 litre batch or taken it comercial?
Cheers Greg

If you can overcome the logistical problems of weight, waste and equipment, I have often wondered what home brewers who ferment large batches (bigger than my 25l max efforts) do with shitloads of bad beer if the brew turns out poor / infected / undrinkable.

Unless you either drink too much or give away heaps of beer, why would anyone want to brew 200L batches ? Most of the fun of home brewing to me is the brewing process and having a different brew to experiment with every time.

 

[Sammus]

If you can overcome the logistical problems of weight, waste and equipment, I have often wondered what home brewers who ferment large batches (bigger than my 25l max efforts) do with shitloads of bad beer if the brew turns out poor / infected / undrinkable.

Unless you either drink too much or give away heaps of beer, why would anyone want to brew 200L batches ? Most of the fun of home brewing to me is the brewing process and having a different brew to experiment with every time.

Ask Tony... he does doubles and had a long string of infections...I wonder if it's still going.

 

[KingPython]

Metal bucket insert, motor probably could be done.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Both Spillsmostofit and I have come up with plans for quite different but both seemingly workable "large" scale BiaB rigs. Just as an intellectual exercise.

I have no doubt at all I could build a 200-400L BiaB rig; and I kept commercial requirements in mind when I was thinking about it - to the point where I have made it modular in order to give a brewhouse with a total capacity of 600-1200L and flexible brew lengths to in increments of the base unit.

The object being that a small pub/brewery could use a single base unit - and add on extra modules as their business grew without having to replace the entire brewhouse, but still use them independently to brew smaller runs of different beers, or even brew different beer simultaneously.

It gets silly after three modules though

Material handling, Grain disposal, waste ... all problems there are multiple solutions for, thought of several of them for each issue. Bright wort - well you have to give up on that idea if you want to play with BiaB. imho it make a very small amount of difference to the final beer anyway.

Given space and inclination, I reckon i could knock up a pub brewery sized BiaB unit for a couple of thousand bucks (give or take a couple of thousand bucks)

 

[flattop]

Scalable without a doubt, with wire baskets and lifting gear. However OH&S may be an issue, Kilo's of hot grain suspended in the air.
Efficiency of manpower as well, how does hauling the grain in a bag compare to the traditional methods.
Thing is if you want to do it commercially there has to be a reason not to use traditional methods and when it comes to costs the manual handling may make it more expensive.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Scalable without a doubt, with wire baskets and lifting gear. However OH&S may be an issue, Kilo's of hot grain suspended in the air.
Efficiency of manpower as well, how does hauling the grain in a bag compare to the traditional methods.
Thing is if you want to do it commercially there has to be a reason not to use traditional methods and when it comes to costs the manual handling may make it more expensive.

All very very true - as I said, it was mostly and intellectual exercise.

But... I did take that stuff into account when thinking about the design. Assuming you have an engineer to tell you you are safe (and my design may well not be, I think it is, but am not an engineer) the design I have in mind reduces manual handling to less than any (well.. most) pub brewery system would have - most of them are still shoveling mash tuns out. With the bag there would be a "dump it in a bin feature" and it eliminates the need for any conveying of crushed grain into the mash tun.

No wire baskets needed - I am sticking with a fabric bag (there are design reasons) Probably an industrial filter medium, but I actually reckon that it could be viably done with more or less the original swiss voile reinforced by some webbing.

The design is in hand drawings and my head - and I haven't got the time to translate it to a publishable form at the moment, but I might do it for giggles after my exam is over in the second half of June

TB

 

[dr K]

Oh dear, 120Y's on the race track with just a few adjustments.
The BIAB process has its flaws, and unless it has changed dramatically since last I was foolish enough to speak, those flaws are rather inconsequential compared to the gains of giving a new brewer an easy and cheap introduction to all grain ( I BTW disagree but thats OT).
To upsize it though goes against the whole cheap and easy concept.
Then again perhaps one of the multitude of reasons for megaswill tasting so crap (apart from the fact they foolishly chill) is that they do not BIAB. Food for thought eh.

K

 

[DUANNE]

there is still hundreds of datsun 1200 and 1600's running around racetracks every weekend succesfully every weekend with minimum modifications but what would they know. ive made up 2 biabs this weekend and 2 in the past month that all taste good so far but what would i know. as far as i could see this was raised as a what if not a completely serious argument but if poeple like you ran things that wouldnt accept new ideas we still would not have electricity and would still be riding horses because them newfangled machines really cant work can they? as my parents always told me if you have nothing positive to say maybe youre better off saying nothing at all.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Oh dear, 120Y's on the race track with just a few adjustments.
The BIAB process has its flaws, and unless it has changed dramatically since last I was foolish enough to speak, those flaws are rather inconsequential compared to the gains of giving a new brewer an easy and cheap introduction to all grain ( I BTW disagree but thats OT).
To upsize it though goes against the whole cheap and easy concept.
Then again perhaps one of the multitude of reasons for megaswill tasting so crap (apart from the fact they foolishly chill) is that they do not BIAB. Food for thought eh.

K

Failed to read all the words again K? - missed the bit where the notion of an intellectual exercise was mentioned. No one has seriously suggested that a commercial BiaB brewhouse would be a good thing - people are just engaging in the obviously reprehensible to you practice of thinking about stuff.

It so happens that I am interested in brewery design, am studying it and undertook the thought experiment of commercial scale BiaB as precisely the "food for thought" that you mention. Having actually spent time and effort on the looking at a potential process - I come to the conclusion that it could be viable.

Then again, how could I possibly have had any valid ideas during hours and hours of thinking about it and carefully ensuring (or trying to at least) that I had in fact covered all the technical; and at least given thought to the commercial, issues. Certainly not ones that are more deep or insightful than what you have to say in a trite paragraph.

So, I'm sorry for thinking about stuff - I'll try not to do it in the future and will refer all potential thoughts to you for clearance. You are obviously better at it than all the rest of us; and if you keep on reminding us, eventually we will learn

 

[katzke]

The idea of a brewpub or true micro setup is not much different then lots of other food operations. I remember a steam heated crab pot that was about brewpub sized and they had a basket on a lift for dunking the crab or other critters they wanted to cook. Can not leave the crab in too long and fussing around trying to remove them by hand would lead to over cooking. Using a trolley lift system I could see a 2 or three boil kettle system that would be just the thing for the micro brewery. A 3 boil kettle system could be run with only 2 baskets and they could be designed to stack inside each other for space savings.

Only problem I see is with a 3 boil kettle system is the rest of the pub would have to be full of fermentors just to keep up with the 3 kettles. That would be easy to do as they would not have to have the place full of mash tuns.

Look at the advantages for a small operation. The spent grain would be easy to handle. Only one brew vessel to clean. All of this and more I did not mention would reduce time in the brewery.

Now all one of use has to do is open a brewpub with a BIAB inspired system, win a few competitions and one would have 2 very popular businesses. A brewpub and a brewery manufacturing company. Too bad I no longer have any rich uncles.