Buying A 40 Litre Urn For Biab

[crundle]

Hi all,

I am very close to getting into AG finally, and have chosen BIAB as the way to get there.

I am trying to decide which 40 litre urn to buy, and it seems to some down to a choice between;

Jomack
Birko
Crown

Of all the ones I have priced including delivery, it seems that the Jomack is the cheapest at $262 delivered to Adelaide from Melbourne, but it has an exposed element, whereas the Birko and the Crown have concealed elements.

Is there any real advantage to having a concealed element, or will I have no dramas with the Jomack? It seems that from my reading, most people don't heat up the water with the bag inside the urn, they get the water to strike temperature and then put the bag in, then the grain, but I might be wrong on that count.

Secondly, would someone who owns a Jomack please be able to post a picture of the element in it, as I am thinking if it is fairly flat that it could be covered by something like a cake rack to hold the bag away from the element.

I am so close to getting into AG, SWMBO is sick of hearing me go on about it and moping around the house till I decide what urn to get :lol:

Thanks for the help,

Crundle

 

[raven19]

My thoughts and ramblings...

From what I have heard from others you shouldnt have any issues with the wort burning on an exposed element.

Similar to immersion elements.

As such price could well be your determining factor.

An exposed element would heat things up quicker I'd imagine?

And I dare say this will then double as your HLT if/when you move to AG with a full setup one day (fingers crossed).

Assuming you are buying new - does the warranty become void if the urn is used for something other than boiling water?

Wort is mainly water in anycase, so teh cheaper one = more left over $$$ for grains!

(I drive my missus nuts too as beer is now all I pretty much talk about! hehe.)

2c.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

The jomack element is indeed quite flat and close to the bottom, if you wanted to it would be very easy to cover with cake rack type contraption. I will post a picture if I get a chance to take a shot in the next day or two.

I haven't seen the inside of one of the other types... but just on looking at mine (I dont actually use it for BIAB) I cant see any reason it wouldn't be perfectly suited to BIAB. Perhaps try to get a speck on whether the tap is removable and replaceable by a proper ball valve set-up... If you cant I will try to suss it out if/when I take the photo.

TB

 

[Bribie G]

Birko has an exposed element. It doesn't bother me as I heat the full volume of liquor to strike temp, switch off, fit bag, dough in, put lid on and insulate the urn with a feather doonah that works great,

On hoisting the bag I switch back on, bring to boil and suspend a hopsock from the same skyhook that the bag was on.

Don't get any burning or goop crusted onto element, it washes off with a soft cloth and washing up liquid.

In other words I don't let any material touch the element whilst it's running so not an issue. I gather that the exposed urns heat up quicker than the concealed variety.

Edit: Also the Birko tap cylinder unscrews and can be taken apart and cleaned no probs. Initially I was going to look at a ball valve thingo but no need at all ... a Forum member clued me into how to take the Birko tap apart.

 

[matti]

Crown has got an consealed element.
It is a bit narrow.

It should suit to mash 23-28 Litre batches.
The trouble I can foresee with electrical thermostats is that the heat is not constant enough to achieve a rolling boil.

You 'll need another pot and burner for the boil I reckon to achieve good hop utilisation.
I could be wrong though....

 

[Bribie G]

Crown has got an consealed element.
It is a bit narrow.

It should suit to mash 23-28 Litre batches.
The trouble I can foresee with electrical thermostats is that the heat is not constant enough to achieve a rolling boil.

You 'll need another pot and burner for the boil I reckon to achieve good hop utilisation.
I could be wrong though....

I get a great rolling boil with the Birko. The thermo actually goes up to 110. I find that 100 gives a hard boil and 95 gives a rolling boil.

It's also sensitive enough to set it to just less than a rolling boil while the bag is dripping out for 20 mins or so, and I can go away and do something more productive and come back to an almost boiling brew with no fear of a boilover in the meantime.

 

[James Squire]

Hi Crundle,

I also have a Jomack Urn. I initially used it in my 'All in one brewery' for a similar purpose to BIAB. Although I only brewed using this method for a short while, it did a fantastic job and even brewed an award winning beer! I have since moved on to traditional 3 vessel AG brewing and the urn is still firing away as the HLT.

It does have a flat style element which, as Thirsty points out, would be fine for some sort of rack to keep the bag off the element. The only point I would make to you is that from my experience the urn takes a long time to reach boiling temps and on it's own does not create a vigourous enough boil, mine is a 2400W element and I decided to buy an immersion element to assist in getting a good hot break.

I hope this helps, in one of the pictures in the link you can kind of see the element in the bottom of the urn.

Cheers,

JS.

 

[crundle]

Thanks for the information all,

It seems then that the Jomack may be the go for me (money is always an issue when you have as many 'hobbies' as I do) since the exposed element is flatish and can be covered by a cake rack. I am only interested in single batches to keg, and wasn't really sure before at which point to put the bag into the urn, but it seems that it would be ok to have the bag in there prior to heating up the water initially if the element is kept away from the bag material.

The guys at work are sick and tired of it when DJ1984 and I are working together, and many of them brew kits, as we just talk about beer constantly, so it is not just SWMBO's that roll their eyes when we talk about it.

As some of you have said also, the urn will be perfect as a HLT if/when I go to the full 3 vessel AG setup. I am not really worried about the warranty aspect, but will look around to see if/how the tap comes apart for any future reason that may crop up.

After reading other posts about going AG with envy for so long, it is hard to believe that I am about to get into it myself. I have decided to brew Dr Smurto's Golden Ale as my first AG, which reminds me, when using Swiss Voile for the bag, how fine should I have the grain milled? I understand that it can be quite fine, which will help with conversion given no sparge will occur, but are there grades as such in milling, or is it less defined than I imagine?

Once again thanks for the help and opinions, the wealth of knowledge on this forum is astonishing.

Crundle

 

[crundle]

Bribie, is your Birko 2400W or 3000W when you say you get a good rolling boil?

Crundle

 

[Pollux]

I'm intending a purchase from from these guys within the next 2months

 

[flattop]

I have the crown 40L, bought it new for about $220 delivered from evil bay, just watch for the specials.
I haven't done a BIAB yet for various reasons but i have used it as an URN and it seemed to boil fine with just 30litres of water in it!
Bribie mentioned it may not heat as fast as the Birko tho...

 

[Bribie G]

Bribie, is your Birko 2400W or 3000W when you say you get a good rolling boil?

Crundle

2400 - if you want anything stronger you have to get a 15 amp circuit fitted by a sparky. It gives an over - vigorous boil on full power which is why I have to crank it back to get a rolling boil. I'm a bit surprised that previous poster didn't get a roll with his 2400 as you would imagine that 2400 is 2400, but I'm no electrician.

Unfortunately I won't be doing a boil for a week as I already have one cubed ready to pitch when I get back from Sydney on Friday or I'd post some live action piccies

 

[Bribie G]

I'm intending a purchase from from these guys within the next 2months

Crundle, check them out for postage, I was actually going to pick one up like Pollux when I was down here (Currently in Sydney) as the prices are excellent, but couldn't contain myself till February and paid more for one in Bris in December Life's too short to live without Yorkshire Bitter.

At least they are Aus made so no dollar creep in the prices over the last couple of months.

 

[Kenny the plumber]

Think if you need to bring the mash back up to temp, will the element burn the bag? I already burnt a bag with my gas burner through the pot, didn't think that would happen!! I lift the bag off the bottom if I have to add heat now.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

the element probably would burn the bag if it was sitting directly on it, it wont if there isn't any actual physical contact. And not just momentary contact.. sitting for a while. Having brewed with electric immersion elements at Spill's place, the elements came into contact with the bag plenty of times... but didn't sit in one place.

you must have one hell of a burner Kenny... you are only the second person I have heard of to manage to burn a hole in your bag.

General advice for anyone who is adding heat to a BIAB mash, electric OR gas... stir, stir constantly, don't stop stirring - whenever you are adding heat, stir, keep stirring, stir stir stir...... am I getting the point across. Think making porridge. You stop stirring that stuff and the grains settle to the bottom, trap the heat in a small localized area, a hot spot develops and the porridge burns. The same will happen in your bag... and the bag will be in the way.

Constant stirring re-distributes the heat and there should be no issues. Plus... you will get inaccurate temperature measurements if you don't stir anyway

 

[James Squire]

Crundle,

To clarify my point about the boil, the 2400W urn definately boils the wort. It just takes time and never really boils as vigourously as I would like. When I did use the urn as a boiler, I would initially run the urn plus an immersion element to bring to the boil quickly and vigourously then once the hot break is acheived I would then remove the immersion element and let the urn run on it's own.

Hope this info helps, whether one element or two, either way you will still make a good beer,

Regarding the grain, if you are buying your grain crushed, the standard crush from your HBS will be fine. If you are crushing yourself, a general guide from is start with a roller gap of 0.9mm and see how you go from there. Too fine crush will give you issues sparging, to course and you will suffer bad efficiency. As you mention though, it has been proved that when using the BIAB style bag that you will get away with using the finer crush as you do not have the risk of a stuck sparge.

Oh and by the way, congrats on taking the steps into AG brewing. It will prove to be very rewarding.

JS