hwall95
Well-Known Member
So I did my first all grain biab on Saturday which went pretty well besides slow boil and stuck ball valve. I've been thinking about all the processes to avoid running into same problems and how to make it easier etc. and I realised the instead of squeezing the grain bag which fermentor lids (only thing I had on hand) I could make a sort of grain press to increase amount of extraction as well as making the squeeze process easier as well.
The main idea isn't really to increase efficiency as I got around 80% which I was pretty happy with, but mainly to make it easier to squeeze without spilling it on the ground which was a pain to clean...
So this is my rough idea:
So the basic idea is based on a similar process of solid consultation and bit of fluid properties. So basically I'm assuming that the the crushed grain will act similar to a fine soil like clay or silt in terms of it's compressibility and water absorption.
The basic idea is to compress the grain bag in a plastic bucket (with holes in the bottom and another bucket below to collect wort) with a circular plate that creates a sealed environment with the bucket. So you press it down until you reach the limit where you can no longer compress due to water in the voids. Then you decompress it (pull up the sealed plate) withdrawing in air into the bucket, therefore increasing the air content of pore voids, and pushing out some water and then compress it again and then continue the process until you reach the point you can no longer extract any more wort
Then sparge the grains and repeat the process. Although I was thinking I may need to adjust the pH of the sparge water as the grains may not decrease the pH of the water as much and could leas to tannin extraction.
So that's the basic idea. Although I do have a few concerns:
-It may throw off my volume calculations
- May push more fine flour particles into beer but that sure settle during whirlpool anyways
- myth about tannin extraction, but based on everything I've read it's been proven to be bullshit
- force required to compress it properly may be quite large. When I get home I'll try to estimate it based on the soil parameters of clay or something.
- bottom may be blocked with fine flour which could lower hydraulic conductivity to a point where it could become somewhat of a stuck sparge
- probably think of some more concerns if I think about it longer
So if anyone has tried anything similar or read about anything similar I would to love to hear about it. I've done a bit if researching but closest thing I found was a guy using a suction device to suck out all the wort out of the grains. Just an idea though, purely theoretical at this point. If I have my theory wrong please let me know, as it would probably help my in my exam anyways.
Cheers
The main idea isn't really to increase efficiency as I got around 80% which I was pretty happy with, but mainly to make it easier to squeeze without spilling it on the ground which was a pain to clean...
So this is my rough idea:
So the basic idea is based on a similar process of solid consultation and bit of fluid properties. So basically I'm assuming that the the crushed grain will act similar to a fine soil like clay or silt in terms of it's compressibility and water absorption.
The basic idea is to compress the grain bag in a plastic bucket (with holes in the bottom and another bucket below to collect wort) with a circular plate that creates a sealed environment with the bucket. So you press it down until you reach the limit where you can no longer compress due to water in the voids. Then you decompress it (pull up the sealed plate) withdrawing in air into the bucket, therefore increasing the air content of pore voids, and pushing out some water and then compress it again and then continue the process until you reach the point you can no longer extract any more wort
Then sparge the grains and repeat the process. Although I was thinking I may need to adjust the pH of the sparge water as the grains may not decrease the pH of the water as much and could leas to tannin extraction.
So that's the basic idea. Although I do have a few concerns:
-It may throw off my volume calculations
- May push more fine flour particles into beer but that sure settle during whirlpool anyways
- myth about tannin extraction, but based on everything I've read it's been proven to be bullshit
- force required to compress it properly may be quite large. When I get home I'll try to estimate it based on the soil parameters of clay or something.
- bottom may be blocked with fine flour which could lower hydraulic conductivity to a point where it could become somewhat of a stuck sparge
- probably think of some more concerns if I think about it longer
So if anyone has tried anything similar or read about anything similar I would to love to hear about it. I've done a bit if researching but closest thing I found was a guy using a suction device to suck out all the wort out of the grains. Just an idea though, purely theoretical at this point. If I have my theory wrong please let me know, as it would probably help my in my exam anyways.
Cheers