Enhanced Biab With Lauter Tun Stage

[MarkBastard]

Yes Darren, the metal basket thing replaces the bag.

 

[MarkBastard]

Something like this?

View attachment 48655

I used a 15L pot in my system for the 'bag', cut out the bottom and pop riveted in a disc of 2mm perforated stainless, which cost about $40. You could call it brew in a pot h34r:

Love the idea Bribie, you could add a little pump to that quite easily to vorlauf then pump back to the kettle! I reckon you could also batch sparge quite nicely, maybe with a bigger lauter tun though?

Any chance you could show us more pics of that mate?

 

[goomboogo]

Suffice to say its an old liquid nitrogen storage container modified into a mashtun.


cheers

darren

So your mashtun came second-hand from the sperm bank.

 

[booargy]

So your mashtun came second-hand from the sperm bank.

first brew was some sort of cream ale

 

[Tim F]

Any chance you could show us more pics of that mate?

For sure, i can't post links or pics from my phone but I have a ton of pics of my build in my thread in the gear forum called 15l stovetop herms, it's a couple of pages back. Only real difference in my system compared to what you are talking about is I use a heat exchanger for temp control instead of an urn element directly.

 

[Bribie G]

I'm looking back at the reasons given for working on this method.

1) Reducing trub
2) gaining more clear wort (and better efficiency) ready to pitch into your fermenter.

Although I barely have 1% of your experience I have found in my number of BIAB brews so far that it's the use of a NC cube that is making it harder to seperate trub.

I wonder if you added a few more litres to your strike water and did a standard BIAB but used an immersion chiller and a floccer whether it would make it easier to get your volume up and your trub out of your cube?

I have been mulling over the same couple of obstacles myself and considering ditching NC.

My last BIAB batch gave me 24 litres of clear wort at 75% efficiency, I did however have to muck around with a filter to gain 2.5L back from my trub. I filtered slowly, boiled, cooled and used it for an active starter which I pitched 12-14 hours later.

Just my 2c

Yes guy, that's what I've actually been doing (apart from the crash chilling which doesn't affect hot break) and having to do 25L batches in order to get a 19L cornie plus 2 or three PETs for the archive. Hence the wastage. When I get the efficiency thing sorted (probably by using a deeper vessel to get a more compact grain bed) I can hopefully go right down to 21.5L batches.

So roughly (running it through BeerMate) and saying that grain is $3.50 a kilo and hops are $9 for a foil

For a 5% ABV normally hopped all malt beer just going on Craftbrewers shop prices, ignoring other inputs like yeast etc:

25L batch at 70% efficiency = 6kg of grain and 75g of hops = $28.50


21.5L batch at 85% efficiency (as confirmed by TB who knows people who use my exact lauter tun design which G&G used to sell as a premade unit) = 4.3kg of grain and 64g of hops = $ 21.45

The hops just scale, but with the grain - the two "improvements" work in synergy and really drag the cost down - as I said, now to work on the efficiency :lol:

Edit: so it's not really a question of "RDWHAHB and just chuck an extra half a kilo of malt at it" - with say 80 brews a year I could be looking at a few hundred dollars a year savings - could pay for another lagering fridge.

 

[Anofre]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&id=48145
Sounds similar to what I do:

60L 'urn' filled & heat to strike.
Remove 30L to the fermenter & move over the ots element to get sparge ready/sanitize fermenter (keggle). Need no HLT.
Mash in the urn with bag open draping over side.
DONT disturb the bag, just vorlauf & drain when clear to the boiler. The 'false bottom' is the dissused element in the urn with voile over. Drains from the bottom, so no dead space.
Fly sparge by hand with the sparge water from the fermenter which is at temp by the end of mash.

 

[wobbly]

Bribie G

The wheel has turned the full circle back to the start of the BIAB way back when!!!!

Have alook at the All In One Brewery subject here http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...l+inone+brewery and in posts 122, 128 ans 132 you will see discussion and photos of what I did using a bucket in the urn and a pool puimp to recirculate etc.

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[spudfarmerboy]

Imagine how much you'd save and how good the beers would be if you went 3V.

 

[stux]

Maybe instead of all the dicking around you should just bite the bullet and use your two urns to build a Brutus 2.0

http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/brutus20.html

At the end of the day, you could choose to run the system as a Brutus 20 Counter Recirculating Sparge System, or as two separate recirculating BIABs


its the dicking around which is a killer, and I suspect a more traditional 3V or 2V system would involve less dicking around, for the same gain

 

[felten]

I've been looking at how to do something similar to get the advantage of a grain bed filter, but still keep the single vessel system (ala braumeister). But it's not possible to do that without shelling out some cash on fittings and other stuff, so that will probably never happen for me.

I can live with losing ~3L kettle trub in a 25L batch if it means I only need 1 vessel.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Well, not quite exactly that lauter tun bribie..... Its a lauter tun, not a bag. The exact shape and dimensions will make a difference, as will the fact that the one i am talking about is being used by a guy who has been brewing on it for a decade, and how you use it will make more difference than the shape.

Lauter tuns require a modicum of skill, technique and good design to work really well, thats one of the reasons for using a BIAB rig. They have a much shallower learning curve, which is why its attractive to new brewers. Lots of brewers dont get 85% out of their LTs, lots dont get 75%.

Me, i use a recirculating system and a lauter tun, get 89-91% mash/lauter efficiency and very bright wort into my kettle, leaving less than a litre in the kettle after i cast out. And i'm still aiming for a 25L post boil volume (hot) to fill a corny and maybe one PET. So I'm obviously doing something wrong with my post brewhouse process compared to you and most of the guys who have commented.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Bribie G

The wheel has turned the full circle back to the start of the BIAB way back when!!!!

Have alook at the All In One Brewery subject here http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...l+inone+brewery and in posts 122, 128 ans 132 you will see discussion and photos of what I did using a bucket in the urn and a pool puimp to recirculate etc.

Cheers

Wobbly

Dont mention this sort of stuff Wobbly.... I see lots of people recently working particularly hard to invent a revolutionary round device that you attach to things so you can roll them about the place. Pointing outside at all the cars sitting on top of things that look strangely similar to their design is just rude.

 

[Tim F]

Dont mention this sort of stuff Wobbly.... I see lots of people recently working particularly hard to invent a revolutionary round device that you attach to things so you can roll them about the place. Pointing outside at all the cars sitting on top of things that look strangely similar to their design is just rude.

It's all fun and games* :icon_cheers:




*until someone loses their wort all over the garage floor

 

[MarkBastard]

Dont mention this sort of stuff Wobbly.... I see lots of people recently working particularly hard to invent a revolutionary round device that you attach to things so you can roll them about the place. Pointing outside at all the cars sitting on top of things that look strangely similar to their design is just rude.

I'm not interested in coming up with ideas to sound smart or to be the guy that makes the next big thing, I'm interested in how to make brewing easier for myself. So Wobbly's post was excellent.

 

[Nick JD]

Dont mention this sort of stuff Wobbly.... I see lots of people recently working particularly hard to invent a revolutionary round device that you attach to things so you can roll them about the place. Pointing outside at all the cars sitting on top of things that look strangely similar to their design is just rude.

Those who say that current technology has plateaued are destined to find their foot in their mouth.

 

[Bribie G]

LOve the look of that Brewtus - apart from the $600 for the pumps :unsure:


Hey, update:
That false bottom was a 12" not a 9" :huh:

Swapping it over, now I can go the handi bucket vessel as envisaged.

Watch this space

 

[QldKev]

Yes guy, that's what I've actually been doing (apart from the crash chilling which doesn't affect hot break) and having to do 25L batches in order to get a 19L cornie plus 2 or three PETs for the archive. Hence the wastage. When I get the efficiency thing sorted (probably by using a deeper vessel to get a more compact grain bed) I can hopefully go right down to 21.5L batches.

So roughly (running it through BeerMate) and saying that grain is $3.50 a kilo and hops are $9 for a foil

For a 5% ABV normally hopped all malt beer just going on Craftbrewers shop prices, ignoring other inputs like yeast etc:

25L batch at 70% efficiency = 6kg of grain and 75g of hops = $28.50


21.5L batch at 85% efficiency (as confirmed by TB who knows people who use my exact lauter tun design which G&G used to sell as a premade unit) = 4.3kg of grain and 64g of hops = $ 21.45

The hops just scale, but with the grain - the two "improvements" work in synergy and really drag the cost down - as I said, now to work on the efficiency :lol:

Edit: so it's not really a question of "RDWHAHB and just chuck an extra half a kilo of malt at it" - with say 80 brews a year I could be looking at a few hundred dollars a year savings - could pay for another lagering fridge.

I like the idea of playing with the BIAB design and taking it further. I was going to recirc my BIAB through a HERMS at one stage before I got sidetracked.

I also like the idea of clear wort from the mashtun, so will be watching this closely.

To be fair it's not $28.50 vs $21.45 as you have different volumes.
To correct the volumes
$28.50 / 25L * 21.50L = $24.51 for a 21.5L batch at 70% efficiency

The only other question, how much extra work has this introduced on brew day?

QldKev

 

[MarkBastard]

QldKev the different volumes were to account for trub loss I believe? Same final volume into fermenter from what I understand.

 

[yardy]

Maybe instead of all the dicking around you should just bite the bullet and use your two urns to build a Brutus 2.0

http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/brutus20.html




At the end of the day, you could choose to run the system as a Brutus 20 Counter Recirculating Sparge System, or as two separate recirculating BIABs


its the dicking around which is a killer, and I suspect a more traditional 3V or 2V system would involve less dicking around, for the same gain

i agree, from the pics it looks like there's a bit of pissing about.

yard