BIAB Pot - Experienced Advice Required

[Uncle Albert]

Hello gents

Buying all the kit for my first steps in all grain via BIAB. Due to space issues, I am sticking to BIAB. Done a bit of extract, but the cost of the DME seems excessive to me. Plus it would be nice to try grain brewing.

I want to set myself up to be able to make 46L of strong Belgian beer wort. I am guessing this is a grain bill of 15kg or so. Please tell me if I am wrong.

I have purchased a good quality bag from "big Chris" on eBay for around 27 quid. It is suited to pots up to 50cm and is shown suspending a load of 37kg in the pictures. Would this bag cope with 46L of Belgian beer wort brewing?

So,if the bag is up to the job, I now need to buy a pot that is fit for the job. So I need at least 100L stainless pot.

Is this 30 gallon Brewtech SS worth its hefty 255 quid price tag or are there much cheaper options with the same performance ? I can see the benefits of the tap fittings.

I might try brewing inside using the wok burner or perhaps outside, not sure yet.

Thanks for guidance. Want to buy good stuff that will last 30 years. Also need cooling coil as well.

Cheers

[wfr42]

Is there a reason you're desperate for 46 litres in one go?
My biggest problem (as my first biab is fermenting right now) is what to brew next and I'm swithering about siphoning of a demi john or two from the next couple of planned batches to make tweaks.
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/gui ... 8_239.html This kit handled their own double ipa brew with a 6-6.5kg grain bill.

If/when I'm ready to upgrade/replace I will give this page a better look (trying to avoid temptation just now).
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... ilers.html
Good luck with whatever you go for.

[Firefly]

How are you planning to lift all of that wet grain out of the pot? Even a 5kg grain bill takes some lifting after the mash. Do you have the ability to set up a pulley system of some sort?

[Secla]

I can't see you getting 46l boiling on a wok burner either.

Ss brewtech pots are good quality, I have the 50l with a false bottom

[Kev888]

Yes, the SS brewpots are said to be pretty decent, although supposedly very similar to some that the brew builder does unbranded for rather less. It could be worth deciding on the heat source first - it would be nice to have a reasonable quality pot if this is to be a near-lifetime investment, but also having a very thick base would be an unnecessary expense and weight if you were to end up using immersion elements. It depends on your wok burner, as some can be very impressive, but if its a domestic sized one that may be asking a lot.

For me 10 gallons is a good batch size in general, you get a reasonable amount of wort/beer for the time spent and yet its not too hard to cope with the volume. But with BIAB the wet grain can (as mentioned) be quite heavy to lift out - it can weigh more than twice as much before its had chance to drain briefly, and even then can still be about double until given the opportunity to drain for some time.

With some effort I can manage a 15kg grain bill provided theres somewhere to immediately sit/hang it to drain BUT its only possible because my boil kettle has a pump to empty it, so can have it at almost floor level and I don't have to lift the grain very high. If your efficiency is a bit lower than expected or if you wanted to make a higher gravity batch you could even find yourself using more than 15kg. Some people use a hoist/pulley which is much better than lifting IMO, others divide the grain into two bags, on some occasions I scooped some out with a sieve first, though its a bit more tedious.

[sbond10]

As for a chiller good luck finding one that doesn't cost the earth and is big enough for a 100 litre pan

[Uncle Albert]

Hello Gents. Cheers for feedback. Decided I will brew outdoors using propane burner, due to size of brew and steam damage to house. Reason for the batch size is to fill two Brewtech buckets and then two 20L crusader kegs. Will just do one brew day every 3 months due to work and other hobbies - basically have a 4 week brewing period every 3 months and need to be effecient. Lifting 25kg is not going to a problem and I will just put the bag in one of the FV and sparge it. Ordered the strongest and biggest bag bigchris sells, and he seems certain it will do a double batch of strong Belgian ales.

Have a private water supply so endless supply of very cold water, so a copper coil should do some reasonable cooling.

Sounds like a reasonable plan?

Cheers

Brewbuilder do look good. One of their top end 100L ones with tap and thermometer and engraved graduations would do nicely. Any ideas if they would do this?

Edit - Just remembered I have a gambrel for red stags, so a little bit of grain will be no issue at all if I can be bothered to rig it.

[Kev888]

Seems fine to me. There was another thread somewhere saying the brewbuilder pots were due to get graduations soon, so could be worth an enquiry.

[Uncle Albert]

Cheers Kev. Is there anyone on the forum who knocks up SS immersion coolers for a decent price? I could make a copper one failing that ( or buy one if good price).

Also any tips on propane burners? Malt Millers look decent, but read paella ones are good - however they don't have the cast iron frame to hold the pot ( far as I can see).

Cheers

[bochgoch]

I use the Malt Miller 7.5 kW burner which is a fine piece of kit, but will take a while to get those quantities up to a rolling boil (1 hr+?). You'll be going through a fair amount of gas (i'd guess 4/5 brews from a 6kg bottle).

I use the SS brewtech buckets myself and they are not that wide, I think you might struggle with plopping the bag of soggy wort into one to sparge. When I used to biab I sparged in the kettle. So it's probably worth checking dimensions or accepting you might need to wiggle and fiddle with the bag to get it in - and that'll probably get messy...

Oh and the SS brewtech kettles are lovely pieces of kit - definitely worth it for my money.

[Kev888]

I was once going to go for a paella burner, but even though they are available in very high powers the informed advice I got was that all but the very smallest would waste a lot of gas around the edges of even a 100L pot so there isn't much to be gained in terms of heating power.

The malt miller's burner seems a better bet to me, lots of people use them (or the similar foker burners from hamilton gas products, which are also available in marginally more powerful models and with flame failure devices). The burners themselves are very heavy bits of cast iron and should last for many years. FWIW these things seem to be what the aussies refer to as italian spiral burners on their biab forum(s).

You'd need to consider some sort of wind shield to get decent performance on breezy days and apparently the regulator chosen should allow a decent throughput at its rated pressure so as not to throttle the bigger burners. The burners are normally rated at 37mbar but quite a few people choose to run the bigger ones on 50mbar regulators to make sure.

[rpt]

If you're doing BIAB then you don't need to sparge.

[WalesAles]

If you're doing BIAB then you don't need to sparge.

rpt,
Please explain.
I have read many threads on BIAB sparging and I have been brewing using PhilB`s post on BIAB.
Phils` post uses sparging, so what is the difference?
All help greatly received.

WA

[wfr42]

I believe "true" biab is done by mashing your grain bag in what would be the mash AND sparge water in a 3 vessel setup.
As not everyone has a big enough boiler to hold their grain bag and all the required water at once, people have "dunk" sparged or something similar following mashing in most of the required water.

I may be wrong so don't quote me until someone backs me up or corrects me.

[Kev888]

Its not really restricted to BIAB, but one can do a 'full-volume' mash - which means all the liquor is used in the mash and none is kept back to sparge with. This works with reasonable efficiency, since the wort is thin enough to have a fair rinsing action and that which is retained by the grains isn't too concentrated so the losses aren't huge. In BIAB especially, the bag lets the grains drain particularly well so there isn't as much to gain in efficiency through sparging. Some consider this the purists/original way to BIAB.

It is also possible to mash at traditional grain/liquor ratios and not sparge, topping up the boil kettle with the extra liquor directly, instead - that is called 'no sparge'. Efficiency is poor so its rarely done, but only the best quality, high gravity wort is extracted. Unfortunately many people use the term no sparge to mean full volume mashing, but they are actually different.

Personally I prefer the full-volume approach with BIAB. Having used 3-vessle fly sparged systems for most of my life, I struggle a bit to consider (for instance) bunging a jug of water through the bag as good sparging practice, its really just rinsing out any free wort IMO. I'm slightly happier with the dunking method, which is not dissimilar to batch sparging and seems a reasonable compromise. But as always with home brewing, its all personal choice and whatever floats your boat.