Brew In A Bucket Why Not Indeed

[MarkBastard]

I should have some interesting photos today or tomorrow. I've been busy making a setup like this, including a fine mesh (splatter guard) to line the bottom of the bucket, that has a fair amount of medium sized holes. I also 'accidentally' picked up two lids for the handy pail I bought yesterday, so I'm going to make the first lid have a lot of holes and the second lid only have one hole. The lids are stacked on top of each other. The pump outlet connects to the single hole in the top lid, and the bottom lid acts as a wort return where it sprays out more like a shower with fairly even distribution over the whole mash surface area. The only thing I'm yet to do is make a rock solid system to suspending the bucket above the urn without the use of a rope / pulley system. The pale actually has two sort of slots in it that line up with the crown urn handles so I've got something I think will work well.

The pump I got off ebay is awesome, very small, very quiet, very low electricity usage but the perfect performance for what I'm after.

 

[Tim F]

You may find you want a ball valve to sit on the pump so you can throttle it back a bit. So far with my bucket in bucket kinda design I've found if the pump is going faster than the bucket can drain it ends up running dry.

 

[MarkBastard]

My pump says to only restrict the outlet side i think. I'll see how i go anyway.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Fair enough mate, but I'm interested in your pure 'real bag' vs 'bucket with mesh bottom' opinion.

I find BIAB in its 'purist form' sounds good on paper only. In reality it's almost never a one vessel system unless you're cheating and under presenting the gear you use just to make out like BIAB is awesome.

What issues did you have with a bucket in urn setup? A lot of people are negative about it but I don't think anyone has really said why yet. I'm planning on giving it a go with an open mind and if it doesn't work out for me I'll let people know, but if there are some hidden issues with it why can't people state them to save me even giving it a go?

I had and have no issues with the bucket in pot solution beyond finding it harder to do and harder to make than just a bag, as I and others have said a number of times, but people seem to be glossing past - this isn't some sort of "blindingly obvious in retrospect" type innovation of the BIAB method - this was tried before BIAB was brought to maturity and worked, but then people, including me, tried the bag and found it better and easier. BIAB didn't somehow magically start as some sort of default for single vessel systems, it became the default because it was generally considered easier.

I personally find BIAB to be just as easy and simple in practise as its represented to be. I use a bag, a pot, a burner and a hook to hang the bag off. I lift the bag by hand, no pulleys etc involved (and i can do it with just one hand for most brews) and hang it on a hook over the pot till it stops dripping - bit of a squeeze, empty it in the bin and toss it in the sink.

I mainly think that in general, if you have a pot/urn and a bucket that fits neatly into it as required by the sort of system you are talking about - then you already have a system - a 2/3V system that will give you clearer wort and better efficiency than you'll get from your pot in pot system and will allow you to take advantage of all the existing knowledge and lessons learned by other brewers that are out there already, no need to wonder if things will work, how they will work etc. All you need to do is let go of the BIAB paradigm, if its not serving your purposes, why cling to it?

If you want to do it for the sense of adventure or some such thing, fair enough - i have no doubts it'll work well enough. But its my opinion that there are other choices that are probably better, and as for easier... Well, whether a solid inner vessel is easier than a bag or not, is going to be absolutely about a particular brewer's attitude, there's no way at all that its a step change or an obvious improvement - its just another way to brew that you might or might not like better.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Solid sided bag brew day report:

Good:

The solid sided bag worked well, and didn't split!
As reported by others here, the mash temperature seemed to remain more constant than when using a voile sheet
The bag drained well when I drained the wort from the kettle into the holding bucket.
The sparge worked as planned (see below)
Getting the bag out after sparging was much easier than with a voille bag, as was squeezing it. The wort left by the voille bottom instead of going all over my hands. I found gloves weren't necessary, and I avoided burning my fat little fingies. Mostly.

The Bad:

Temperature controlling the mash was difficult. The temp on my controller generally read 4 degrees hotter than the centre of the mash. Once I'd worked out that this was the case, I left t alone and it was fine. Power only came on 3 or 4 times in 90 minutes, and overshot twice. A pump with the potato squasher brought it back down to target very quickly. Ramping up to 75 for mashout took longer than previously too.

The grain bed formed for sparging wasn't great with big cracks around the edges

Easily fixed with a bit of pre sparge potato masher work.

Undershot my pre boil gravity by a long way (0.020). I decided to give the mash a good press with the potato squasher post sparge, and then squeeze the bag against the false bottom. The grain absorbed 0.6l/Kg as opposed to the brewmate default of 1l/Kg. Ended up with 26 litres post boil instead of 24.

I think I'll persevere with this method for a while as actually handling the bag is so much easier than a full voille bag or sheet. Hitting the volumes and gravities is an experience thing, and let's face it, this is only my third BIAB brew. I've been tossing up going to an esky mash tun system, but I think this way has potential for me, especially as I'm stuck brewing in a small space. Adding a pump to the system will increase the convenience, and give the option to recirculate the the wort, as well as increase safety.

Apart from missing my target gravities and volumes, the brewday was the easiest I've done yet!

 

[felten]

Interesting FB. I'm thinking even with a stiff bag like that you're still going to get channeling around the sides when you sparge. Not much of a problem if you're batch sparging, but it is when you try to fly sparge.

Also that 1L/kg absorption is common with 3v setups, BIAB usually gets around half that like you found.


BTW I wouldn't try to temperature control the mash during the sach rest. Just calc your strike temp, mash in, and insulate the urn with some blankets.

 

[bum]

Not much of a problem if you're batch sparging, but it is when you try to fly sparge.

FSIAB? Now I've heard everything.

Guys, if you'd like your brew days to have the hallmarks of more traditional tun set-ups there's a really simple way to go about it - and the best part is that someone has already done the research for you...

An added side benefit might be that if people stop talking about brewing like mad-scientists/lunatics then maybe some of the people whose advice made this board great might come back.

 

[MarkBastard]

Pretty sure the guys that left did so because of trolls like you bum.

 

[bum]

I'm pretty sure I fucked your mum.

 

[MarkBastard]

you should have done your due diligence. you're pretty sure it was my mum, but I know for a fact it was my dad.

 

[goomboogo]

Pretty sure the guys that left did so because of trolls like you bum.

He can be landed with many a label, but troll isn't one of them.

 

[bum]

Sorry, his dick was about the same size as hers so I assumed. My bad.

My point, unsurprisingly, went unnoticed of course. This here is what trolling looks like and is not at all what I do.

It must be said that your horse is awfully tall for someone who spends half his time here arguing too.

[EDIT: missing word]

 

[MarkBastard]

You are a troll bum. The very definition.

 

[bum]

No, Mark. I am not. My rhetoric may be more forceful than you'd like but there is a firm held belief behind pretty much everything I post*. I carry no responsibility for the fact that you can neither see nor understand that.

Again, the "understanding" part above will be seen as trolling - it is not - it is central to my point and essential (assuming the point should be made in the first place, which I'll admit is debatable - certainly nothing to do with OP but I didn't start the OT, Mark).

*I was going to qualify this statement with "(outside of the Off Topic forum)" but, frankly, half of the things I post there I mean even more.

 

[argon]

My pump says to only restrict the outlet side i think. I'll see how i go anyway.

which pump did you end up getting Mark... i assume the brown one (DC 12V Electric Centrifugal Water Pump 103 GPH (P-38I)) like this;

 

[MarkBastard]

Yep it's exactly that one except it isn't threaded.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...ME:L:OC:AU:1123

I have done test runs just using water and get really good drainage. If the grain restricts the drainage to the point that the bucket starts filling up faster than it can empty, I'll just turn the pump off to let it drain out. My first run is really going to be experimental to learn the things that everyone seems to know here but no one is willing to communicate. If it all works well but the pump is faster than the draining, I'll probably look at restricting the flow next time. I need to buy longer tubing for the outlet side anyway.

 

[MarkBastard]

Oh and I got the info regarding restricting the outlet from another site that sold pumps that looked visually identical but I believe it was a UK site. The specs matched up too so I figured they were the same pump. But I may be wrong.

 

[matho]

:icon_offtopic:

Mark or anyone else who has those brown pumps i would be very interested in seeing the impeller and magnet of these pumps, that is of course if you don't mind taking the thing apart to take a photo

cheers matho

 

[Tanga]

I'd love to see pics and more on how you set it up Mark.

Is this the one you ended up using math?

 

[matho]

I'd love to see pics and more on how you set it up Mark.

Is this the one you ended up using math?

nah i have ordered a 809 march pump but im thinking of looking into the solarproject ones because I might be building another braumiser for a mate and i would like to keep the cost down