Should I ditch my basket?

[losman26]

I have a 60 quart pot, and bought steamer basket for a 60 quart pot. The problem is the gap. I didn't measure it, but it seems like 1 and 1/2 inches or so, maybe even more. When I take mash readings inside of the basket the temp would be in the 150's. The water outside, way higher in the 70's. After constant stirring, I can get the temp to stabilize. Whenever I have to fire up the burner to raise the temp, outside of the basket gets over 170, which worries me about burning wort.

For my last batch, I didn't use a basket, but binder clips, lifting out the bag every time I needed to fire up the burner to raise the temp slightly. My temps were constant throughout the whole pot. I'm thinking about maybe just finding a false bottom that fits my pot. The basket just seems way easier to lift it out, but I get too many inconsistencies in temps. False bottoms are kind of expensive, and I cannot find a cheap alternative to fit the diameter of my pot.

[russki]

I personally love baskets for BIAB - used one with my turkey fryer, and use one now with my eBIAB rig. If you had a pump, you could just recirculate your mash, preventing stratification.

[losman26]

Yeah, was thinking about getting a pump, because eventually I want to build an electric biab unit. Also would be nice to use a pump with my plate chiller.

[FrozenInTime]

If you had a pump, you could just recirculate your mash, preventing stratification.

Bingo, light just came on... LOL. Now I understand why u did that... see, I'm slo and old, but I do get it eventually.

[Inkleg]

I use BeerSmith and a custom bag from here http//biabags.web.com. I clip the bag to the pot and bring the water temperature up to what BeerSmith says for my mash profile.
Kill the heat, stir in grains, check temperature and cover the pot with a blanket. BeerSmith ALWAYS has mash temp within 1 degree of predicted. I'll stir the pot about every 15 minutes for one hour then raise it to 165 while stirring the whole time and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
I have never had to add or remove heat while using BeerSmith to hit mash temperatures.. Spot on mash temps every time.

[losman26]

Inkleg,

I believe that I got the bag from the same place. However, I ordered a bag for a 20 gal pot (which is what I thought I was getting during the time when I ordered a new pot), but in ended up with a 15 gal pot. So the bag is kind of loose, as compared to when a 15 gal one would probably be. Do you feel that BeerSmith's water volumes are accurate? I have always found them to be slightly over.

[MadBrewer]

I had a similar concern with my kettle. I bout a 9 gal Bayou Classic Stainless Pot. Completely happy with the purchase and I even installed a ball valve on it. It came with a steamer basket which I first thought would great and it would be but instead of my gap being around the side of my pot like you are describing. But my gap is on the bottom. The basket sits a good 1.5 inches off the bottom of the kettle. I have used the pot for BIAB but I have not used it with the basket in place. I think having that gap at the bottom would not the setup work as well. I typically keep a tiny low flame on for the duration of the mash and stir several times throughout the mash and this maintains temps very well.

Anyone else have this problem going or use the basket/pot setup like this with no problem? I did see I could get a smaller basket to use in the pot that would sit all the way on the bottom of the pot instead of resting 1.5 inches or so above the bottom. Yesturdays BIAB session I lifted the bag with grains up out of the mash and let them drain a minute and then added the bag to my basket and rested that above the kettle to drain and sparge, but not without getting some hot wort here and there. I think finding a smaller basket would be the way to go for me so that I can keep it in place all the way at the bottom of the kettle.

[Inkleg]

Losman,
A 20 gallon bag in a 15 gallon pot does seem like it would be hard to work with. On average BeerSmith will get me within 1/2 gallon of predicted, sometime more, sometimes less. I think it's more to do with my boil off than anything. Even though the boil looks the same, temperature and humidity play a big part on how much is lost.

[losman26]

InkLeg,
Maybe I should buy another bag, and save the 20 gal bag for later. Sometimes my boil-off rate seems to close, other times way off. I'm thinking that maybe Beer Smith's calculations on the last batch were close, but I didn't have enough flame going to get the same evaporation rate. I turned the flame down slightly on this last batch, because on the previous one, I over shot my gravity.

[Inkleg]

Yeah, sometimes everything goes right and I hit all my OG and volume numbers, other times I don't and scratch my head. Every time it's been beer, so I don't fret too much over it.

If you over shoot you can use BeerSmith to add water to bring it to the OG that you want. I'm not near BeerSmith now, but I think it's under tools/dilution? I've used it before when a beer came in at 1.047 instead of 1.042. Added the water BeerSmith said too and it turned out great. Plus I ended up with more beer.