Boiler/mashing Coffe Urn

[stevepreece]

Hi,
After years of brewing from kits, I am finally moving to all grain.
I am gathering together my equipment.

Whilst searching ebay I saw this http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT
question is would this work?

I was going to go with the eski as masher followed by large stockpot and gas burner for a boiler.
However approx. $100 for this coffee urn would give me both a mash tun and boiler.

Any thoughts and advise greatly received.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Phoney]

30L would be just big enough, but you may need to scale down your batches to 18~19L.

 

[troopa]

Good find
All you need now is a couple of meters of Swisse Voile and you got yourself a BIAB setup .. easy peasy

Though, If you didnt buy that particular Urn i would recommend the more common 40L Urn as it would certainly make doing single batchs much easier for you

Tom

 

[Thirsty Boy]

this isn't a definitive answer - so there may well be people who think the opposite to me but.....

I think its a little small

An urn isn't going to make that good a traditional mash tun (although they make excellent BIAB vessels) - but at 30L, you could I suppose use it as a mash tun. It would depend a bit on how the element inside was set-up, on what you would have to do to turn it into a mash tun.

As a boiler - Urns are certainly suitable... but once again, its a bit small. Sure, you could certainly do a brew in it... but its right on the edge.

So yes - you could use this for an AG set-up as both mash tun and boiler...but its not what I would call ideal. If it were 40L.... that'd be different.

Thirsty

 

[Wonderwoman]

I use a 30 L urn and it's ok - bigger would be better, but I got mine for nothing so I make do. I've been getting about 16-17L out of my urn, but I've only done 4 AG -BIAB brews so far and I'm still having some issues with the equipment, so I'm still hoping to get the batch size up to ~19L.

 

[crundle]

The urn itself is fine for BIAB, but as stated, you would be somewhat limited to making batches of about 20 litres instead of around 25 litres as you could in a 40 litre urn.

There are people on here who are using 19 litre stock pots to make 20 litre batches though, with a bit of mucking about with mashing thicker than the usual BIAB full volume of water and sparging the grain in a separate bucket to make room for the boil without loss of efficiency, so a 30 litre would certainly do the job.

It is pretty hard to go past that price if you can get them for that amount, as the 40 litre urns tend to cost much more for the extra 10 litres you gain.

If you used about 5kg of grain in your bag you could mash in your urn with about 24-25 litres of water, only about 5 litres less than most 40 litre urns use, then raise the temp to mashout of about 78 degrees, hold it for around 10 minutes, then hoist the bag and let it drain over the urn while you get the urn on the boil. Give the bag a really good squeeze (with thick rubber gloves on) and then put the bag into a mayo bucket or similar and give it a sparge with about 4 litres of hot water (I use mine straight from the kettle with a little bit of cold water added). Let the grain sit in it for about 10 minutes, dunking it to help release any sugars and then hoist it again and give it a final squeeze. Add the resulting wort to your urn and boil as usual.

About the only issue you will get is that your wort is going to be pretty close to the top of the urn, so you will have to be careful when the boil begins to watch for boil over. You could get around this by taking off some of the liquid before the boil and set it aside to add to the boil as it progresses (with a 3000W element it should be able to boil very well - but it may be like the Crown urn and lack this ability out of the box) or boil it separately on the stove to get around the lack of volume in your urn. Recombine the two when the volume has dropped enough and do the rest as normal (hop additions etc)

All you need is the voile and some sewing (or you can set it up like a pudding cloth with no sewing) and you are away.

cheers,

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

I used a 25L urn (Bruheat boiler) in the UK to do AG, very successfully but for BIAB you would tend to have efficiency problems if you were aiming for a 'full size' 23 to 25 litre brew. However for a few extra dollars you could do a two vessel system by fitting some braid to the bottom of the urn (if it didn't interfere too badly with the element) or adapt a wire kitchen strainer to fit over the inside of the urn tap, which is what I did. The method I used, and what Darren on the forum here did as well, was:

Get yourself a bucket type fermenter with a tap and a couple of 15L stockpots - often cheap at BigW
Use the urn to heat enough water for the mash then dough in.

Use the urn as a mash tun. By all means fit it with a BIAB bag but that's just to make grain removal simple. Passive lagging with a doonah works very well during the mash.

While the mash is proceeding for an hour or so, heat up sparge water using an electric kettle and stockpots on stove (you will have heaps of time). Run off the first runnings into the bucket. Batch sparge twice using the water out of the stockpots, to collect about 28L of wort.

Here's the dangerous part (depends how young / strong you are, I used to do this method in my 20s and I was a Cardiff steelworker :lol: )

Whack the top on the fermenter and lift to a position above the urn.

Drain wort into urn and you have a boiler. You only have a couple of litres headspace to play with, so start with gentle boil and maybe get some defoamer, I think Gryphon sells it.

Worked for me, and the advantage is you only need one bit of expensive kit, the urn, and the rest is fairly cheap pocket money gear you can accummulate a bit at a time if money is an issue. You should be able to crank out commercial strength beers with good efficiency, dunno how it would go with higher gravity stuff, I used to make a respectable 5% best bitter etc.


RdeVuyn may have some input as well, he does basically what I said above but does the sparging externally with bag-in-a-bucket. Six of one half a dozen of the other really.

:icon_cheers:

Edit: Crundle beat me to it, has raised many of the same issues.

 

[Bribie G]

Right, now I remember (well it was 35 years ago ). After sparging I'd end up with the urn on a solid table and the full bucket on the floor. So then I'd get rid of the grain into a garbage bag, wash out the urn then put it on the floor next to the bucket fermenter. Then using a plastic jug I would spoon half the wort into the urn and it would be light enough to easily lift it back onto the table. Then the half full bucket was light enough just to lift it up and tip into the urn .... although still with care.

Also It occurs to me that if you do fairly slow batch sparges you could get away with one stockpot and probably a 10L would do the trick.

 

[RdeVjun]

+1 everyone, yeah I think pretty much all of this could be done, even the bigger batches with dilution (I must write all of this up properly one day!), and it would be a relatively cheap way to get into AG, although not quite as cheaply as the stovetop stockpot/ BIAB method.
Basically, if it were me, I'd approach it with BIAB in mind and like a big self- heating stockpot with a tap! Its much of a muchness, either bucket sparge or in- situ like BribieG says, but that gets away from the territory I am more familiar with. I would always highly recommend sparging a BIAB though (for keeping efficiency up) if that's the route decided on. Also, mashing in a bag in the urn makes for simple cleaning after the mash process and lends efficient use of the equipment rather than just using it as a kettle.
I just can't go into much detail now as I'm running late for work :angry: (Yay! they say, we're not getting an essay today! :lol: ).
:icon_cheers:

 

[Beer&Kebab]

I bought one of these urns from this same guy on Ebay a few weeks ago. I paid $55 for mine. I see he has hiked the price to $75. I have been getting about 20l batch sizes going. That suits me fine. It is pretty lightweight (the postage only cost $10.20 to get to me. Not the $35 he charges). It is just a cheapy made in China job. May not last as long as a Birko or Crown but I am gentle with it. It has a concealed element and is actually rated at 2800w. So techincally it should not be plugged into your normal 10 amp socket. However, I have already done 4 brews in it and it works pretty well for BIAB. Here is what I do. I mash 4kg of grain in about 18 litres for 60 mins. I drain 8 litres of the 1st runnings into a pot. Then I mashout/sparge with 10 litres of nearly boiling water that I heat on my stove. That gets me to 77-78 degrees nice and easily. I stir for 5-10 mins and then pull the bag out and let it drain in another pot. I add the 8 litres back into the urn and I get about 24 litres pre-boil (about 1 litre loss per KG of grain) and end up with about 20 litres after 90 mins of boiling. I no chill into a 20 litre cube. It is only early days but it seems to work ok for me. I say go for it !

 

[stevepreece]

Hi,
Thank you all for the advice and info.

I had noticed the price had changed from $55, ebay is so kind to let you look back at past sales
Thanks for the details of element etc.

I will probably go with this, going to wait and see if the price comes back down........

Basically is the cheapest option for the moment

 

[Fents]

for $75 you could buy three and use em as HLT's for a normal setup $225.

buying threes cheaper than buying one 40L birko/crown.

 

[Beer&Kebab]

I will probably go with this, going to wait and see if the price comes back down........

I see plenty of people buying them at $75.. So I can't see that happening. Though I wish you the best of luck

 

[stevepreece]

I see plenty of people buying them at $75.. So I can't see that happening. Though I wish you the best of luck

Yeah I know......Should have kept my big mouth shut

 

[beersatan]

I picked one of these up for $55 plus $35 delivery a month ago.
I don't trust the tap at all and am getting some brass and stainless bits for $20-30 to sort that out.
Then if it works as a tun or a boiler or both I figure I've won!

 

[Beer&Kebab]

I don't trust the tap at all and am getting some brass and stainless bits for $20-30 to sort that out.

Yeah, the tap is a little flimsy.. But it works. If it ceases too, then I will replace it.. Easy enough. Hey, for $55 or even $75 it is a pretty good unit.

 

[RdeVjun]

Basically is the cheapest option for the moment

Not quite mate, I seriously beg to differ. If cost is the major concern, a 20 (maybe 19) litre stockpot (for as little as $20 at big double u) and BIAB bag (>$10 at sponsor) can all be had for much less than 50 big ones, might even score a bigger stockpot in the change.
Now, I'm not trying to be argumentative- I really want to see you getting into this all grain brewing caper, but it needs to be known that for a piss- poor student (and I've been there- 50 clams went such a long way!), unemployed or whatever, then price is the major factor, and I've found that you can knock out pretty decent full- sized AG batches with this kit. Now I won't say mine are award- winning (such a long way to go), although BIABs have knocked off a few big comps lately, but they've been just fine for me. Not only that, but some people just don't get what they expected out of AG, so the loss is not that great if they decide its not for them and hopefully the pot has other uses around the kitchen.
Even so, if a few extra clams aren't a bother then the urn should achieve much the same objective. One other thing to keep in mind is that stockpots are very handy things for brewers, I have four now and will often use three on brewday- one for mashing and boiling (the 19 litre), one for sparge water heating/ sparging (12 litre), another for measuring grain (8 litre, holds 3.5kg of grain perfectly). The other one, about 8 litres too, is good for reducing/ caramelising wort in my Landlords when I can be bothered, plus they're good for 'sterilising' things if you happen to get into yeast ranching.
Again, don't get me wrong, if the urn really suits you then go for it, I've just found there's an even cheaper option.
:beer:

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'm kinda with Rde Vjun here,

One of the major reasons to use and urn - for BIAB especially. Is that it keeps things very very simple. One bit of gear... thats it.

If however you buy this particular urn... you are going to have to muck about with heating sparge water some other way - or with having buckets - or some other complications.... all of which undo the simplicity you get by using an urn.

Fair enough - its as cheap as an equivalent stockpot, or even eski really - so it holds its own at that level... but if you are going to have to dick around when you brew... you might as well go the route that Rde Vjun suggests, get yourself completely brewing for $50 or less... then save up for a hassle free sized pot/urn/eski etc in the future. Your $20 20L stockpot will never be a waste.

I just dont like the size - 30L is too big to be truly cheap and too small to be all that useful. I have had mash tuns ranging in size from 10L through to my current 50L... kettles from 16L to 60L ... HLTs from 20-40L & I have to say that I wouldn't even think about a 30L urn... maybe as a HLT for a three vessel system, but thats about it.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

eeerrrm .... I have changed my mind.

After a bit of thinking, doing some sums and doing some writing - I have decided that these urns might be a really good thing after all.

I still dislike the notion of mucking about with BIAB - I think it is at its best, displays all of its strengths and overcomes more of its weaknesses - when it is in its pure and basic 1 pot, full volume, no sparging original form.

BUT - these damn urns are really really cheap. Cheap enough to make me think about how to use them and lose as little of teh ease of use of BIAB as possible.

So I am attaching a How To document on Small Urn - 2 vessel modified BIAB - it is away to get full size (well 20L) finished volume batches out of one of these 30L urns - but avoid needing to boil extra water on the stove or in the kettle - and also avoid having to brew with concentrated wort.

In addition to your urn - you will need a 20L bucket (or preferably a 20L eski.. but a bucket will do) - I have brewed this way and came up with the method early in the BIAB debate as a way to allow BIAB with more normal L:G ratios. Basically its a variation of the Dunk Sparge technique.

Anyway - here is the attachment

View attachment Smaller_Urn_2V_BIAB.doc

As I said, I have brewed almost exactly this way - it works - but it absolutely could be changed, tweaked and massaged in a variety of ways too

Hope you find this useful - I am going to cross post this post into Bribie's How to BIAB in an Urn thread in the Beginners AG secion too. It is relevant to he last post in that thread.

Thirsty

And of course - although the word urn brought all us BIABers out of the woodwork - you could use a passive HLT (bucket/eski) and then use one of these urns in the way the OP originally proposed as a more traditional mash/kettle. You'd need yet another vessel (of about 30L volume) to catch the runnings - but your fermenter would do the trick. So workable no matter how you decide you want to brew - a bit painful... but workable.

 

[Beer&Kebab]

I'm kinda with Rde Vjun here,

One of the major reasons to use and urn - for BIAB especially. Is that it keeps things very very simple. One bit of gear... thats it.

If however you buy this particular urn... you are going to have to muck about with heating sparge water some other way - or with having buckets - or some other complications.... all of which undo the simplicity you get by using an urn.

Fair enough - its as cheap as an equivalent stockpot, or even eski really - so it holds its own at that level... but if you are going to have to dick around when you brew... you might as well go the route that Rde Vjun suggests, get yourself completely brewing for $50 or less... then save up for a hassle free sized pot/urn/eski etc in the future. Your $20 20L stockpot will never be a waste.

I just dont like the size - 30L is too big to be truly cheap and too small to be all that useful. I have had mash tuns ranging in size from 10L through to my current 50L... kettles from 16L to 60L ... HLTs from 20-40L & I have to say that I wouldn't even think about a 30L urn... maybe as a HLT for a three vessel system, but thats about it.

I started out with 2 of the BIGW 19l stock pots. I was doing perfectly good brews with them. I found that doing the main boil on the stove made the kitchen dripping wet in winter. I would open the windows and put a pedestal fan there and still too much condensation. I do agree that the 30l urn wont do it all and you will need an extra pot and a bucket. I heat the sparge/mashout water inside (with a lid) to save time. Sure you can use the urn to raise the temps but it is more of a hassle than heating the water seperately because you have to be constantly stirring the mash. I know taking some of the 1st runnings and then adding the mashout/sparge water to the urn isn't strickly BIAB but surely it increases efficiency. Yes a 40l urn would be better but this isn't a bad option for the $$$s IMHO if you have a 10l bucket and a 10l stockpot already in your possession.