I can dream... am I missing something?

[antinomy]

Daydreaming about going AG in the new year. As much as anything because of lack of space for gear storage, I'm thinking BIAB may be the route to go.

Since I've already got all the kit stuff, I'm thinking I need to add to that -
A nice boiler. Was eyeing up the 40l Buffalo - bit of an indulgence to buy new but I don't want to do electrical modifications - am I right that this one should work straight out of the box? 40l should be more than adequate for a 40 pint brew length?
A bag. I have a sewing machine (and know how to use it!) so not a problem.
A 25l cuboidal water container. I'm planning to use this to cool the wort slowly (overnight if necessary) rather than resorting to a spiral wort chiller 'cos we're on a water meter and in any case I feel bad about wasting perfectly good tap water. What do I need to look for to be confident that it can deal with being filled with liquid just below boiling temp?

Do I also need a hop strainer to fit in the boiler? Or should I just add my hops in little bags? What would you recommend?

Is that really it?? Put like that it seems almost do-able!

[Redimpz]

Nope, not missing anything that i can see, couple of observations.
I did mine in a pot on the stove, didn't make the voile into a bag, just used a large square and held it in place with a bungee strap, i used hop bags, and cooled the whole lot in the same pan with the lid on to stop any nasties (it was minus something at the time, nasties don't like that).
thinking of getting a large nylon sieve for getting the hops and stray grains out. I can do away with the hop bags then.
sounds like you're sorted, just need to grab your recipe and a few hours to do it.

[soupdragon]

Nope, not missing anything that i can see, couple of observations.
I did mine in a pot on the stove, didn't make the voile into a bag, just used a large square and held it in place with a bungee strap, i used hop bags, and cooled the whole lot in the same pan with the lid on to stop any nasties (it was minus something at the time, nasties don't like that).
thinking of getting a large nylon sieve for getting the hops and stray grains out. I can do away with the hop bags then.
sounds like you're sorted, just need to grab your recipe and a few hours to do it.

I use a pot on the stove too. Why don't you use your voile square to filter the wort after your boil? I did that on 1st BIAB the other day and it worked a treat. I think it helped that put it over the top of the fermenter rather than lining a sieve with it. The larger surface area allowed a lot more wort to drain through before it started to block. Took tons of break out too

Cheers Tom

[Redimpz]

Why don't you use your voile square to filter the wort after your boil?

I did, I'm thinking about the sieve as it would be easier to sanitise.

[Bribie]

A buffalo boiler would be ideal and if it's anything like the 40L urns we use in Australia then no problems with using it out of the box. I regularly make 23 litre batches of beer up to 5.5% ABV.

In my case the quantities are: initial strike water 34 litres, then after draining and squeezing the bag there's enough left after a one hour boil to fill a 23L plastic cube with clear stuff, then I can usually collect an extra litre or two of cloudy wort in sanitised glass jars which I leave to settle out and use the next day, and get over a litre of clear wort to start the yeast.

As far as the hops are concerned, if you are using hop pellets then you can chuck them in "commando style" and they will settle out at the end of the boil - give them about 15 minutes with the lid on the boiler once you have switched off. If using hop flowers then you would need some sort of a hop bag, if you have some spare bits of material left over from making the BIAB bag then they make good hop bags.

Getting a bit technical, but when using a plastic cube to gradually chill, the wort stays at over 80 degrees for a fair while and a lot of guys put their 10 minute hop addition (pellets) straight into the cube, where they have a similar effect to adding them to the end of the boil, especially good with aroma and flavour hops such as Goldings or Styrians. The hop material sinks to the bottom of the FV at the end of fermentation.

[antinomy]

Just to check on the cooling side of things - would a PET water container such as this one (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/25L-25-LITRE-PLAS ... 639wt_1141) be suitable for nearly boiling wort without catastrophic failure?

I assume there's a reason to use an additional container (letting the cold break material settle out? But then how do I avoid pouring this into the fermenter the next day anyway? Do I have to syphon?) rather than just pouring the wort straight into the fermenter at the end of the boil and clamping the lid on tight overnight?

I'm just working quietly on hubby at the moment to get house-room for the boiler...

[Bribie]

Yes that's the ideal type of "no chill" cube. At the moment in the UK you could probably just stick it out of the door and count to ten
As far as cold break goes, I just pour the whole lot in, doesn't seem to affect the finished beer much at all. As I've posted elsewhere I did an experiment with two side by side identical brews. Poured the clear top halves of the cubes into one fermenter and the bottoms into another. They fermented out exactly in step with each other and turned out basically the same after fermentation.





The idea of the cube is to pour the near boiling wort into a sanitised closed container where it is "in quarantine" till you need it. For example I did a brew last night, I was out all day and got home late and will probably pitch tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes it sits around for a few days. Using a cube it's a bit like jam or chuntney making - it will sit there happily for months if you need to. Not that I'd go to that extreme.
Chilling overnight in a FV is certainly an option and a lot of guys do it. Problem is that the FV has been used for a number of brews and there could just be a few yeast cells lurking somewhere and before you know it, a "volunteer" SO4 fermentation is kicking off and you actually wanted to use a Wyeast, or worse it's a wild yeast fermentation.

Edit: of course no-chill in cubes is not confined to BIAB. My Brisbane club often does a bus trip to a friendly micro for a brew day where we run a 'club beer' through the system and each member takes a cube of wort home to ferment with yeast of choice and we have never had any problems with wild infections using cubes.

[deanrpwaacs]

Hello people.
I have been a lurker for a while now but have now taken the plunge with biab so am looking for guidance.
I built a 50ltr boiler today with 2 elements and drain tap , got some voile , a bungee , a hook and pulley with rope and just about every thing else i need except
for a chiller but i may just go the cube route at first .
I did a test run today and found it took 45mins to get to 66c with tap water . Does this sound ok.
The water is very cold at the moment and i plan to let my water get to room temp in containers during the day/night just to cut a bit of time .
I then found it took another 40 mins to get to the boil . Does this sound ok.
When i left both of the elements on it rolled nicely but i just felt with only one element on it was not quite enough .
Will this change with all the sugars ect in the wort.
Thats all i can think of for the minute.
I will get an order in with brewzer and get the ball rolling.
Regards Dean.

[Bribie]

Dean, sounds like you are on the money there. Here at the moment I guess the town water is about 19 degrees and it takes my 2400W urn about 30 mins to reach strike temp then another 40 mins to reach boiling. What wattage are your elements?

Also depending on your hot water system I have successfully just used domestic hot water which usually only needs a bit of a nudge to get it to strike temperature - if it's a fairly modern glass lined electric system then you shouldn't have any problems. But if it's an old suss system and you aren't sure what may be dissolved in it, then that could be a different story. Best of all would be one of those electric or gas "flash" instant systems.

Not precisely sure about the physics here but wort will boil a couple of degrees higher than plain water but you should still get a roll on with two elements.

Cheers
Michael

[deanrpwaacs]

Well the hot water system i have is just a normal immersion tank that is heated by a back boiler as part of the heating system.
The water is also passed through a water softener so im not realy sure if it would be ok or not.
I suppose it would be ok but i am not sure what gets taken out by the softener that you may require in the beer.
It does have plenty of fresh water through it every day though as having a house with 4 women/girls in it insures it gets plenty of use.
Regards Dean.

[Bribie]

Dean, if it's soft water then that's a bonus because you can easily put in some "proper" brewing salts. It's important to have some Calcium and depending on the style you can add Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulphate. for Burton Style water for hoppy beers you'd add a fair bit of Calcium Sulphate (gypsum) whilst Calcium Chloride is more appropriate to malty Yorkshire style bitters. For general use, have two bob each way, just 2/3 teaspoon of each will give you good Calcium. - should be able to get them from most Home Brew suppliers or online from Barley Bottom etc. I often pop in 1/3 tsp of Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts) as well.