Using An Urn For Brew In A Bag - Tutorial

[big78sam]

****iedazzler, I have a birko and it's quite a wide tap. I use a standard 12mm silicon hose but I needed to cut a slit in the pipe and hold it in while transferring (with gloves or you'll burn yourself). You'll struggle to get 12mm tubing to stay on. The method I use does the job through and I preferred this to changing the tap as I'm useless at that sort of thing

You could try and get a wider silicon hose but grain and grape didn't have them. Your LHBS may have. G&G had 16mm vinyl tubing but this is rated only to 70 degrees. They said it should still so the job but I preferred to stick with the silicon I know.

EDIT: Ross' suggestion of a crown is possible but I didn;t want to have to do anything to the urn and apparently the biol dry switch needs a workaround with the crown. A search will give you plenty of info on crown v birko

 

[Ross]

EDIT: Ross' suggestion of a crown is possible but I didn;t want to have to do anything to the urn and apparently the biol dry switch needs a workaround with the crown. A search will give you plenty of info on crown v birko

The Crown Urn does not require any electrical modding (not recommended), but if using outside in the open some insulation around the urn will definately assist in getting a stronger boil.

cheers Ross

 

[Bribie G]

1/2" silicon hose fits the Crown Urns we sell perfectly - I assume the Birko has a similar tap if that's what you've decided on.

Cheers Ross

Unfortunately the Birko tap is different, it doesn't fit. <_< Much as I like the Birko they have also made the current tap cheaper and nastier than some old models I have seen, and the tap can disintegrate if you dismantle it for cleaning too often. I'm getting a ball lock tap myself which should solve all problems.
My urn sits on a stand so that the tap is just above my no chill cube and I just run it in. Hot side aeration? Maybe but it hasn't affected my ales AFAIK. However as an insurance policy when I get the ball lock I'll use the silicone hose, which I already have on hand.

 

[boobiedazzler]

well i just got home with my new birko. regular all grain brewing here we come. as for the hose issue, im going to try and find a 20mm high temp hose to fit on the outside of the tap and secure it with a hoseclamp because the inside has teeth that would make it tough for a hose or tube to fit inside the tap without leaking.

this is probably a dumb question but whats the need to dismantle the tap for cleaning if the only thing going through it is post boiled hot wert .. Or is this just for those that cool the liqor down while its still in the kettle. in my case i plan to transfer straight to a cube and let it cool naturally over a week. will probably run some hot water through it at the end but not sure how fastidious i need to be about sanitation because imo 25 liters of almost boiling wert is going to kill any bacteria.

 

[Pollux]

I stripped down my crown urn tap after every boil, the gunk that is in there would not be pleasant if ignored for a week or so.....

 

[Bribie G]

I started dismantling the tap after I tried to do a "no chill" in the urn overnight and got an infection. On taking the tap apart I found some hop debris etc. Always do it now.

 

[leiothrix]

I pulled apart my three piece ball valve that was hooked up to my crown urn the other day and learned two thing:

1. A fair bit of gunk does build up inside. Hasn't affected anything i've made though as i've NC'ed in either the fermenter or cube, so only boiling hot wort has moved through it.

2. There are significantly more than three pieces in a three piece ball valve.

Rob.

 

[Bribie G]

:lol: Reminds me of when I took my font taps apart for the first time, for cleaning. Wheels within wheels within wheels ............ :unsure:

 

[DoctorBob]

:lol: Reminds me of when I took my font taps apart for the first time, for cleaning. Wheels within wheels within wheels ............ :unsure:

Hi BribieG,

I'm interested in some of your earlier posts relating to multi vessel BIAB. I have got 2 x 36L ss pots & a 59L ss pot ready to build a 3v recirculating 2 pump rig........but it won't happen quickly...time & money. It would be great to do a few BIABs with the 3 vessels in the meantime, and start the move away from kits & bits / extract.

Do you reckon I could do a 40 L double batch by adding 26L water in V1 plus 8kg grain, then swop the bag to V2 (26L water), then transfer contents of V1, and V2 to V3 and boil. With loses of around 4L at boil, 2L to trub, and 5.6L to grist absorbtion it should give about 40L final vol from what I have read on this thread?

Will 8kg grain and 26L water fit in a 36L pot? or could I just add 20L to V1, and V2, then warm a bit more water up and stick it in with the wort in V3 before starting the boil to get the pre boil volume to 46L if needed?

 

[Bribie G]

Doc, let you know in the morning, its late and I've had a massive amount of Thames Valley II Brakspear wannabe :chug:

 

[rendo]

Hey BribieG,

So since then have u also done no-chill in the urn with no issues

rendo

I started dismantling the tap after I tried to do a "no chill" in the urn overnight and got an infection. On taking the tap apart I found some hop debris etc. Always do it now.

 

[Ross]

Hi BribieG,

I'm interested in some of your earlier posts relating to multi vessel BIAB. I have got 2 x 36L ss pots & a 59L ss pot ready to build a 3v recirculating 2 pump rig........but it won't happen quickly...time & money. It would be great to do a few BIABs with the 3 vessels in the meantime, and start the move away from kits & bits / extract.

Do you reckon I could do a 40 L double batch by adding 26L water in V1 plus 8kg grain, then swop the bag to V2 (26L water), then transfer contents of V1, and V2 to V3 and boil. With loses of around 4L at boil, 2L to trub, and 5.6L to grist absorbtion it should give about 40L final vol from what I have read on this thread?

Will 8kg grain and 26L water fit in a 36L pot? or could I just add 20L to V1, and V2, then warm a bit more water up and stick it in with the wort in V3 before starting the boil to get the pre boil volume to 46L if needed?

Doc,

Why all the vessel changing?? Just do the BIAB in vessel 3 (57L), it's all you need.

cheers Ross

 

[DoctorBob]

Doc,

Why all the vessel changing?? Just do the BIAB in vessel 3 (57L), it's all you need.

cheers Ross

Hi Ross,

Thanks for the reply,

I guess I am just after feedback on the best approach (ease & efficiency) given the equipment I currently have available.

I wondered if you would get better efficiency by doing the second immersion of the bag in clean water to extract more of the sugars.

I suppose you could just use two pots to do this?

Or maybe as you say just do a single immersion of the bag in the big vessel.

Cheers

Rob

 

[Bribie G]

If you have a sky hook and ability to lift what will be a very heavy bag, just looking at the figures briefly I'd go the Ross suggestion, however with that size pot you may be struggling a bit to get to the final 40 L with evaporation, loss to trub etc. I assume you are doing a batch for 2 kegs so you would need to hit that volume to allow for loss during racking. I would personally go for a BIAB in the big pot but do a dunk sparge in one of the smaller pots to get some extra wort to make up your pre boil volume.

 

[Ross]

If you have a sky hook and ability to lift what will be a very heavy bag, just looking at the figures briefly I'd go the Ross suggestion, however with that size pot you may be struggling a bit to get to the final 40 L with evaporation, loss to trub etc.

Bribie,

No problem at all getting a 40L final volume out of a 59L Pot - heaps of room

cheers Ross

 

[Bribie G]

Practically that would be the equivalent of getting around 27L out of my 40 L urn, and that's doable with a one hour boil, but I find with a 90 min rolling boil in the Birko I get only around 24- 25 L and end up with a nicely full cube and maybe a litre in the schottie for a yeast starter. However it also depends on the strength of the brew, I find a 40L struggles with a bigger bill (say 5.5 K) but pisses it in with a smaller bill (say 3.5 for a mild).

:icon_offtopic: My Bri-bot system I am looking at will have in-situ sparging available without messing around with a bucket sparge so I can brew to obtain a precise volume. One less hassle.

 

[big78sam]

I've done a search but can't seem to find anything...

Are there some tips on what to do when cleaning a tap on the newer style birko urns? I'm hopeless at that sort of thing and did get lots of hops in the tap (enough to block it completely and without going into the details it caused me lots of grief) in my last brew. I used plugs for the first time without a hop sock. I managed to partially clean them out but I'm guessing there's still crud left inside.

 

[Ross]

Practically that would be the equivalent of getting around 27L out of my 40 L urn, and that's doable with a one hour boil, but I find with a 90 min rolling boil in the Birko I get only around 24- 25 L and end up with a nicely full cube and maybe a litre in the schottie for a yeast starter. However it also depends on the strength of the brew, I find a 40L struggles with a bigger bill (say 5.5 K) but pisses it in with a smaller bill (say 3.5 for a mild).

Bribie,

My vessels are 57L & I have no problem at all boiling 90 mins with a full rolling boil for 90 minutes. The boil off is irrelevant to beer strength, it only makes a difference to fitting all the grain & entire boil volume in the vessel at once, & yes that would be dependant on beer strength, easy to handle though with the spare vessels Bob has on hand.
If you are getting 24 to 25L with a 90 minute boil, then the 59L should produce 43 to 44L as the boil off volume will be the same, so allowing for possible differences in boil off rates between the 2 systems, 40L should be easily managable.

cheers Ross

 

[boobiedazzler]

bribieg if you end up with 24-25 litres then how big is your cube. are you leaving some of the liqor behind, like the amount below the tap which is going to have crap settled out of it such as hop waste and grain protein or whatever the hell that stuff is that drops out. i bought two 20 litre cubes and i think i should aim to follow your instructions to the letter for the first few attempts. you seem to have it sorted with volumes, boil times and so on

big78sam the blocked tap sounds like a terrible experience and once im going to be thinking about so i dont suffer the same fate. do you think some sort of metal gauze screen would stop this from happening in future?

 

[big78sam]

I know others have done something similar, i.e gauze screen. I think I'll use a hop sock next time and that should solve the problem. I'm also going to make sure I have a long enough hose so I can syphon into the cube if need be.

I had cut my hose into convenient 1 metre leghts and this wasn't quite enough to syphon. In the end I had to use a jug to get the wort from the urn to the cube and I ended up leaving a good 5 litres in the urn. Thankfully it was still hot enough to avoid any infection problems. I just hope this didnt splash around too much.