Electric Boiler for BIAB?

[Beer O'Clock]

Have a look at the link I gave you. It has calculators for how much water you require for a given recipe and boiling vessel (including partials).

[Paddy Bubbles]

Cool, I like the look of that boiler. Looks a bit harder wearing than the converted FVs. The Buffalo boiler would cost me 125 euro and the plastic FV (which you'd expect to be a lot cheaper..) is 85 euro!

Some questions though:

- no problems in doing a rolling boil? you didn't have to do any tinkering with the electronics or anything..?
- is there sufficient insulation to hold the mash temperature or do you have to supply heat during the mash?
- is the tap already filtered, or did you custom fit a hop strainer?
- have you ever tried mashing with the pizza tray protection? the guys on that brewing podcast said they don't protect the bag from the element in their eletric kettle...
- do you hoist the bag over the kettle using some kimnd of pulley?

Thanks dude, sorry about all the little questions.

[soupdragon]

I do 5 gallon brews. I partial mash then top up in the fermenter with liquid extract and top up with water. Up to now I have used the stock pot for mashing but once I run out of extract I'll be trying a full mash in a spare fermenter. I'll still have to boil in my stock pot though.......

I was listening to an excellent "Basic Brewing" podcast on BIAB brewing this morning. Something confused me. The BIAB guru explained that because you effectively add all of your sparge water along with the boil volume and grain, you need a much larger brewpot than if you were extract/AG brewing. Makes sense. But he said for a 5 US gal batch, you would need a 40 litre pot, preferably a 50 litre. Seems strange.

That's was the basic idea originally but quite a lot of people tailor the process to their own particular gear. Getting a massive 50 ltr pot is out of the question for me so I had to bastardise the process for my own 15 ltr pot. It does work and after a bit more reading I think I can actually squeeze a full mash brew out of it rather than having to add extract in the fermenter. I'll lose a few points on efficiency but if the quality shows through then an extra 50p or so on grain will be worth it

Cheers Tom

[Beer O'Clock]

Cool, I like the look of that boiler. Looks a bit harder wearing than the converted FVs. The Buffalo boiler would cost me 125 euro and the plastic FV (which you'd expect to be a lot cheaper..) is 85 euro!

Some questions though:

- no problems in doing a rolling boil? you didn't have to do any tinkering with the electronics or anything..? No tinkering. No problems.
- is there sufficient insulation to hold the mash temperature or do you have to supply heat during the mash? You will still need to wrap with some form of insulating material.
- is the tap already filtered, or did you custom fit a hop strainer? You will need to add a strainer (£12 from Thrifty).
- have you ever tried mashing with the pizza tray protection? the guys on that brewing podcast said they don't protect the bag from the element in their eletric kettle...If mashing out, I use the tray, otherwise, no need.
- do you hoist the bag over the kettle using some kimnd of pulley? I do use a pulley but only for the last couple, I pulled by hand before.

Thanks dude, sorry about all the little questions.

No worries.

[Paddy Bubbles]

Great! The tap looks quite high on the boiler - any problems with getting all the wort into your FV?

[Beer O'Clock]

A lot of the base is wiring and elements. The tap is as low as it needs to be.

[Paddy Bubbles]

Cool, thanks dude.