Move To All Grain For Thirty Bucks

[time01]

hi guys, tried to PM nick but have just found out he has been banned, would someone please be able to assist with the below?

Hi Nick,

Just been reading your move to all grain for thirty bucks thread and wondering exactly what equipment i need? will the following be enough;

BIAB bag
19ltr pot
thermometer
sleeping bag to wrap around pot

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Hydrometer (if you don't already own one).
Fermenter (if you don't already own one).

So yep, you pretty well have it all.

I do a method with two pots on the stove and a lauter tun (something to whack the grains into and drain out the liquid - instead of the bag, and then to sparge (meaning rinse with hot water) the grains after drawing off the first liquid). I've put a couple of videos on the thread as well. It mightn't be the same, but it will add to the pictures on the $30 thread and help with ideas.

 

[time01]

thanks goomba, have read your thread as well, thought nicks method might be a good entry point before moving onto your method.

 

[spryzie]

Big spoon, some clips to hold bag to side of pot are very helpful, rope to lift bag (or be prepared to use you hands and have a bucket ready to throw it into to drain), pyrex jug to pour wort into cube (or silicon hose to siphon).

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

+1 for the bucket. I used a pasta pot with a colander insert from the kitchen. It meant I could squeeze sparge without burning myself (actually it meant I could do a real sparge too) and you could leave the bag 'relax' and let out more wort whilst you put the pot on the stove.

 

[time01]

is there any need for a bucket with Nicks method? i thought it was all done in the one pot?

 

[spryzie]

How are you going to drain the bag?

I personally do it in a colander over a kitchen bowl.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I think Nick's method still uses a bucket to whack the bag in when you lift it. The one pot aspect is that the mashing and boiling are in the same pot. The bag allows for removal of the grains, whilst retaining the resultant liquor.

The other items are extra, but if you have the items in the house, use them.

Reason: 2kg of sticky hot wort burns like hell.

I used to sparge in the pasta strainer - just because it was good for efficiency, and made life easier. Not hard to run a kettle or two worth of hot water through the grain and it means that it drains out with minimal burns and far less effort.

 

[spryzie]

My second attempt at BIAB, I decided to hoist the bag with rope.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/gallery/album/1005-spryzies-pics/

 

[citizensnips]

If your using a cheap bucket I strongly suggest squeezing the majority of wort out of the bag first and then just using the bucket as somewhere just to put the bag. If your going to pour the contents back into your kettle I highly recommend tasting it first. I use to just pour it back in until one time I thought, maybe 75degree water and grain on a cheap bucket may cause it to release some unwanted flavours/chemicals......and oh boy it did. tasted like straight up plastic.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

My local Kmart has 20L plastic food grade pails for $7 (even cheaper than Bunnings, go figure).

If you could be bothered shelling out a few extra $, you could grab 2 of these, and a tap (usually from bunnings for about $1.50), and make yourself a lauter. That way you could dump the bag in and let it do its thing. If you want to sparge, great, but it'll allow you to easily move the bag and then take the runnings out.

 

[time01]

great pics spryzie.

thanks for the tips guys, ill grab gear when I get back from Europe and give it a crack.

can I still do 20ltr brews in a 19ltr pot (by topping for cold water)? I will eventually buy a 2nd pot or a 50ltr, I just wanted to get comfortable with this process first.

 

[spryzie]

Certainly possible to do 20L.

But I've found 16L is what I can get out of the 19L pot for a 5%'ish ABV beer. That works out to be 36 stubbies.

That's with 3.75kg of grain in the pot with 15L of water to mash.

Brewmate tells me with 4kg of grain @ 70% efficiency you'd get a 4% ABV beer if diluted to 20L. Doubt you'd fit more than 4kg of grain into the pot. You could then add 350g of sugar to the boil (or some malt extract I guess) to bring it up to 5%. I'd just make less beer personally.

If you wanted to make a Mild then you could get a whole 23L batch out of it easily.

By the way, download Brewmate. It's free. Let's you run numbers for working this stuff out!

 

[donburke]

You can follow the guide without the photos quite easily...

i've never been able to blow with a playboy thats had all the pictures ripped out

 

[time01]

sounds perfect spryzie, least this way I should build up my confidence and ability before progressing and investing in more equipment.

thanks to yourself and goomba for the tips, cant wait to give it a crack when I get back.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

No worries.

I thought I'd add that I got a bitter out at 27L from the top pot method - which ended up being high grav at the end of boil and some water added to bring it back down when I transferred from the no-chill cube to the fermenter.

The most I've got is 38L of a 'mild' (it was really a darkish bitter) at about 1.039. The sparge was staggered. The issue I had was that I was having to leave the tap on immediately after I started lautering (chucking the watery grain mush into the bucket in bucket thing to draw off the liquor), so that the lauter could cope with the increased grain bill (and increased water).

My solution would be that you would need a lower water to grain ratio for larger grain bills (whether bigger beers or higher quantity of beer), and then sparge the hell out of it.

The good thing is that the 2nd pot in my method means you can get about 18L of sparge water up to sparge temp during the latter half of the mash and my kettle "boils" at the right temp to mop up an extra 3-6 litres as the lautering is going on.

 

[pajs]

Such a good thread, this one. My thanks to NickJD for putting this together. It's got me back into brewing, and into doing all grain. Simple, fast, small batches, including a bunch of SMaSH beers, has been great for getting my enthusiasm for brewing back.

 

[lespaul]

Is there anyway that the pictures can be reloaded on the opening thread?

 

[Yob]

Ask nick

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

MOD: I've hidden all posts in the last day, to keep this thread on topic.

Let's go back to discussing the excellent information, not the OP.

I for one would like to see the pictures retaken by someone keen to do the method or has done it, and the thread either rejigged or the good bits transferred to a new thread and this one locked.

It's an excellent thread and personally helped me get into AG, and still influences my current method (2 pots on the stovetop - which does have a topic with pics and a vid).