Mash and Boil for 250.00

[Banjo-guy]

I see that Austin Homebrew has this for the normal price of 299.00 minus a site wide savings of 50.00. That's 250.00 with free shipping.
https://www.austinhomebrew.com/Brewers- ... _8046.html

[bpgreen]

That's really tempting. It was already tempting at $300.

I recently bought an induction burner and pot, but it's not big enough to do full volume batches. It just makes it a little more convenient to do partial mashes in the kitchen.

I wonder how long it takes for this to bring a full volume 5 gallon batch to a boil.

[FrozenInTime]

Looks like a nice Biab system. I like the one below it with a pump for $480.

[Banjo-guy]

That's really tempting. It was already tempting at $300.

I recently bought an induction burner and pot, but it's not big enough to do full volume batches. It just makes it a little more convenient to do partial mashes in the kitchen.

I wonder how long it takes for this to bring a full volume 5 gallon batch to a boil.

I thought that I read 45 minutes from mash temp.

[Banjo-guy]

I like that there’s no chiller. A pump would be nice. You could add one of your own.

[mashani]

Fairly sure that Berryman added a pump to his.

I'm staring at the web site trying to decide if I should just break down and push the freaking button...

[berryman]

Fairly sure that Berryman added a pump to his...

Yes and a good addition, but can be used with out.



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[Banjo-guy]

Fairly sure that Berryman added a pump to his.

I'm staring at the web site trying to decide if I should just break down and push the freaking button...

I pushed the button.

[berryman]

It has it's quirks and a lot of hands on to keep it to a good level, but well made and a good price.

[bpgreen]

Fairly sure that Berryman added a pump to his.

I'm staring at the web site trying to decide if I should just break down and push the freaking button...

I pushed the button.

Same here. I've had equipment to do all grain for a while, but my LHBS sells LME for a really good price and doing partial mashes on the stove/induction burner has been so easy that I've resisted. This looks like it will make it easy to continue to brew indoors, but step up to all grain.

Note that this requires a GFI outlet. You've probably got at least one in your kitchen (and probably one in each bathroom). But the outlet I was originally planning to use is not GFI, so I either need to use a different outlet, or upgrade that one.

[bpgreen]

Now that I'm stepping up my game, so to speak, I've got a couple of questions.

What was the pump @berryman added?

I've been using an ice water slurry to cool all of my partial mash batches. I have a copper coil wort chiller, but I haven't used it much. I live in the desert and try to limit my water usage. What's the best way to conserve water and chill using all grain?

[mashani]

I also pushed the freaking button. Maybe we now need to start a "mash and boil club".

The best way to chill to save water if you want to save the maximum amount are:

A) Do what the Aussies invented for that exact reason (severe water shortages) - NoChill - which in the case of this thing would be to simply put the the lid on for the last few minutes of the boil, so it gets sanitized, (plug up the little hole for a thermometer with a wad of aluminum foil or something that you shape like a flower/stem, so the stem is jammed in the hole, and the "flower" drapes over the entire edge of it on every side) and then once your done boiling turn it off and walk away.

Then in the morning or whenever you can on the next day drain it into your fermenter and pitch the yeast.

This uses exactly 0 water. You won't get an infection because the lid is on and beer infecting organisms can't crawl up under the lid. They can only fall in. As long as the lid stays on and your hole is plugged up and covered until the morning your good. I would not clamp it down with the clamps, or it might form a vacuum and that might be bad for the pot.

I have done this many times in my 16Q pot. I know it works fine.

Note that some Aussies buy what they call "Jerry Cans" which are like 5 gallon HDPE plastic containers. They sanatize them, and then they pour the wort into them will its still boiling, and then put a cap on and slosh it around to make sure everything dies. Those do form a vacuum, but the containers are made to handle it. Wort done like that can then last for weeks or months and be fermented whenever you like.

You do need to treat your late hops as a 10-20 minute addition from a bittering perspective if they went in commando. As in you will get that much more bittering. And you will get flavor addition like amounts of flavor from any flameout commando hops too, not just aroma. None of this is a problem for me, because I'm used to it, I know what to expect. Simple answer is that your late addition becomes both a flavor/aroma addition, you don't need the normal flavor addition at all.

OR

B) another way IE the way I've often done it when I make 5 gallon batches with 3 gallons of final wort, is to brew a highly concentrated wort (IE say 3 gallons at a higher gravity then you wanted if you were to make 5 gallons), and then let it "nochill" for an hour or two and then top up with 2 gallons of ice water. You do still need to consider late hops as a combined flavor/aroma addition when you do this too if they went in commando/are left in the wort.

This also uses no more water then you would have used to make 5 gallons in the first place.

And although someone somewhere (at least on some other forum) will get all pissy and say you can't do partial volume with top up with AG, yes you can, I have, it works fine. AB/InBev/other big brewers do it too to save energy and to use smaller equipment on the hot side. You just have to adjust your hops to match the actual boil gravity and depending on how high a gravity you are brewing, it might affect mash efficiency (IE if what you are brewing was already going to be 1.08 before concentration, then concentration will push it up to levels where mashing gets stunted a bit. But from hop utilization it's easy, just treat your boil as 5 gallons at the 3 gallons gravity (if that's how much concentrated wort you made), and adjust your hops to match that quantity.

So all that said, I am going to attempt to use this as a no-sparge full volume 3 gallon BIAB maker.

IE I should be able to mash with something like 4.-4.5 gallons of water instead of the 0.3 gallons per pound ratio, and then after boil just end up with 3 gallons of wort.

You can find full volume BIAB calculators on line that will tell you how much and such, this thing boils off at 0.5 gallons per hour, and that's all you really need to know besides grain volume/ambient temp/and intended mash temp.

Full volume/no sparge is how BIAB was intended. The Aussies also invented that. The Aussies are cool.

And this thing is big enough to do it for a 3 gallon batch no problem.

I read that the markings start at 4 gallons, so if you are trying to sparge and achieve 2.5 or 3 gallons you will have to figure out how high to fill it by putting 2.5 or 3 gallons of water into the thing and measuring how high that is, and then eyeballing it each time or marking the pot somehow.

Full volume/no sparge will solve this for me without any fuss, and as long as I can get at least 70% efficiency I'll be happy with it. I think I can get more then that as long as I stir the mash.

[bpgreen]

I also pushed the freaking button. Maybe we now need to start a "mash and boil club".

The best way to chill to save water if you want to save the maximum amount are:

A) Do what the Aussies invented for that exact reason (severe water shortages) - NoChill - which in the case of this thing would be to simply put the the lid on for the last few minutes of the boil, so it gets sanitized, (plug up the little hole for a thermometer with a wad of aluminum foil or something that you shape like a flower/stem, so the stem is jammed in the hole, and the "flower" drapes over the entire edge of it on every side) and then once your done boiling turn it off and walk away.

Then in the morning drain it into your fermenter and pitch the yeast.

This uses exactly 0 water. You won't get an infection because the lid is on and beer infecting organisms can't crawl up under the lid. They can only fall in. As long as the lid stays on and your hole is plugged up and covered until the morning your good. I would not clamp it down with the clamps, or it might form a vacuum and that might be bad for the pot.

Note that some Aussies buy what they call "Jerry Cans" which are like 5 gallon HDPE plastic containers. They sanatize them, and then they pour the wort into them will its still boiling, and then put a cap on and slosh it around to make sure everything dies. Those do form a vacuum, but the containers are made to handle it. Wort done like that can then last for weeks or months and be fermented whenever you like.

You do need to treat your late hops as a 10-20 minute addition from a bittering perspective. As in you will get that much more bittering. And you will get flavor from any flameout hops, not just aroma. None of this is a problem for me, because I'm used to it, I know what to expect.

OR

B) another way IE the way I've often done it when I make 5 gallon batches with 3 gallons of final wort, is to brew a highly concentrated wort (IE say 3 gallons at a higher gravity then you wanted if you were to make 5 gallons), and then let it "nochill" for an hour or two and then top up with 2 gallons of ice water.

This also uses no more water then you would have used to make 5 gallons in the first place.

And although someone will say you can't do partial volume with top up with AG, yes you can, I have, it works fine. AB/InBev/other big brewers do it too to save energy and to use smaller equipment on the hot side. You use more grain obviously, and you just have to adjust your hops to match the actual boil gravity. IE treat your boil as 5 gallons at the 3 gallon gravity (if that's how much concentrated wort you made), and adjust your hops to match that quantity.

So all that said, I am going to attempt to use this as a no-sparge full volume 3 gallon BIAB maker.

IE I should be able to mash with something like 4.-4.5 gallons of water instead of the 0.3 gallons per pound ratio, and then after boil just end up with 3 gallons of wort.

You can find full volume BIAB calculators on line that will tell you how much and such, this thing boils off at 0.5 gallons per hour, and that's all you really need to know besides grain volume/ambient temp/and intended mash temp.

Full volume/no sparge is how BIAB was intended. The Aussies also invented that.

And this thing is big enough to do it for a 3 gallon batch no problem.

The Aussies are cool.

I read that the markings start at 4 gallons, so if you are trying to sparge and achieve 2.5 or 3 gallons you will have to figure out how high to fill it by putting 2.5 or 3 gallons of water into the thing and measuring how high that is, and then eyeballing it each time or marking the pot somehow.

Full volume/no sparge will solve this for me without any fuss, and as long as I can get at least 70% efficiency I'll be happy with it. I think I can get more then that as long as I stir the mash.

Wow.

Thanks for all of the information. I knew BIAB started in Australia and I think I've heard of no-chill before. But you really brought it home.

But some of your comments confuse me. You seem to be saying this is just enough for 2.5-3 gallons, but my main reason for getting it is that I thought it would let me do 5 gallons all grain without going outside.

Are you saying it's too small for 5 gallon batches, or are you saying that it can ALSO be used for small batches?

[mashani]

No it can easily be used for 5 gallon batches that's what it's made for. It can also be used for 2.5 or 3 gallon batches. Williams did one, they posted a recipe on their blog. But they followed the same mash / sparge as if it was a 5 gallon batch.

They would say to mash with 0.3 gallons of water per pound, and then pull the basket and sparge with 2 or more gallons of water to achieve your 5 gallon target volume.

All I'm saying is that to do a full volume BIAB NO SPARGE mash you would use way more water then 0.3 gallons up front, so when you pull the grains and you boil you just end up with your target volume.

I don't think it's big enough to do a 5 gallon batch THAT WAY except for maybe an English Mild or something with very low OG, so for most 5 gallon batches you would need to do the traditional thick mash/sparge.

But it's for sure big enough to attempt a 3 or 4 gallon BIAB no sparge batch with the full volume of water necessary up front.

Did that make sense?

EDIT: See this:

http://www.biabcalculator.com/

It shows you how much water and overall mash volume you'd need to do a traditional (no sparge) BIAB mash for a given volume/grain amount.

But as long as you are sparging like their instructions would say, then there is plenty of volume for 5 gallons.

It's just for the no sparge, the mash tun needs to be able to hold ALL the grains and ALL the water (including what will boil off) at the same time.

[bpgreen]

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm really psyched to start using this.

But of course, I'm too cheap to do anything but the free shipping, so it'll be a few weeks.