Mash To Fermenter In One Day

[Renegade]

While there's a lot of teks out there on how to chill down hot wort with copper immersion devices that circulate water, chill plates etc, and then the 'no-chill' method of filling a cube and waiting till it cools down, Im interested to know why either of these is a requirement if doing a single-batch BIAB.

Let me type out my ideas/questions, and have members dissect it from there. Note that I am yet to start down the path of AG, so this is purely theortical at this stage.

1. If the accepted water to grain ratio is 3:1 and a brew takes 5kg of grain to reach an average beer's OG, therefore a 15 litre urn of water would be adequate for mashing.

2. After the grain is removed, and the boil starts, we consider an evaporation loss of four litres. By the end of the boil there's 11 litres of wort that would be at a temperature of around 95 - 100 degrees

3. My thermodynamics thoery isnt that great, but if we let that 11 litres of wort to cool for a short time in the urn until it hits 90 degrees, then add 8 litres of ice (assuming a theortical zero degrees), this would bring the wort to pitching temp, which could then be gravity-streamed straight into the fementer from a heigh to ensure a good aeration. Pitching could be done straight away.

Note, the calculations of hot water to ice and the temp impact was worked oout with this online calculator:
http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm and based on the above, gives me a final temp of 18 degrees. For all I know the temp characteristics of malted liquid, ie the wort, might render this calculation innacurate.

4. The final 21 litres of wort (including the ice addition) would be measured for target OG before pitching, and slight additions of either water or LDME made to bring the OG up or down before the yeast is pitched.

Ok, so how is this approach to doing things ? What are the reasons why this wouldnt work, if we wanted to cut ot the chill/no chill process entirely ?

 

[gruntus]

One thing that you have missed in the grain will absorb water at a ration 1.1 per kg. i.e. for 5kg grain = 5.5 litres (EDIT this may not be the case with BIAB....give it a really good squeeze)

 

[Renegade]

Oops, I think that's the shoot down of my assumptions right there. Thanks ! I completely overlooked that, despite reading about that only yesterday.

This is all for forward planning of the process before I spend the bucks on gear, so its all good info.

 

[haysie]

While there's a lot of teks out there on how to chill down hot wort with copper immersion devices that circulate water, chill plates etc, and then the 'no-chill' method of filling a cube and waiting till it cools down, Im interested to know why either of these is a requirement if doing a single-batch BIAB.

Let me type out my ideas/questions, and have members dissect it from there. Note that I am yet to start down the path of AG, so this is purely theortical at this stage.

1. If the accepted water to grain ratio is 3:1 and a brew takes 5kg of grain to reach an average beer's OG, therefore a 15 litre urn of water would be adequate for mashing.

2. After the grain is removed, and the boil starts, we consider an evaporation loss of four litres. By the end of the boil there's 11 litres of wort that would be at a temperature of around 95 - 100 degrees

3. My thermodynamics thoery isnt that great, but if we let that 11 litres of wort to cool for a short time in the urn until it hits 90 degrees, then add 8 litres of ice (assuming a theortical zero degrees), this would bring the wort to pitching temp, which could then be gravity-streamed straight into the fementer from a heigh to ensure a good aeration. Pitching could be done straight away.

Note, the calculations of hot water to ice and the temp impact was worked oout with this online calculator:
http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm and based on the above, gives me a final temp of 18 degrees. For all I know the temp characteristics of malted liquid, ie the wort, might render this calculation innacurate.

4. The final 21 litres of wort (including the ice addition) would be measured for target OG before pitching, and slight additions of either water or LDME made to bring the OG up or down before the yeast is pitched.

Ok, so how is this approach to doing things ? What are the reasons why this wouldnt work, if we wanted to cut ot the chill/no chill process entirely ?

1/ 15 litre holds 15 ltrs, add 5 kg of grain , hmmmm, Overflow.
2/ Thats a huge evap rate 25%+, whats the end temp got to do with anything?
3/ What about the bugs in your ice? May as well sterilise your can opener and keep adding water to a kit.
4/ Not really handcrafted when you assume and fix, and I reckon all that water you keep adding needs some hop additions. How do you calculate that?

 

[Pollux]

I only lose 0.5L per kg using BIAB.

 

[Renegade]

1/ 15 litre holds 15 ltrs, add 5 kg of grain , hmmmm, Overflow.
2/ Thats a huge evap rate 25%+, whats the end temp got to do with anything?
3/ What about the bugs in your ice? May as well sterilise your can opener and keep adding water to a kit.
4/ Not really handcrafted when you assume and fix, and I reckon all that water you keep adding needs some hop additions. How do you calculate that?

1. I'm looking at the 40 litre urn tek that Bribie & Pollux are having success with, so no overflow worries with a vessel that size.

2. Im overexaggerating evap, but that works in the theories favour
3. No bugs in ice, Ice Cream containers pre-prepared by me (not store bought bags)
4. I would calculate total fermentable wort OG, IBU etc in Beersmith at 22 litres, then screw the program down to my boil wort to see what the assumed OG wouold be. Dont really see this aspect as an issue. As for 'not handcrafted', Ive read sevral AG'er's touching up their wort slightly with malt. Is that not in the spirit of things ? Im thinking that with time and experience, that would be my best teacher on estimating gravity anyway.

I only lose 0.5L per kg using BIAB.

Nice, do you squeeze the bag ? Very interested in following your posts, because what youre doing is exactly the method I wish to follow (OK, maybe not the no-chill if theres a way round it and I can piptch the same day without using a plate chiiller etc)

 

[RetsamHsam]

I don't biab so correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the liquor to grist ratio for biab closer to 6:1?

 

[marlow_coates]

Things I can think of that would be an issue is firstly the infection issue with ice. If it is sitting in your freezer, or bought from the store you can't guarentee a clean original water supply. This is part of the reason most will boil all the water that will end up in the fermenter.

Of course I occasionally just add the hose end to the fermenter to top up, and OK so far.

The second issue is your hop utilisation in a wort with such a high gravity. Given that all the concentrated sugars are in the 15L or whatever it ends up as, that is going to be close to double your intended SG for boiling the hops in and will change you utlisation rates and therefore calculations on how much to add.
This problem could be sorted with some experimentation though.

This is one of the things I love about AG. When we do it, most of the brew day is spent thinking up ways to make it more effecient, faster, less physically exhausting. Not one of the 14?? brews we've done has been the same.

I reckon just take the leap. As long as you have the basic idea and equipment it will fall into place :icon_cheers:

Marlow

 

[marlow_coates]

Another thing:

When we used BIAB, squeezing the bag was essential, then we ran through near boiling water to 'fly sparge' (not sure if this is correct terminology) and get all the goodies out of the grain.

This extra water will need boiling, and will need to be added onto you volumes.

 

[Screwtop]

Now I reckon if we knock the corners off this square it might just roll, stick something through a hole in the middle and we might just have something new, lets call it the "wheel" :lol:

Screwy

 

[Batz]

Now I reckon if we knock the corners off this square it might just roll, stick something through a hole in the middle and we might just have something new, lets call it the "wheel" :lol:

Screwy

We can make it a bit more complex than that Screwy



The days of a simple answer on AHB are long gone I'm afraid

Batz

 

[Pollux]

Nice, do you squeeze the bag ? Very interested in following your posts, because what youre doing is exactly the method I wish to follow (OK, maybe not the no-chill if theres a way round it and I can piptch the same day without using a plate chiiller etc)

I tend to stand on the table the urn is on, tie off the draw string on the bag and then lift the bag wrapped the whole thing around my gloved hand as I go, kind of squeezing without squeezing.

Tempted to lower the initial liquor:grist ratio next time around and perform a sparge of high temp water as an experiment in increasing my currently shitty eff %

 

[Cocko]

Renegade,

Mate, you have a basic understanding of most things needed to do a BIAB but persist on disputing facts that have been proven without fail! By pretty much all BIAB'ers on here.... Why?

Do you need to cut corners for some reason?

If you are going a 40L URN than you can perform a traditional BIAB, done. Not to many Q's to ask for you, after a good bit of reading.. Maybe where do I buy my voile or what recipe do I do...

No disrespect or deliberate condescending tone meant by this post!

But there is a proven path and you seem set on finding your own way, when the path is worn and leads to home!

2c

 

[seemax]

There is no reason why your process wont work.

Making a lot of ice might be hard work, as a suggestion why not just chill enough water to 1C... then if you haven't quite reached pitching temp leave the fermentor in the fridge for an hour or so, slight infection risk but I've done worse and got away with it.

You will need approx 20% more hops to achieve the same bitterness due to utilisation effect.

You want to be able to drain every last mL of wort from the urn too given the high SG, can't afford to waste a drop!!

 

[Sammus]

The ice will also likely be below zero, a bit of extra cooling efficiency.

 

[Renegade]

Now I reckon if we knock the corners off this square it might just roll, stick something through a hole in the middle and we might just have something new, lets call it the "wheel" :lol:

Screwy

Mate, you have a basic understanding of most things needed to do a BIAB but persist on disputing facts that have been proven without fail! By pretty much all BIAB'ers on here.... Why?

Do you need to cut corners for some reason?

If you are going a 40L URN than you can perform a traditional BIAB, done. Not to many Q's to ask for you, after a good bit of reading.. Maybe where do I buy my voile or what recipe do I do...

No disrespect or deliberate condescending tone meant by this post!

But there is a proven path and you seem set on finding your own way, when the path is worn and leads to home!

2c

Easy fellers, Im just posing a question. And it's in order to best determine what gear I need to start aquiring for the chill/no chill, not trying to sell a better process to myself or anyone else.

Thanks for everyone else's input into this discussion. Hop utilisation is good food for thought. Probably the most tricky one, beng that the only real measure is by taste. I think the no-chill cubed wort method is probably going to be the best route.

 

[Bribie G]

I'm not strictly an All Grain brewer, in the sense that I like to brew commercial styles such as UK Bitters which often have 300 to 600g of sugar, and I have developed (finally) a house lager that is similar to the old style Carlton Draught we used to get across the bar before they started all that "made from beer" (read trucked from Yatala) shyte and true to form it contains up to a kilo of sugaz.

Also, the 40L urn and cube system yields around 22 L of wort no problems. However I prefer to get about 25 L into the fermenter and this gives me an opportunity to use ice to make up to 25L. A bag of party ice is 4L, or I make up 3L of ice in sanitised ice cream containers.

So If I brew in the evening, nochill in the cube overnight, yeilding 22 L which is still at around 35 degrees next morning, then add the sugaz and ice into the fermenter I can pitch immediately, or at least when the blocks have melted. So that's mash to fermenter in about 12 to 15 hours. Of course if I'm doing a 100% grain brew like my Green Dragon hobbit ale or a Foreign Extra Stout for a comp, or my All Grain Bohemian Pilsener I'm also doing next week for a comp, then I need to whack the cube in the fridge next day to drag it down from 35 degrees to pitch, but that's mash to pitch in 24 hours.

But for my 'house' beers, it's PM mash AM pitch.

EDIT: I trust the town water. Lets face it if that was a problem there would be no Kit n Kilo or partial brewing.

 

[crundle]

Hi Renegade,

I haven't seen any loss for trub in the calculations so far, which will need to be factored in. In my BIAB system, I use 33 litres of water initially, to make up a final 23 litres in the urn. After dumping this into a cube and leaving overnight, I probably lose about 2-3 litres to trub in the cube and in the fermenter.

Just asking out of interest, but why the need to pitch straight away after boiling? I can see that it would be nice to get it all out of the way in one go, but personally I find it liberating to be able to separate making the wort and fermenting it. I can clean up my urn and equipment while the cube cools, and then just have to pitch the yeast starter in the cooled wort whenever I want. If I don't get the starter going on schedule, or it is slow getting started for some reason, I am not risking infection or underpitching.

The main risk I would see in adding ice would be infection, but if you are pitching straight away with sufficient yeast, this may not be an issue after all. Worst comes to worst, give it a try and let us know how it went!

Crundle

 

[Pollux]

Just asking out of interest, but why the need to pitch straight away after boiling? I can see that it would be nice to get it all out of the way in one go, but personally I find it liberating to be able to separate making the wort and fermenting it. I can clean up my urn and equipment while the cube cools, and then just have to pitch the yeast starter in the cooled wort whenever I want. If I don't get the starter going on schedule, or it is slow getting started for some reason, I am not risking infection or underpitching.

This is what I love about nochill...

I can get my brewing done while doing things around the house (currently brewing in the kitchen, but am thinking about shifting it down to the garage, the walls are starting to bleed malt.....), finish the boil, cube it and by this stage all I have left to do is wash the urn down and leave it out to dry.

Be buggered if I would want to sit there and chill the wort, sanitise the fermenter and pitch.

 

[cozmocracker]

i have done two AG brews in a 20 litre urn, starting with initial grain to water ratio 3 to 1, after squeezing bag and losing .5 litres per kilo of grain, i sparged in a stockpot with additional 5 or 6 litres of water bringing initial boil volume up to 17 or 18 litres. at end of boil i added all hot wort and trub into fermenter ( i figure trub falls out after CC and i got crystal clear beers) then added ice and chilled water to bring temp down to pitching temp.

my first attempt i would of hit all my marks spot on but mixed up a SG reading post boil, i thought i took it once it was in the fermenter with added water, so i added more water to bring SG down which it didnt need.

2nd one was spot on.

i did not account for hop utilization due to high gravity wort.

Now i have a 40 litre urn and basically have a 2 vessel system with the 20 litre urn being the mash tun. i am now considering a plate chiller because my first no chill cube leaked and i was forced to cool wort in fridge till i got to pitching temp.

so what i am saying is your thinking works, go for it, just adjust your hops for the high gravity wort.

cheers cozmo.