Low Efficiency

[Diggles]

Kelby,

because sometimes 30mins isn't just 30mins if you know what i mean.

Im predominantly a 3V brewer, but starting to get into BIAB as those extra 30mins i could be doing something else. Particularly with my stc temp controlled recirculating single vessel, brewday is damn near stress free. Can't put a quantifiable figure on that.

3V brewing is second nature to me, and very straightforward, but all the cleaning, organising, getting everything ready, strike and sparge prepped, setup, packed away.....i just wanted to experiment with something simpler and less involving.
Have two little brewers running around who need some time, so i'd rather brew less more often than be out of action for most of a saturday 'cause i'm doing back to back brews.

With my single recirculating vessel, i can set my strike water when i get home, forget about it, do the family dinner and put the kids to bed, go back out and mash in at 8:30 and be packed up before midnight. I'd rather do this than spend most of a weekend day brewing, as if i wasn't brewing, i'd be up until after midnight anyway so might aswell knock out a batch.

The beauty about my setup is that to create my single vessel rig, i've basically just modified my HLT from my 3V, so i can go back to 3V at the drop of the hat, if i want to brew my big doubles again, or just knock out a quick as you like keg filler single batch on a weeknight.

But not every one has the space to store two rigs though.

drag out 1 pot and fill with strike water from the hot tap outlet in the laundry. weigh out and crush grain whilst getting to strike temp. takes no more than 10mins.
mash on, quick stir, lid on, reset stc for mash temp. walk away.
after 1 hour, hoist bag and basket arrangement. reset stc for 99 and walk away. takes roughly 15mins to approach boil. sparge if i can be ******.
boil as normal. weigh and add hops. clean small assorted gear during the boil.
wait 20mins for currents to slow down.
transfer to cube 5mins.
clean 1 pot 10mins.
go to bed.

total time: 3hours on the dot.

yes it's only a single batch, but i love brewing, so brewing a big batch or two once or twice a month doesn't appeal to everyone. I'd sometimes rather brew once or twice a week and do different beers.

not getting too much variation in my efficiency with BIAB. It's different but certainly not horrendous. Typically at the moment, the first two or three biab's have yielded 72-75% with minimal effort. Am sure i can get close to 80% by sparging or adding a mashout step.

Sounds like you've got it down patch, I'm still getting there, what do you mean when referring to your bag and basket arrangement? I find the bag is a pain in the arse and get's in the way of stirring!! Post a pic if you can.

Diggles

 

[kelbygreen]

I think if you stir well to start with you should be ok. With 3V infusion you will be stirring when you put the strike water in, when you put the sach rest water in, when you put the mash out water in and the sparge rinses the grains. So I cant see to much more stirring will benefit a heap in 3V situation. With a recirculated system its basically stirring well the worts running threw the grain but if you get channelling then only part of the grain will have wort running threw it.

I see your point Nath but I think a recuirc system even if it incorporates a bag will be far above the standard BIAB method. The bag and basket diggles will be he has a basket inside the pot and a bag inside that where you put the grain into then you lift the basket out of the pot and drain and boil in the same pot. Alot like BIAB but the basket is ridged, not like the bag where when you lift it the grain gets disturbed.

Here is a pic of my rig. Its simple, use a pump for transfer. I heat water in both pots. So scheduled is strike water in HTL (right) infusion water in boiler (left) so I dough in and 5-10mins later the boiler is boiling so after 10mins I can add it straight to the mash, For mash out and sparge same deal but mash out is in the boiler and the sparge in the HLT so I mash out while the sparge water is almost ready and that frees up my boiler so I can pump the wort into the kettle while I sparge but I have to sparge by hand as I dont have 2 pumps lol

 

[Crusty]

I wouldn't be stirring it Diggles. I would first check your grain crush & maybe go a touch finer. Keep in mind though that too fine a crush will add to your trub losses & if you account for that, then great. Add total amount of strike water, heat to desired temp, add the bag, add the crushed grain, keep it warm & let it be for 90mins. After 90mins, raise temp to 78deg ( mash out ) whilst continually pumping up & down with a paint stirrer. Once at 78, kill the heat & raise the bag, squeeze if you wish, I do. Boil for 60mins as normal.
I did my first biab last week, aiming for 1.049 into fermenter, ended up with 1.060, efficiency for me was a tad over 80%. I missed my target volume by 2.5lt but failed to factor trub losses in BrewMate but all good. My wort after draining the bag was quite turbid but after adding Kopperfloc to the boil 10mins from the end & letting it settle for about 20-30mins after the boil, crystal clear wort into the cube for no chill. I siphoned up some trub & break material as well but no worries at all, fermenting away beautifully. I did add some cooled boiled water to get to my target starting OG of 1.049 & will hop tea this one for a bit of an aroma hit. Next time I have factored in my losses so should be much closer to volumes. I wouldn't loose any sleep over not getting crystal clear wort into your boiler, it makes no difference at all.
I used to have a 3V Rims brewery & sold it to do biab in a 40lt urn, best thing I have ever done, it's just too easy.

 

[Diggles]

I wouldn't be stirring it Diggles. I would first check your grain crush & maybe go a touch finer. Keep in mind though that too fine a crush will add to your trub losses & if you account for that, then great. Add total amount of strike water, heat to desired temp, add the bag, add the crushed grain, keep it warm & let it be for 90mins. After 90mins, raise temp to 78deg ( mash out ) whilst continually pumping up & down with a paint stirrer. Once at 78, kill the heat & raise the bag, squeeze if you wish, I do. Boil for 60mins as normal.
I did my first biab last week, aiming for 1.049 into fermenter, ended up with 1.060, efficiency for me was a tad over 80%. I missed my target volume by 2.5lt but failed to factor trub losses in BrewMate but all good. My wort after draining the bag was quite turbid but after adding Kopperfloc to the boil 10mins from the end & letting it settle for about 20-30mins after the boil, crystal clear wort into the cube for no chill. I siphoned up some trub & break material as well but no worries at all, fermenting away beautifully. I did add some cooled boiled water to get to my target starting OG of 1.049 & will hop tea this one for a bit of an aroma hit. Next time I have factored in my losses so should be much closer to volumes. I wouldn't loose any sleep over not getting crystal clear wort into your boiler, it makes no difference at all.
I used to have a 3V Rims brewery & sold it to do biab in a 40lt urn, best thing I have ever done, it's just too easy.

I did the grain a very small amount finer, or so I think I did according to the thread on the mill, hard to detect any change by looking at it. So why no stirring? Pumping the paint stirrer up and down has the same effect doesn't it? or am I missing something? I end to mash for 60 and boil for 90, I suppose mashing for longer will give the starches more time to be converted??

Diggles

 

[Crusty]

I did the grain a very small amount finer, or so I think I did according to the thread on the mill, hard to detect any change by looking at it. So why no stirring? Pumping the paint stirrer up and down has the same effect doesn't it? or am I missing something? I end to mash for 60 and boil for 90, I suppose mashing for longer will give the starches more time to be converted??

Diggles

You don't need to stir it. You are probably loosing considerable heat every time you do so. You basically want to extract that sugar from the grain so leave it do it's thing at the correct temperature. Recirculating is just to keep a precise temp with 3V, not needed with biab or even the esky mash tun boys. After 90mins, great exposure time for biab, raising the temp will stop conversion, ( mash out ) & pumping up & down with the paint stirrer will loosen up any sugars still caught up in the grain bed. Boil away.

 

[Diggles]

You don't need to stir it. You are probably loosing considerable heat every time you do so. You basically want to extract that sugar from the grain so leave it do it's thing at the correct temperature. Recirculating is just to keep a precise temp with 3V, not needed with biab or even the esky mash tun boys. After 90mins, great exposure time for biab, raising the temp will stop conversion, ( mash out ) & pumping up & down with the paint stirrer will loosen up any sugars still caught up in the grain bed. Boil away.

Your right about the heat, had to light the burner a couple of times. Cheers for the info and help. Will mash for 90 next time and buy a paint stirrer! :lol:

Diggles

 

[kelbygreen]

this is a subject I was always interested in but I have no experience or science to back it up. I myself want to get clear wort into the kettle, does this matter or not??? I am not sure, do you extract astringency out of wort if its to cloudy?? I like to make beer as clear as possible threw the whole process to eliminate anything that can affect the end product. Is this needed though??? I am not sure. I see heaps BIAB as I have but I havnt tasted a effect to say that the extra crap getting into the kettle affects the beer. It may in the long run??? I am not sure.

I know it seems like I bag BIAB but I dont. Its not for me for a few reasons, I was always inconsistent on the OG readings (could be few things) and I always got really bad efficiency (although I was doing the same as guys claiming to get 80% but I was getting 62-65%) Maybe I work it out different as I still only get 75% with 3V they may calculate mash efficiency I calculate brew house which will vary from gear to gear.

I want a fully automated single vessle system but its far from BIAB , more like a brewmeister lol

 

[Fat Bastard]

this is a subject I was always interested in but I have no experience or science to back it up. I myself want to get clear wort into the kettle, does this matter or not??? I am not sure, do you extract astringency out of wort if its to cloudy?? I like to make beer as clear as possible threw the whole process to eliminate anything that can affect the end product. Is this needed though??? I am not sure. I see heaps BIAB as I have but I havnt tasted a effect to say that the extra crap getting into the kettle affects the beer. It may in the long run??? I am not sure.

I know it seems like I bag BIAB but I dont. Its not for me for a few reasons, I was always inconsistent on the OG readings (could be few things) and I always got really bad efficiency (although I was doing the same as guys claiming to get 80% but I was getting 62-65%) Maybe I work it out different as I still only get 75% with 3V they may calculate mash efficiency I calculate brew house which will vary from gear to gear.

I want a fully automated single vessle system but its far from BIAB , more like a brewmeister lol

I'm not sure that getting clear wort into the kettle matters much in terms of being able to taste it. Recently did 2 identical batches of a Red IPA one in my BIAB hybrid system minus the bag, stupidly forgetting to remove the hop screen from my pickup so I could not effectively lauter the crap from the bottom of the tun and another with the bag and I can't taste or see any difference between the two beers. The whole reasoning behind doing the two bacthes was that I'd screwed the first one up! Ended up with 2 nice batches of Red IPA. I found the biggest thing with reducing the astringent and tannic flavours I was getting with my early brews was correcting my mash pH using E-Z water. That character has completely dissapeared from my brews now.

Perhaps BIAB'ers are less inclined to muck around with this aspect of their brewing than those who fiddle with 3v?

I manage to get over 90% efficiency with my hybrid BIAB, which possibly combines the best (and worst...maybe even more so) of both worlds. Been experimenting with rinsing out the crap from the bottom of the kettle before returning the wort for boiling lately. Will let you know if I get noticeably different tasting beer from it.