Enhanced Biab With Lauter Tun Stage

[Bribie G]

I'll take some pictures of the evidence shortly. The reason I don't mash in the lauter tun is for two reasons:

I use a looser mash than "normal" 3v brewing, so it can be pumped with the paint stirrer, and I'm sure it helps gelatinisation and freeing the contents of the crushed grain. It's easily ramped up through various rests as it's more liquid, as noted.
I did a Hochkurz infusion mash last night = maltose rest, dex rest then mashout and it was easy as.
Using just the pail I wouldn't be able to do that as the mash would be too thick and it would not be possible to effectively add enough water additions to ramp up. However I might try it with a simple isothermal infusion mash like the ghetto boys did at the weekend, and see how that goes.

Using the urn as the mash tun, I actually had way more than the lauter tun could hold, and I was worried that I might have to race around for buckets to take the runoff. Then a neat thing happened, that I hadn't fully sussed out but on thinking about it, it makes sense:

I raised the bag, leaving maybe 15L of runoff in the urn.
Tipped grain into the tun to form a grain bed
Progressively jugged the remaining wort from the urn into the tun till it reached the top
Started running into the collecting bowl
When the urn was empty I had still only collected about half the bowl which meant that I could now lift the urn down to take the place of the collecting bowl
Tip current contents of bowl into urn
Keep going till urn half full
By this time the first of the fly sparging was happening
Lift urn back up whilst still light enough to handle
Continue using collecting bowl

So I had heaps of room in vessels and shouldn't have worried.
Sounds like a lot of dicking around, but not really, mostly just moving the runoff hose and doing a bit of jugging, and lift urn down then up later on.


With fly sparging that I've seen happening elsewhere, towards the end they are nervously checking gravities and pH etc in case of tannins.
However with the thinner mash and only 12L of sparge water, the Gods of Sparging arranged that the last runnings were spot on 1010 so for a 5k grain bill that's excellent, if I hit that every time it's a built-in tannin protection.





Anyway, getting the camera charged...... :icon_cheers:

 

[MarkBastard]

What I mean is having the pail sitting inside the urn and still using a 'thin' mash.

When you use a bag in the urn, the grain is sitting at the bottom of the urn during the mash anyway. So let's say the pail is inside the urn, yes it will have water underneath it and beside it however there'll still be plenty of water inside the pail fully in contact with the grains right?

Then you lift the pail instead of lifting the bag, and have it sitting above the urn so that the runoff from the pail goes directly into the urn. You can still sparge if needed as well.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes, that's the next experiment - the BribMeister h34r: - actually looking at the YouTube clip of Brad's false bottom I see he's made himself a pinched-off copper tube "blank" to screw into the cente of the FB to enable draining from above, rather than draining from below through the elbow. Neat, I'll do something like that.

 

[Bribie G]

So to recap, I got a Ross cube full of totally clear wort (21L) plus two litres of trub. I strained this through the hops from the hopbag into a stockpot and transferred to these bottles for settling. I'll try other filtering media next time, maybe just a folded up grain bag or something.

The big one is 1.5L so it looks like I'll only be losing around 700ml of unrecoverable trub with the rest used for a starter (I'm doing a big stella Bock starter so that will be good)
Sure beats throwing away 3 Litres or a sixth of a corny with each brew :icon_cheers:

So now I can crank back the water - probably cut a litre off, which should get me spot on for a cube plus 500ml for starter.

 

[stux]

Now since you have such a good sparging setup you can start Maxi-BIABing

 

[RdeVjun]

Aye stux and I might just start lautering in a tun!

Yep Bribie, straining wort through whole hops in a sieve or colander en route to the fermenter certainly won't strain all the break and debris, but there's a few things at play- i) recovery of all but about 0.5- 1L of wort (often less) in only a few minutes draining, ii) trap enough break to make it worthwhile at the batch scale, iii) all with unmodified kitchen equipment. You may also have noted that there's quite a bit of break trapped in the hops cones' bracts, even before straining.

Great thread BTW! :icon_cheers:

 

[stux]

Aye stux and I might just start lautering in a tun!

Yep Bribie, straining wort through whole hops in a sieve or colander en route to the fermenter certainly won't strain all the break and debris, but there's a few things at play- i) recovery of all but about 0.5- 1L of wort (often less) in only a few minutes draining, ii) trap enough break to make it worthwhile at the batch scale, iii) all with unmodified kitchen equipment. You may also have noted that there's quite a bit of break trapped in the hops cones' bracts, even before straining.

Great thread BTW! :icon_cheers:

My current technique is to siphon all the wort into cubes... as I siphon top down, instead of from the bottom of the kettle I don't need to toss the first flush

I then dump the kettle contents into a jug, to measure my trub, 2-3L, which helps me with my predictions

I then dump it back in the kettle and dump it into a sieve back into the same jug... I'll generally sieve out 250-500ml of crap leaving another 1.5-2.5L or so, which I just pour into a 5L glass flagon.

That goes into a fridge to settle.

Later on, I can then decant the x L off the 500ml or so of cold/hot break material, and boil it for starters, or argonizing etc.

Last time I did this i ended up with 23L of wort, and 750ml total trub loss. Which gave me all the starter wort I needed to spin up my yeast samples

I also don't pour the cold-break from the cube into the fermenter, and I've been getting about 750ml to 1L of fermenter trub at the end, which is vastly improved since I stopped adding the cold-break to the fermenter!

 

[Nick JD]

I often strain the break through a doubled layer of swiss voile layered in a sieve, and then when the fine stuff settles I decant it off into a big old yoghurt container - and bung it in the freezer.

When I need a starter it's into a pot for a quick boil then when it cools I pitch.

Been known to thaw and chuck the thawed "starter" into the same/similar recipe too at the start of the boil.

 

[going down a hill]

I played around with trub removal on the weekend and didn't succeed very well, never again will I use coffee filter paper as a technique.

If I were to no chill and then have the last 3 litres in a seperate bottle, could I pour that into the fermenter with the rest of the wort, minus the settled trub? As I type this I think I have figured this one out, I can.

 

[Steve@PMF82]

Paper towel in a sieve works a treat for straining trub, comes out crystal clear and takes forever....

Rinsed in starsan prior to use, left overs get boiled again before use anyway but always good to be too careful.

I am getting so much better efficiency these days that i don't bother too much any more, does make good starters though, saves buying extract and like nick says its also good for using at a later date in a similar recipe, for example if you fall a bit short of gravity targets..

 

[Nick JD]

I played around with trub removal on the weekend and didn't succeed very well, never again will I use coffee filter paper as a technique.

If I were to no chill and then have the last 3 litres in a seperate bottle, could I pour that into the fermenter with the rest of the wort, minus the settled trub? As I type this I think I have figured this one out, I can.

Reckon you could - long as the trub vessel was sealed and poured in piping hot.

My technique of pouring through a sieve introduces all manner of funk as it's chilled and the voile is manky - gotta be re-boiled.

 

[going down a hill]

No probs with sanitaion on my end. Knock on wood. I think the settling of trub in a small bottle suits me better than the stuffing around I did with filtering. I hate seeing wort that was made to be beer going any where else but the fermenter.

Cheers blokes

 

[stux]

I played around with trub removal on the weekend and didn't succeed very well, never again will I use coffee filter paper as a technique.

The coffee filter will clog very quickly. Even using paper towel will clog quickly.

This is why I just use a sieve which gets the large particles, and then the smaller ones can settle in the fridge

If I were to no chill and then have the last 3 litres in a seperate bottle, could I pour that into the fermenter with the rest of the wort, minus the settled trub? As I type this I think I have figured this one out, I can.

Yes, BUT you *really* want to re-boil the last 3L if you futzed around with it a lot to make sure you don't add any nasty's to your fermenter. Of course, that makes it a perfect time to add any late additions!

...

Actually, this is precisely what I did the first time I saved my 'leftovers' in a 5L flaggon. I had not hit my evaporation rates and had far too much wort to cube. I ended up bottling the rest, repasturizing and used it in the ferementer with the rest of the cube.

Was my best ever brew

 

[lespaul]

Im liking the semi braumister process that Mark suggested above.
any problems with using the plastic bucket? any benefits in a stainless steel bucket with mesh (i.e post 27 by Tim F) that would justify the cost?

 

[Bribie G]

The main advantage of the plastic bucket is the $11 or whatever they cost at Bunnings Also at the systems wars day, the ghetto boys had a LT made from a handipail and about 50 holes just drilled in the bottom, slotting into a a cut -down handipail with a tap. They got a good grain bed going just with that and no stuck sparge.

 

[nala]

What I mean is having the pail sitting inside the urn and still using a 'thin' mash.

When you use a bag in the urn, the grain is sitting at the bottom of the urn during the mash anyway. So let's say the pail is inside the urn, yes it will have water underneath it and beside it however there'll still be plenty of water inside the pail fully in contact with the grains right?

Then you lift the pail instead of lifting the bag, and have it sitting above the urn so that the runoff from the pail goes directly into the urn. You can still sparge if needed as well.

Something like this Mark ?
I have the options of having a fluidised grain bed by lowering the bucket to the liquid level in the urn or a continuous
sparge by raising the bucket and adjusting the sparge rate to maintain liquid/wort just covering the grain bed.
I raise the bucket to whichever level I desire.
I have a series of false bottoms and strainers to get the wort as clear as possible, the evacuation of the wort is done by merely raising the bucket.
I mash with 33 lires of water and no additional sparge, this can be changed to say 25 litres and then add sparge water when the bucket is raised.
Some more work to be done on various options.

 

[Bribie G]

Al, just to refresh the memory, will your copper sparging ring fit the bucket or is that just for use with your fabric bag system?

 

[nala]

Al, just to refresh the memory, will your copper sparging ring fit the bucket or is that just for use with your fabric bag system?

The sparge ring I made for the bag version is 33cms diameter and does not fit the bucket, I had a small piece of copper left over and made a smaller version to fit the bucket, not very pretty, but I will get some more copper when I am happy with the prototype.
The false bottom I am using is a sieve from Woolworths, I cut the handles off and it fits snugly around the bucket, below this I have a circle of fly mesh and some coarsely woven material also in a circle, I have drilled 12mm diameter holes
around the base of the bucket for drainage, I either suspend the bucket on my 3 legged trivet holder or suspend it by the rope from the pulley,infinitely variable.

 

[MarkBastard]

Yeah mate I saw your post before, very good work and it is similar to what I had in mind.

I would like to start off more simply though and fully intend to. I want to get a pail that can fit fully inside my crown urn. I have a concealed element and I don't put any shields over the element either.

The pail will have a lot of holes drilled into the bottom, and will additionally be covered with a mesh screen on the inside made from a splatter guard and sealed around the edges with some silicone tubing that's been cut into lengthways.

The process will be:
-Fill urn with strike water at full volume.
-Put pail into urn
-Add grain to pail and mash around
-Put the originally lid on the pail just for a bit of extra thermal insulation
-Put urn lid on and lag as per normal.
-After mash open up urn and lift the pail to about half way up the urn and secure it at this level somehow until it drains a fair bit of wort
-Then lift it up further so that the lower part of the pail is just above the surface level of the wort in the urn
-Turn urn on to ramp up to boiling while the pail is still draining.
-Because I'm not squeezing a bag, if the grain in the wort is retaining too much moisture and the preboil volume is less than expected I'll probably do just enough of a sparge to ensure that I get the desired pre-boil volume. Probably just use a kettle to do this.
-Then boil as per normal.

So affectively in the above process all I've done is replace the bag with a pail due to it being rigid and in theory easier to handle and clearer draining wort.

If that works out I'm going to do the same but introduce a pump as you have. I would like to modify the lid of the pail so that it has some sort of spraying device so the wort being bumped back into the pail doesn't upset the grain bed. I figure this would be a good way to do it because the lid would be on the pail and the whole thing would be self contained and would sit by itself happily enough. So you attach a tube to the lid of the pail basically.

The pump will be used simply to recirculate the mash for clarity and possible efficiency reasons. I'll be noting how much of a difference it makes for efficiency and clarity when I do this, compared to the more simple way, to make a decision whether or not it's worth doing.

 

[MarkBastard]

Also I may test mash outs in both scenarios too.

In scenario one you could hoist the pail and then ramp up to mash out temps, then dunk it back down again and stir it before finally hoisting and doing the final drain.

With the pump you can just recirculate to mash out temps while the pail is sort of half-raised.