Brew In A Bag In A Tun/kettle

[Hatchy]

My main reason for asking this is that I've got a little bit of work to do prior to having my 3 tier system operational & there's an imminent beer shortage at the Hatchy brewery. I'm wondering if it's feasible to BIAB in a kettle which will eventually be my mash tun. My current thinking (until someone points out the error in my "logic" is to mash in my grain bag, run the 1st runnings into a cube, sparge, remove the bag, siphon the 1st runnings back into the kettle & boil from there. I have a 50L kettle which has a ball valve & a pickup tube. Am I likely to get an efficiency benefit to justify the extra effort or should I just go with a standard BIAB? I can use 1 of the unconverted kegs as a HLT for sparge water & siphon into the kettle so heating sparge water isn't much of a hassle.

I may have answered my question while typing this. Standard BIAB is probably a LOT easier than my planned method.

Sorry if this post makes no sense at all, I've got a mental picture of what I want to do but I'm not 100% sure that I've explained myself properly.

 

[alkos]

I have been doing like that for my last 10 AG brews - just skipping the sparge part. You mash the grain in full water volume, take bag+grain out and boil.

Moreover: after boil I cube the wort, clean kettle, pour it back there and ferment

 

[katzke]

Dont do it, buy beer instead.

If you start BIABing you may never feel the need to finish your fancy system.

If you are going to brew with a gain bag until you finish your complicated system you should do everything possible to make it as difficult as you can so you will want to stop the foolishness and finish that 3v system.

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

are you batch sparging?

From my very little BIAB experience it should work! Your not really complicating it that much when you think of a traditional BIAB including sparge :icon_cheers:

 

[dago001]

This is how I brew. I use an esky for a tun. Pretty much the only reason I still use the bag is ease of getting rid of the grain from the tun. I batch sparge and have been getting 80 to 85 % efficiency. I could have stuck to just BIAB, however I am slowly working my way up to a 3v system. It's a good way to work out your processes for when you do finally get to your 3v system.
Cheers
LagerBomb

 

[Bribie G]

When starting out on AG brewing BIAB and 3V or even HERMS / RIMS are all valid options for making fine beer, however if you are already BIABing I can't for the life of me see why anyone would regard 3V as being some sort of step up. Just a step sideways IMHO.
Other independent auditors have concurred



As far as sparging with BIAB is concerned, I do this if I have a big grain bill, because I use a 40L electric urn and sometimes need to do a sparge to get the right pre boil volume, only because the grain has removed so much water but if they did 60L urns in Australia then I wouldn't need to do that, just go full volume strike liquor to start off with. How big is your kettle Hatchy?

edit: the only people I know who have gone from BIAB to 3v (Pollux and Argon are 2 I know personally) did so because they felt that they were spending too much time doing one piddly 23L brew and would prefer to spend their limited time doing a 50 or 60l batch, so went for the big kettle system. I also reached that point but just duplicated my production stream and got a second urn, and do double BIAB batches but with the advantage of being able to do 2 identical or 2 different in one session.

 

[mxd]

edit: the only people I know who have gone from BIAB to 3v (Pollux and Argon are 2 I know personally) did so because they felt that they were spending too much time doing one piddly 23L brew and would prefer to spend their limited time doing a 50 or 60l batch, so went for the big kettle system.

+1

 

[argon]

As Bribe said... That's the exact reason I went to 3v... To do double batches with a lot less hassle. I could do them with biab with the kind of process your talking about, but it was a pain.

My vote goes for staying with standard biab on the 50l vessel. If your doing standard size 23L batches, then biab couldn't be easier. Don't worry about the sparge step, just add all the water up front. If your hitting within 5 points of 70% efficiency you're all good.

Edit: and by the way I don't know yet if there's been any improvement in my beer since going 3v... Something to consider?

 

[Hatchy]

Cool, thanks for the replies fellas. It looks like standard BIAB is the way to go although reinventing the wheel seems like fun as well. If I can't get 23L out of a 50L pot then I've gone drastically wrong somewhere.

@ katzke, the complicated 3v system we're talking about here will involve 2 holes, 2 weldless sockets & a false bottom. It may actually turn out more complicated to sew a bag.

 

[drtomc]

Duck everyone! Hatchy fed the troll! ;-)

T.

 

[raven19]

I reckon your proposed method will be fine mate. Wrap some insulation around that keggle during the mash to help maintain a constant temp during the mash.

 

[Eggs]

Im also in this exact situatiuon. I have 2 kegs and an urn but have decided due to space, time and monetary restraints to use one keg as a BIAB kettle.
Its almost complete. i just have to assemble the thing and give it a good clean. What would be the biggest batch size we can get away with?

 

[raven19]

I would say around 45L max wort in the kettle, to allow for some head space for foaming and expansion of the liquid at elevated temperatures.

Have a water sprayer handy when pitching hops just incase of boilovers!

You could also brew higher gravity then water it back down with cooled boiled water when pitching the yeast though.

 

[argon]

I would say around 45L max wort in the kettle, to allow for some head space for foaming and expansion of the liquid at elevated temperatures.

Have a water sprayer handy when pitching hops just incase of boilovers!

You could also brew higher gravity then water it back down with cooled boiled water when pitching the yeast though.

Yep 45 would be absolute max i reckon for boiling... my typical pre-boil volume is 41L for 34L into the cubes. I brew over gravity and add 8L into 2 for 42L fermenting which gives me a comfortable 38L into 2 kegs.

With 41L i have to watch for boilovers, but once it's going after the first 60min addition i don't have to watch anymore... with 45L you'd be attending the whole time watching out i reckon.

Adding top-up water prior to pitching may seem a hassle but the handy thing about brewing over gravity is that when i clean/sanitise my fermenters prior to pitching i do the usual PBW then Starsan.. but then add 4L of boiling water into the fermenter, seal it and shake it up and let it cool overnight... pretty good steam sanitising regime i think.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Just to add another variable.

The only reason I don't step up (or sideways) to 3V is that I've got to buy a kegging system first to make it worthwhile.

To keg, I need (apart from money), the whole system first.

Reason? Doing a double batch is great - until you have to bottle. If I had to bottle 60 bottles by myself, they'd be removing me from Goomba Brauerei in a straitjacket (no non-PC offense meant to those who are crazy or have spent time in a straitjacket).

So to pay (which I would be doing, I ain't no handyman) for a 3V system, on top of kegs - ouch - Minister of War and Finance would not be happy.

So yeah, just another consideration. Otherwise, I'll continue my time researching and evaluating ways to improve my BIAB system, which already yields some fantastic beers.


Goomba

 

[The_Duck]

Yep 45 would be absolute max i reckon for boiling... my typical pre-boil volume is 41L for 34L into the cubes. I brew over gravity and add 8L into 2 for 42L fermenting which gives me a comfortable 38L into 2 kegs.

With 41L i have to watch for boilovers, but once it's going after the first 60min addition i don't have to watch anymore... with 45L you'd be attending the whole time watching out i reckon.

Adding top-up water prior to pitching may seem a hassle but the handy thing about brewing over gravity is that when i clean/sanitise my fermenters prior to pitching i do the usual PBW then Starsan.. but then add 4L of boiling water into the fermenter, seal it and shake it up and let it cool overnight... pretty good steam sanitising regime i think.

Why the boiling water/steam sanitising ?

I used to use the Fresh Wort Kits, which are essentially what you would be setting up for in the above scenario. They specify topping up with water (no mention of boiling etc) to make up the final fermenter volume.

I know it can't hurt but surely this is over complicating things a bit ?


Duck

 

[argon]

Why the boiling water/steam sanitising ?

I used to use the Fresh Wort Kits, which are essentially what you would be setting up for in the above scenario. They specify topping up with water (no mention of boiling etc) to make up the final fermenter volume.

I know it can't hurt but surely this is over complicating things a bit ?


Duck

Everything that touches my wort is sanitised/sterilised... including top-up water. Wort is essentially the most infectable substance none to man, so i don't take any shortcuts.

All i do to boil up the top-up water is hook up my electric HLT with 8L or so. Leave it half an hour or so. When i come back it's boiling away happily. I open the tap and drain 4L into the fermenter. Put the lid on. Shake it up. Leave it out till the next day when i pour my wort in and pitch the yeast.

You could easily do the same thing with a couple of kettles full of water.

I've used FWKs before too and always add preboiled cool water.

I do what i have to do to ensure i have uninfected wort.. nothing worse than spending 4-5 hours making a batch to have an infection cause i took a shortcut.

 

[argon]

Reason? Doing a double batch is great - until you have to bottle.


Goomba

100% agree... double batches are great... but they're the best when you can keg them both. Bottling drives me mental too.

I have both kegs of a double batch sit in the kegerator side by side. When the first one blows, usually just as it's staring to come to it's peak, change kegs and the second keg is in it's prime. :icon_chickcheers:

That's why i need 3 more kegs for my 4 taps. So i have a total of 8. Can be changed over as soon as the first one blows.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

100% agree... double batches are great... but they're the best when you can keg them both. Bottling drives me mental too.

I have both kegs of a double batch sit in the kegerator side by side. When the first one blows, usually just as it's staring to come to it's peak, change kegs and the second keg is in it's prime. :icon_chickcheers:

That's why i need 3 more kegs for my 4 taps. So i have a total of 8. Can be changed over as soon as the first one blows.

Exactly what I thought. Trouble is - shelling out for a kegging system is going to be a bit of an ask for now.

<enters dreamland> I dream of having mates over and whipping out a glass and pouring beer and serving it like a real bar </enters dreamland>

Goomba

 

[Bribie G]

Another benefit of double batches with a kegging system is that you can brew over gravity and adjust to "trade strength" as the likes of CUB call it, and fill three kegs ... boom boom tish.

Two 25 litre batches and 57 litres into the kegs only leaves 2.33 litres to top up each keg - not really that much over gravity required. :icon_drunk: