nmfree
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If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.Does anyone else used this method of getting the bag out of the pot?
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.Does anyone else used this method of getting the bag out of the pot?
Good luck! You'll realize like the rest of us that's it's rather simple and that you will refine your process with each brew day.Wish me luck.
Not cheating at all.I will say that I did "cheat" little. I had to take my son to daycare yesterday before I could start brewing. As I was making him breakfast and getting him ready, I thought to myself "Why don't I start preheating my water a bit?" So I grabbed my three largest cooking pots in the kitchen and filled them up and started heating on my stove while getting him ready. So I got half my strike water to boiling, then shut it off and put lids on them. When I got home from dropping him off, I dumped the water into my kettle and added the rest of the water that was at room temp. So technically, I ended up using 4 pots, but the 3 kitchen pots just got set in the dry rack and didn't need to be cleaned and while my whole strike water wasn't yet at temperature (and I didn't check to see what it was), it was above room temp and gave me a jump on warming it all up to mash temps. That count as "cheating?"
Thanks Wilser and thanks for the bag. They worked great. I thought I was going to undershoot my volume by .25 gallons until all the wort from my hop bag drained out. I was surprised when I pulled it and .25 gallons drained out.
I was worried about a melted bag as well even after reading all through this thread. I just used your pulley and raised the bag until it was off the bottom of the kettle till I hit 168, killed the heat and then released the bag, stirred it and let it sit 10 minutes.
I have a Bayou 20g pot with a steamer basket. All aluminum. Any known issues with using the steamer basket to hoist a bag?
It would keep the bag off the bottom.
I have a Bayou 20g pot with a steamer basket. All aluminum. Any known issues with using the steamer basket to hoist a bag?
It would keep the bag off the bottom. I will still continue traditional brewing, but would like the option to biab for a quick one off here or there. I typically gyle brew 20g in a day. Got that down to 5 hours. But if I can knock out 10 in a couple hours at night, I would brew more often.
Also, with no sparge, what's the max gravity I could expect out of a 20g kettle, shooting for 11g in the fermentor?
Thanks biabers.
I have a Bayou 20g pot with a steamer basket. All aluminum. Any known issues with using the steamer basket to hoist a bag?
It would keep the bag off the bottom. I will still continue traditional brewing, but would like the option to biab for a quick one off here or there. I typically gyle brew 20g in a day. Got that down to 5 hours. But if I can knock out 10 in a couple hours at night, I would brew more often.
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As far as the pump goes, I already have it, and everything is triclover, so it's not too complicated.
I stopped doing a mash out after trying both ways about 3 times each way and couldn't tell any difference. I also only stir while mashing in and again at the end of the mash. I normally do a 75 minute mash for beers 1.070 up. Anything less I just go for 60.For those of you that don't do a mash out do you do a longer mash?
. One trick I've learned from here regardless of batch size is to lay some aluminum foil on top of the mash before putting the lid on. This helps with the dead space in the kettle.
Did a brew for Big Brew Day, and tried a new way of squeezing the bag. This new method doesn't require me to touch the bag! I use a Wilser bag with a ratchet pulley suspended from a step ladder (8' ladder is best) to pull the bag at the end of the mash.
I let the bag drain naturally until it slowed to a slow drip. Then I put a colander on top of the kettle, under the bag, and dropped the bag into the colander. Now the new part -- I put a Homer bucket full of water (~5.5 gal, ~46 lbs) on top of the bag in the colander. Let that sit for a while, and occasionally leaned on the Homer bucket.
Did a brew for Big Brew Day, and tried a new way of squeezing the bag. This new method doesn't require me to touch the bag! I use a Wilser bag with a ratchet pulley suspended from a step ladder (8' ladder is best) to pull the bag at the end of the mash.
I let the bag drain naturally until it slowed to a slow drip. Then I put a colander on top of the kettle, under the bag, and dropped the bag into the colander. Now the new part -- I put a Homer bucket full of water (~5.5 gal, ~46 lbs) on top of the bag in the colander. Let that sit for a while, and occasionally leaned on the Homer bucket.
My grain absorption rate dropped from my typical 0.07 gal/lb to 0.05 gal/lb. A 0.02 gal/lb decrease in grain absorption rate is good for about a 2 - 3 percentage point gain in lauter efficiency.
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The colander
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The colander on my 15.5 gal Bayou Classic kettle:
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The Homer bucket press in action:
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Brew on
Ok your getting there....where would you be if you waited a bit longer from slow drip to almost no drip....perhaps another 10 minutes of patient waiting? Just like pennies make dollars, drips and drops make gallons.
I challenge you to wait longer, and not bother with the colander and homer bucket....
A mash in a bag is typically free draining in my experience, all this squeezing and pressing is really just a lack of patience?
Long enough lol....
Not a real time keeper but perhaps 30 minutes, or say 15 - 20 minutes into the boil.
The proof to the pudding for me was when I used to squeeze the bag and toss it into a tote for disposal later, there was always a quart or so of free wort that had continued to drain from the bag.
Maybe it's just me, but assaulting the bag and squeezing with silicon gloves just seems like a false sense of achievement over patiently waiting ... let it drip
.05 vs ,07, sounds to me like we are involving a colander and homer bucket on a bag that was at a slow drip for um.... .02
What's that, a half pint? At some point you gotta let go
And save the effort, you can't get that back
I go flame on as soon as the bag clears the wort and let it hang as it comes to a boil. By the time it's slowed to a drip I've reached my pre boil volume and it's just coming to a boil. Great time saver.I never thought of starting the boil while the bags still draining...
I'll try that next time.
One more question before my next brew. What's the best way to determine how much water to use? My first batch I only ended up with about 4 gallons after the boil. I did a no sparge BIAB with 16lbs of grain and 7.5 gallons of water.
This Saturday I will have 10lbs of grain so I was thinking about trying 8 gallons of water. Do you think that will be too much?
I successfully brewed a 5-gallon Hopslam clone (OG 1.098) using a 10-gal kettle. It turned out to be one of my best beers to date.
If you want to brew batches larger than 5-gallons then you'll need a 15 to 20 gallon kettle.
I just bought a 10 gallon kettle and was told that 14lbs was the max I could do in it. You can do 21 lbs with no sparge?
Thanks in advance and sorry if this has been covered... very long and very informative thread.
Surprisingly, not so much. The amount will be limited by what the brewer feels is the maximum acceptable mash thickness. If your maximum acceptable mash thickness is 1.25 qt/lb, then you can only get 24.2 lb of grain in a 9.5 gal kettle. If you like your oatmeal thick (1.0 qt/lb), then you could mash 28.8 lb (but I wouldn't want to have to mash that in.) With these large grain bills, most of your water is required for strike, leaving very little sparge water.And how much if you implement a batch spurge?
I'm curious Doug, likely a ridiculous amount lol
I totally agree.Just for posterity I wouldn't advise mashing in the max theoretical volume, as while you are stirring it in the volume will be greater, hence a mess over the kettle rim lol
I go flame on as soon as the bag clears the wort and let it hang as it comes to a boil. By the time it's slowed to a drip I've reached my pre boil volume and it's just coming to a boil. Great time saver.
That's a great idea! We'll be doing the same thing... Thanks!I just started BIAB. I happened to have an old Bike Pulley Lift (less than $20) so I tried that and it worked fantastic. By holding the bag open, I was able to thoroughly flush the grains.
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