Worms - Bucket

[nala]

I begin this topic by acknowledging that Bribie G is the instigator of brewing in a bucket, I have merely embellished
what he conceived as a good potential method, I have introduced a recirculating method to his original efforts.

Firstly a geometry lesson for Michael in readiness for next bucket trial :



This picture shows the bottom of the handy pail, firstly cut off the centre projection and drill a 6mm dia hole.
Around the rim there are equally spaced projections, bisect these through the central 6mm hole and mark a line with a pencil.
Mark a drilling point on each alternate line so that the hole you are about to drill is inside your 9" false bottom,
mark drill point on the other lines as per the picture, to drill the holes use one of these :



This is a 10mm dia drill with a little point and is designed for cutting wood or thin gauge metal.

For the false bottom I have used utility items, the first is a collander/sieve from Woolworths, I cut off the handles, flattened the base a little so that when the colland/sieve is lowered into the bucket you get a good fit around the rim.
Below the collander I have a disc of fly screen and a piece of coarse material, the fly screen acts as a clamp to the material,
I pierced a hole with a screwdriver through the flyscreen and material and secured them in position with a small nut and bolt.



This a before and after picture of the collander/sieve with and without handles



This shows the false bottom assembly inside the bucket.



This the setup ready for launch on Monday or Tuesday, will be using the recirculating pump and will attach my pulley to the handle ( I cut the white plastic handle in half squeezed in some 2 pack araldite and created a gap so that the bucket can be lifted in a balanced way by the small hook on the pulley) I will try the bucket at a level where I can create a compact grain bed and use the recirculation as a kind of sparge.
To complicate things and give it a good workout I am using the Braumeister stepmash technique with mashout.
I am also using my STC1000 temperature controller to control the various step temperatures, this was very sucessful
on my previous WORMS- BIAB trial.
PS: the sparge bar is "D" shaped only because that was all the copper tube that I had left from the previous effort.

 

[datamike]

Pretty cool!

It'll be interesting to see how it works. I think it will do fine. Is the height of the "recirc ring" adjustable?

Michael

I begin this topic by acknowledging that Bribie G is the instigator of brewing in a bucket, I have merely embellished
what he conceived as a good potential method, I have introduced a recirculating method to his original efforts.

Firstly a geometry lesson for Michael in readiness for next bucket trial :

View attachment 49175

This picture shows the bottom of the handy pail, firstly cut off the centre projection and drill a 6mm dia hole.
Around the rim there are equally spaced projections, bisect these through the central 6mm hole and mark a line with a pencil.
Mark a drilling point on each alternate line so that the hole you are about to drill is inside your 9" false bottom,
mark drill point on the other lines as per the picture, to drill the holes use one of these :

View attachment 49179

This is a 10mm dia drill with a little point and is designed for cutting wood or thin gauge metal.

For the false bottom I have used utility items, the first is a collander/sieve from Woolworths, I cut off the handles, flattened the base a little so that when the colland/sieve is lowered into the bucket you get a good fit around the rim.
Below the collander I have a disc of fly screen and a piece of coarse material, the fly screen acts as a clamp to the material,
I pierced a hole with a screwdriver through the flyscreen and material and secured them in position with a small nut and bolt.

View attachment 49180

This a before and after picture of the collander/sieve with and without handles

View attachment 49181

This shows the false bottom assembly inside the bucket.

View attachment 49182

This the setup ready for launch on Monday or Tuesday, will be using the recirculating pump and will attach my pulley to the handle ( I cut the white plastic handle in half squeezed in some 2 pack araldite and created a gap so that the bucket can be lifted in a balanced way by the small hook on the pulley) I will try the bucket at a level where I can create a compact grain bed and use the recirculation as a kind of sparge.
To complicate things and give it a good workout I am using the Braumeister stepmash technique with mashout.
I am also using my STC1000 temperature controller to control the various step temperatures, this was very sucessful
on my previous WORMS- BIAB trial.
PS: the sparge bar is "D" shaped only because that was all the copper tube that I had left from the previous effort.

 

[stux]

Love your geometry

Too be fair, BribieG has re-invented brewing in a bucket, as bucket-in-a-bucket, is a very old technique, popularised by charlie papazian

BUT, Brewing in a Bucket (or a Pail) in an Urn, now maybe that's something new?

Brewing In A Pail/Urn, BIAPU

 

[nala]

Pretty cool!

It'll be interesting to see how it works. I think it will do fine. Is the height of the "recirc ring" adjustable?

Michael

The sparge ring is adjustable within reason and is also variable in terms of volume,I included an inline tap.

 

[nala]

Love your geometry

Too be fair, BribieG has re-invented brewing in a bucket, as bucket-in-a-bucket, is a very old technique, popularised by charlie papazian

BUT, Brewing in a Bucket (or a Pail) in an Urn, now maybe that's something new?

Brewing In A Pail/Urn, BIAPU

Should be good to make Pail Ale.

 

[jyo]

Good job, mate. Love the ingenuity of some of the people on this site.
Just make sure you do a "D" rest...





















Sorry

 

[edschache]

Wondering if you could achieve the same thing with BIAB just by making a solid ring (thinking 6-8mm round bar) to hold the bag open while hoisting and sparge or recirc through the top as desired. Given the height of the BIAB bag I have from craftbrewer you'd want a fair bit of vertical room and a pulley setup (fortunately I have both). Maybe BIAOB(Open Bag)? No doubt if I read the forum more I'd find that BribieG has already given it a shot.

 

[Bribie G]

The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.

Now, who needs a system when you can get a Nala? Nala is a one man wort production machine in his own right

It seems obvious now... I just popped up to Woolies and got the $8 sieve which is metal mesh in a plastic rim. I just "hoofed" it into a pork pie hat shape.

Cut handles off and tried it in my Queen Brand bucket... a bunnings Handy Pail would be too tight for this one, so go the Queen.
Tested it to fit, with a light duty silicone hose as sealer, no need to waste a hose (I'll continue to use this one as my keg filler) , just keep coiling and pressing down between the strainer and the sides of the bucket till it overlays the bottom layer.

Ok, that works so wrap the strainer in a Ross lightweight grain bag that gets used as a hop sock later

Putting it all together.

Sweet. Tight as a drum.

I also got a $3 trivet from Chinatown yesterday to sit the bucket on so it's not sitting on the element.

I'll be trying it with my 1960s Brib E Tavern Tankard keg bitter, probably this evening if I get home early enough.


Nala - on that point, did you need to solder / braze / bend your copper tubing or does it come like leggo and just slide the bits together?
Reason I ask is that I'm going to the grand opening of the Masters Store in Morayfield this afternoon (ticket event, my son now works there love 'im) so I'll have a look in that dept, also check if they maybe sell little plastic centrifugals as well.

Hope Mark ******* is getting this, I'll bump my other thread.

Edit: I can't see me getting round to that Toucan Stout in the forseeable, anyone want a couple of freebies on Bribie Island?

 

[MHB]

Bucket in bucket was invented not long after someone started making cheap plastic buckets; Wheeler refers to it in some of his first books, so it was well established in the late 70s or early 80s. Amazing really how little is truly new, Fix talked about Pillow Case brewing in the 1960s I believe.
For a bucket in bucket, if you used a smaller drill say 1/8 and made lots of holes you wouldnt need to do all that mucking about with dissected kitchenware. Obviously you are going to have to look closely at you grind or put some type of filter in on top of the holes.
The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
MHB

Sorry Bribie

 

[nala]

The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.

Now, who needs a system when you can get a Nala? Nala is a one man wort production machine in his own right

It seems obvious now... I just popped up to Woolies and got the $8 sieve which is metal mesh in a plastic rim. I just "hoofed" it into a pork pie hat shape.

Cut handles off and tried it in my Queen Brand bucket... a bunnings Handy Pail would be too tight for this one, so go the Queen.
Tested it to fit, with a light duty silicone hose as sealer, no need to waste a hose (I'll continue to use this one as my keg filler) , just keep coiling and pressing down between the strainer and the sides of the bucket till it overlays the bottom layer.

Ok, that works so wrap the strainer in a Ross lightweight grain bag that gets used as a hop sock later

Putting it all together.

Sweet. Tight as a drum.

I also got a $3 trivet from Chinatown yesterday to sit the bucket on so it's not sitting on the element.

I'll be trying it with my 1960s Brib E Tavern Tankard keg bitter, probably this evening if I get home early enough.


Nala - on that point, did you need to solder / braze / bend your copper tubing or does it come like leggo and just slide the bits together?
Reason I ask is that I'm going to the grand opening of the Masters Store in Morayfield this afternoon (ticket event, my son now works there love 'im) so I'll have a look in that dept, also check if they maybe sell little plastic centrifugals as well.



Hope Mark ******* is getting this, I'll bump my other thread.

Edit: I can't see me getting round to that Toucan Stout in the forseeable, anyone want a couple of freebies on Bribie Island?

I did solder them,they were the leftover bits from my other sparge ring, the "D" shape is not by design merely the shape they were. I am attaching the bucket to the "Bribie Pulley System" so that I can raise the bucket, when I get the flowrate
right, so that I am just covering the grain bed with the recirculating wort - just a theory. Plenty of variables to work with !

 

[Bribie G]

MHB, what you say is correct. However this Bucket in Urn system has advantages over both BIAB and Ghetto:

Wort is directed through grain bed, not out of sides of bag
So recirculation is possible and there is an on board heat source already built in, so it doesn't need to be a "passive" mash tun.

thus step mashes are straightforward

No need to sparge if simply looking for similar efficiency / yield to bog standard BIAB, but sparging is an option if you can be arsed.

The sparge water can be pre-prepared in the urn and quarantined in a bucket or your stockpot (we all have a stockpot - we're brewers ) for later and tickled up with an immersion heater.

I take your point about the millions of little holes - I'd already drilled the bucket so how many buckets can one man kill in one week? :blink:
Just cost me around $8 on top of gear I already own.

I may have some bags and a false bottom for sale shortly :lol:

 

[nala]

Bucket in bucket was invented not long after someone started making cheap plastic buckets; Wheeler refers to it in some of his first books, so it was well established in the late 70s or early 80s. Amazing really how little is truly new, Fix talked about Pillow Case brewing in the 1960s I believe.
For a bucket in bucket, if you used a smaller drill say 1/8 and made lots of holes you wouldnt need to do all that mucking about with dissected kitchenware. Obviously you are going to have to look closely at you grind or put some type of filter in on top of the holes.
The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
MHB

Sorry Bribie

This not a bucket in a bucket method !
The method is a bucket in a Crown Urn, using the bucket as the mash tun/lauter tun.
I reckon the mucking about would be drilling 3mm holes around the bucket,the novelty is in the use of utility items which can be modified to achieve the same effect as some proprietory expensive items like S/S false bottom's, this is about trial and error, once the trials are over real money can be spent on the bling.

 

[Bribie G]

When you think about it, there are vast numbers of yet unexplored systems just waiting to be implemented.

Nala's next challenge:

Big one of these

coming sooner than you think

 

[nala]

When you think about it, there are vast numbers of yet unexplored systems just waiting to be implemented.

Nala's next challenge:

Big one of these

coming sooner than you think

Michael, I have something in mind, I will PM you to let you know my thoughts - I don't want to embarrass myself with what I have in mind.

 

[Robbo2234]

The thing about an open bag is that the wort will take the path of least resistance out through the sides and you won't get a proper grain bed.

what sort of pump would you use I can imagine that when the grain becomes wet and more resistance occurs, wouldn't the wort just spill over the top?

 

[bradsbrew]

Just put a ball valve in the line so you can cut back flow. Well at least thats what I'm doing with mine.

Cheers

 

[ShredMaster]

Bribie, you mean something about this size? Perhaps a little bigger?

 

[MarkBastard]

The problem that recirculating into a bag rather than say a bucket is that the sparge/recirculated water will just run out the sides, so it really does start to look more and more like a mash tun, of necessity you will need a separate kettle unless the outer bucket is doing double duty. Youre going to be sparging- from can we call it a Hot Liquor Tank? Christ this isnt BIAB its a very basic 3V
I wonder if this is what happened to all the old Pillow Case brewers...
MHB

Sorry Bribie

Same can be said about the 3+ grand brewmeisters you are constantly pimping.

 

[Bribie G]

Heads up on Handy Pails

The 20L buckets with lids at the new Masters Stores are identical to the Queen Brand I've been using - shorter and fatter than the Bunnings Handy Pails so ideal for bucket-in-urn usage, and only $6.75 each.
I grabbed a couple when I was in there this afternoon, who knows I might have the urge to destroy a few more during the week


Anyway, add a Woolies strainer and a bit of voile or something similar and your'e into BAIBucket for around $15 B)

Edit: use as an outer pail, fit a $5 tap and use a drilled Bunnings Handy pail, which fits neatly in it with about a cm space all round, and you've got a ghetto mashtun for around $20.

Add a second pail with a tap and a kettle element and you're into a full ghetto setup for less than $50

 

[sim]

Wort is directed through grain bed, not out of sides of bag

hey how about a BIAB bag made with the regular swiss voille for a bottom, and double thickness bed sheets or whatever for the sides - to encourage path of least resistance to be downward through the grain bed?


sim