Hangin' Up The Pillowcase - Biab To 3v

[argon]

You should give your mash at least a little while to settle before lautering after each sparge water addition (this gives you the nice grain bed filter that provides nice clear wort). If you don't have sufficient grain bed depth, pouring your recirculated wort back in will cause channeling and impact your efficiency (not much though). I usually just grab a lift off something in the kitchen (normally one of the missus tupperware containers or something), float it upside down in the mash tun and pour the recirculated wort on to it (it distributes it beautifully).

Edit: spelling

Yeah thanks mate... will be doing this on the next one...

you know how when you do something and you know it's probably not right but you don't stop anyway cause you're too lazy?... or is that just me?

Many things to learn on the new kit... all good fun though... more learning = more fun.
My OCD kicking in again. I MUST learn everything there is to know about a subject!!

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Many things to learn on the new kit... all good fun though... more learning = more fun.
My OCD kicking in again. I MUST learn everything there is to know about a subject!!

I've been the same mate; only started brewing on my own 3v system about 3-4 months ago and there are a lot of subtleties.

 

[husky]

You should give your mash at least a little while to settle before lautering after each sparge water addition (this gives you the nice grain bed filter that provides nice clear wort). If you don't have sufficient grain bed depth, pouring your recirculated wort back in will cause channeling and impact your efficiency (not much though). I usually just grab a lift off something in the kitchen (normally one of the missus tupperware containers or something), float it upside down in the mash tun and pour the recirculated wort on to it (it distributes it beautifully).

Edit: spelling

What sort of grain bed depth are we talking? I have read that 30mm is a minimum however to me that seems quite shallow. The reason I ask is when sorting out my mash tun size I want sufficient grain bed depth for a single batch but also want the pot big enough to do bigger grain bill batches as well. If I can determine a good grain bed depth I can work it out from there.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

John Palmer recommends a minimum grain bed depth of 10cm, but preferably 20-40cm

 

[husky]

that sounds more like it, cheers

 

[manticle]

Precisely... but next time i'll be dispersing onto a lid or something... Maybe piece of alfoil or something flat like that... don't know if it makes much of a difference though... again talking out my arse, but thought that was only relevant to fly sparging to minimise channeling. Batch sparging everything gets stirred up anyway... so recircing/vorlaufing straight back in wouldn't make much of a difference.

Not quite - at least not for me. I stir when I add the sparge water, then allow to settle, then recirculate. If I'm patient, this means I only need to recirc a few litres. If I poured straight back in rather than gently onto my paddle or alfoil or both, I'd stir up the bed I'd waited to settle out, defeating the purpose and making recirc a bigger pain.

There's also the distant possibility of aerating your wort I guess. Probably a tiny possibility and doesn't even need to be considered but why go to all that trouble to gently drain the tun if you're going to splash all your vorlaufed wort about? It only adds an extra few minutes to the whole process so I tip gently.

Alfoil is good - I use it to add insulation on the top of the mash anyway.

 

[argon]

Not quite - at least not for me. I stir when I add the sparge water, then allow to settle, then recirculate. If I'm patient, this means I only need to recirc a few litres. If I poured straight back in rather than gently onto my paddle or alfoil or both, I'd stir up the bed I'd waited to settle out, defeating the purpose and making recirc a bigger pain.

There's also the distant possibility of aerating your wort I guess. Probably a tiny possibility and doesn't even need to be considered but why go to all that trouble to gently drain the tun if you're going to splash all your vorlaufed wort about? It only adds an extra few minutes to the whole process so I tip gently.

Alfoil is good - I use it to add insulation on the top of the mash anyway.

Thanks mate will be doing the voraluf with a sheet of alfoil or flat surface to protect the grain bed from now on and only stirring on adding batch sparge water, rinse and repeat.
:icon_cheers:

 

[black_labb]

i'm still doing biab, but have changed a bit away from the usual 1 vessel. the element in my urn blew and i havent been able to find any replacements.

I've just built a keggle (from a 100% legal keg of course). I'll be using the urn as a biab vessel then drain it into the keggle for boiling, and sparge with the bag staying in the urn. this means no need to remove the bag from the vessel and I can do larger batches (my urn was only 30L so wasnt able to do more than 20L batches). the main difference is the ability to sparge in the first vessel.

I'm considering using the keggle as a still so the top cant be completely cut off, but if I abandon that I may go back to normal BIAB using the keggle.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

i'm still doing biab, but have changed a bit away from the usual 1 vessel. the element in my urn blew and i havent been able to find any replacements.

I've just built a keggle (from a 100% legal keg of course). I'll be using the urn as a biab vessel then drain it into the keggle for boiling, and sparge with the bag staying in the urn. this means no need to remove the bag from the vessel and I can do larger batches (my urn was only 30L so wasnt able to do more than 20L batches). the main difference is the ability to sparge in the first vessel.

I'm considering using the keggle as a still so the top cant be completely cut off, but if I abandon that I may go back to normal BIAB using the keggle.

Sweet.

I'm still on the stove top, though courtesy of Big W special on 19L pots, I'll put the two pots on the stove, split the grain bill in half and mash and boil in 2 side by side lots. And with the bag only weighing half, it makes sparging (pasta strainer into pot) a helluva lot easier.

I'm weighing up a Mash Tun and a larger pot, but I can see much extra benefit for the cost. I would love to do double batches, but I might go closer to a massive system, which is too much $$.

Still the journey is fun! :drinks:


Goomba

 

[argon]

I like BIAB and will defend it to the death. That said it is not for everyone and it is nice to read people write good things about BIAB while saying why they made the switch to 3 vessel brewing.

Dont toss the pillow case as you call it. It may come in handy for small test batches in your fancy system.

Didn't see this earlier... absolutely right.. i'll be keeping my bag for sure. May do the occasional batch here and there...

Might have a double brew day with a mate... he can do a BIAB and i can go the 3V route.

Much appreciative of BIAB... definitely made making the step to AG pretty easy.

 

[argon]

Got my HLT setup over the weekend.

All weldless as I dont have mad welding skillz pretty good with a bow-staff though

Got myself a few toys on Friday from Craftbrewers;
 Weldless thermowell
 Weldless inch full port ss ballvalve, threaded nipple, ss barb.
 Weldless 2200w ss 300mm element.
Was considering the crown urn site guage to fit to the pot but probably hold out for a more robust setup of a couple of ss elbows and some polycarb tube. Can use the 1m ss ruler for now seems pretty simple.
The plan is to set the tempmate on the timer with the probe in the thermowell set to strike temp. Nice easy start to a brew day.
Try and brew first thing Friday as I have the day off.

Ill post some photos of the setup on brew day got the bug to brew more now that Ive got a more solid setup.

Next move is to see if I have the capacity to go all electric, maybe with 2 x 2200w ss elements in the kettle turn one off once boiling to maintain rolling boil. Or if I cant install 1 element and bring to boil with burner, then maintain with element. Itd be good to remove the dependency on the gas bottle quieter too.

 

[raven19]

...got the bug to brew more now that I've got a more solid setup.

That is terrible! :lol: Good to hear the HLT is set. I went with a beerbelly bulkhead fitting and polycarb sightglass. All weldless. Works a treat.

Next move is to see if I have the capacity to go all electric...

If keen on elec, can I suggest an over the side immersion element - they work a treat and can be moved from boosting your HLT for example to help get the kettle up to temp. I have two of them now.

Also added benefit of being able to remove them at the end of the boil, and easier to whirlpool!

 

[argon]

That is terrible! :lol: Good to hear the HLT is set. I went with a beerbelly bulkhead fitting and polycarb sightglass. All weldless. Works a treat.



If keen on elec, can I suggest an over the side immersion element - they work a treat and can be moved from boosting your HLT for example to help get the kettle up to temp. I have two of them now.

Also added benefit of being able to remove them at the end of the boil, and easier to whirlpool!

Yeah over the side immersion heaters sound the go... jut don't want to zap myself h34r: Seen a couple of good ones but like the idea of a permanent fixture though.

Interested to see that sightglass... was thinking of just an ss all thread, lock nut, silicon o-ring with an ss elbow on the outside top and bottom then put the polycarb tube in between... similar to Franko's setup

My pickup tube is still out of action... considering an ss beerbelly hop screen and pickup. I've had a stuck kettle tube before when stupidly letting whole hops go freeball. And not too keen on using the hop sock... dunno why, just not. Just more shiny stuff i guess.

 

[Acasta]

How did you set up, your pickup tube/hop screen? Im also interested in something similar.
Thanks.

 

[argon]

I've set it up with a stainless compression fitting as attached. I've found these the easiest way to creat a bulkhead through a stainless vessel got 3 of them - one on each vessel

HLT no pickup tube to ensure the water elvel doesn't go below the element
MT attached to a bent ss tube attached tp fasle bottom
Kettle attached via copper pick-up tube angled away from centre of pot

Only got copper pickup tube tube at the moment... noting too fancy ... gonna source some stainless tube to do it properly and not sure i'll bother with the hop screen... Next time i use flowers i'll employ the hop sock again, or my full size BIAB voile bag to let the buggers roam free.
:icon_cheers:

 

[argon]

And here's my super dodgy rig... a welded single tier brewstand is on it's way though... soon as i get a bit of coin together.


I drain to kettle (far right) on the ground and lift it back up to the stand when full to start boil... i'll do my back one day.
This setup has done 4 double batches so far and works out ok.

Used to use the smaller shelf system for BIAB. Did about 20+ batches and it stands up fine.