Setting up 2nd system looking for time saving BIAB

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shoreman

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Ive been brewing on and off for about 10 years - about two years ago I sold all my gear and have been rebuilding. Now I have the chance to rebuild and am looking mostly to brew a BIAB partial boil system which I believe is called maxi biab. My main goal is the shortest brew day possible - I mostly brew session ales british & belgian influenced ales in sub 1.060 range and would like to brew some 10 gallon session batches like milds & bitters partial boil. Fermentation & recipe creation is my fav part of brewing - dont like building stuff and would rather pay with $than time.

Right now I've got:

5 gallon kettle
2 gallon pot for sparge water
Bucket for "sparge" dunk of bag
Kegging setup

What i think I need:

Larger kettle
Dudadeisel plate chiller
Possibly an outdoor burner

Do you have any thoughts on gear? What would you buy for the shortest brew day possible? Would love to get under 3 hours - maybe 2.5 hour mash to fermentor.
 
Oh ya I'm currently doing everything on the stovetop with an ice bath chill.
 
I'd go with at least a 10 gallon pot. I can't always fit all my water in the kettle with BIAB, but using a bit more water allows you to not have to remove the bag, dunk, etc. The extra water allows you to sparge with it as well during mash out. I just pull the bag a bit (in garage w/hook); mash out and add any extra water I need during the temp rise to boiling. When I use less water my effeciency goes way down due to less sparge water imho. One kettle this way...
 
Thats a good thought b. Do you have any other tips to reduce time on the brew day? So the thicker mash leads to lower efficiency? Have you tried a rhicker mash and then a dunk/sparge out? One thing i like about partial boil is that i chill spring water to almost freezing and add to fermentor befoe adding wort - i can add 110 degree wort 3gollons and cut with 2 and get to pitching.
 
Thats a good thought b. Do you have any other tips to reduce time on the brew day? So the thicker mash leads to lower efficiency? Have you tried a rhicker mash and then a dunk/sparge out? One thing i like about partial boil is that i chill spring water to almost freezing and add to fermentor befoe adding wort - i can add 110 degree wort 3gollons and cut with 2 and get to pitching.


Yeah; invest in a chiller; why go through all that trouble with Dunk sparging, Ice water, yada, yada.. it take 15 minutes to brink my Wort to pitchable temp using an immersion chiller. Also, you use less hops w/full volume boil and everything is "sanitized".

As I speak surfing the net, my Mash is almost complete and I will very soon mash out, suspend the bag, and start my boil... simple!
 
What do think about a 15 gallon kettle like the penrose? I think that woul be plenty sufficent to move up a bit as well
 
So I'm going with a 15 gallon kettle.

Any other ideas to shorten the brew day?
 
Immersion chiller. Propane burner. Kettle with a spigot, thermometer and sight gauge. Don't underestimate how much you need those on a kettle. A ready made kettle blanket for the mash. I have all but the propane and after spending a lot of time yesterday I'm looking at a burner.

Definitely get the chiller, you won't be able to easily move a 15 gallon kettle with hot liquid into an ice batch, and it'll take a lot of ice. I DIYed mine but just buy one pre-made, it doesn't cost much more and it'll look better.
 
Thanks for replies.

I've had an immersion chiller in the past and am thinking of plate chiller - seems way more efficient in time and water.

Yup will be getting a burner and kettle with spigot
 
Realistically, if you're trying to get your brew day to below 3 hours, you'll need a powerful burner.

Agreed.
1 hour mash
1 hour boil
.25 hour wort chiller (and with a plate chiller, I believe you will need a march pump or it will be even longer)

You only have 45 minutes left in a 3 hour brew day to heat water, twice. That is with everything else in line.
 
Cool sounds good. I'm able to get a partial mash beer with 60 minute mash and ice bath down in about 3 hours. I'll be doing biab and I've read people doing 90 minute mash - but I'll start with 60 and add a little more 2row randy mosher style.

Randy is my hero when it comes to mashing:

The Lazy Brewer’s Guide To Mashing
By Randy Mosher

http://allaboutbeer.com/learn-beer/...ns/2003/03/the-lazy-brewers-guide-to-mashing/
 
How about using gravity with plate chillier ? That's slow? I don't want to get a pump at all
 
shoreman said:
What's the advantage of a sight gauge?

Knowing how much liquid is in the pot. It certainly helps to calculate when you're at the intended volume, your boil off rate, etc. Wish I had one. Notches on your brew spoon work too though.
 
Ahh ok - I just took a sharpie to the outside of my kettle and marked the gallons
 
Get a bottle of iodine and do a conversion test starting at 10 minutes and test every 5 minutes after that until it shows you have full conversion. Stop mashing at that point. If you have a really good crush your mash might be done in as little as 15 minutes, cutting 45 minutes off your mash time. :rockin:
 
Get a bottle of iodine and do a conversion test starting at 10 minutes and test every 5 minutes after that until it shows you have full conversion. Stop mashing at that point. If you have a really good crush your mash might be done in as little as 15 minutes, cutting 45 minutes off your mash time. :rockin:

Know you'll be changing the mash profile considerably doing this, though. Even if the starches have all converted by 15 minutes, there's a lot of enzymatic activity going on over those next 45 minutes. If you stop early, you may be leaving yourself with a relatively high amount of unfermentable sugars.
 
One thing I've been doing to save time is heat my mash water (8-gallons total) to 200-degrees the night before brew day. In the morning when I get up the temperature of the water has dropped to within 10-degrees of my strike temp. This pre-heating of the mash water usually saves me about 1-hour or so on brew day.

Your mileage may vary depending on the room temperature, water volume, etc.
 
Any other ideas to shorten the brew day?

1) Strike water on a timer, grain premilled

2) Large enough pot to due a full volume BIAB.

3) Powerfull gas burner or electric element.

4) Check conversion to shorten mash

5) Massive hop burst to shorten boil

6) "no chill" in kettle / ferment in your kettle

20 minute mash and a 20 minute boil and your under an hour...is that quick enough:mug:
 
Premill your grain...

Either pre-heat or use hot water to fill your boiler

Stupendous propane burner...

60 min mash. Star the boil immediately after yanking the bag

60 min boil

No-chill

Should easily get it under 3 hrs, and you can have everything except the kettle cleaned before you start filling the cube/s

FWIW, I use a 90 min mash and boil, and get <4 hrs from dough-in to sealing the cubes.
 
Right now I'm leaning towards a no sparge setup and think that will be the easiest brewday and let me expand with patigyle or go places that BIAB won't allow me to go.

BIAB is great but I'm not too psyched about lifted or draining a 15 lb wet bag - or building some kind of pulley system when you can build a cooler mash tun for $25.


thanks for the comments.
 
I BIAB and my last couple batches have used shorter mash times and shorter boils, with more hops or higher AA% hops. I can't taste any difference so far and it's saved a whackload of time.

Made one two weeks ago, called it Speed Racer ale. I went from gathering my equipment (spoons, scale, etc.) prior to even filling the kettle or measuring and grinding my grain, to pitched and fully cleaned up and put away, in just shy of 2 and a half hours.

This was an average 5.5% APA, nothing fancy. Pitched some harvested Nottingham and the beer was bottled 6 days later, drinkable and mildly carbed 4 days after that. Tastier now of course, but it was fine up until then.

I got 81% efficiency on the mash, 80% overall I think. This used a 30 minute mash and a 30 minute boil, immersion chiller to cool.
 
Psych said:
I BIAB and my last couple batches have used shorter mash times and shorter boils, with more hops or higher AA% hops. I can't taste any difference so far and it's saved a whackload of time.

Made one two weeks ago, called it Speed Racer ale. I went from gathering my equipment (spoons, scale, etc.) prior to even filling the kettle or measuring and grinding my grain, to pitched and fully cleaned up and put away, in just shy of 2 and a half hours.

This was an average 5.5% APA, nothing fancy. Pitched some harvested Nottingham and the beer was bottled 6 days later, drinkable and mildly carbed 4 days after that. Tastier now of course, but it was fine up until then.

I got 81% efficiency on the mash, 80% overall I think. This used a 30 minute mash and a 30 minute boil, immersion chiller to cool.

I have GOT to try this! Thanks for sharing Psych!
 
BIAB is great but I'm not too psyched about lifted or draining a 15 lb wet bag - or building some kind of pulley system when you can build a cooler mash tun for $25.


thanks for the comments.

Lifting and draining the BIAB Bag is not much of a chore at all...you can simply pull the bag out and set it in a bucket for a few minutes, then pour those runnings into the kettle. I already have a mash tun built...yet more often than not I still reach for the bag FWIW. Adding another vessel adds time and labor IMO...hope you meet your goals...:mug:
 
Lifting and draining the BIAB Bag is not much of a chore at all...you can simply pull the bag out and set it in a bucket for a few minutes, then pour those runnings into the kettle. I already have a mash tun built...yet more often than not I still reach for the bag FWIW. Adding another vessel adds time and labor IMO...hope you meet your goals...:mug:

I can still do both with that setup if need be - I'm curious what's the largest grain bill you've done with that BIAB method?

I really want to do some partigyle batches and don't think that it's really possible with BIAB - I'm sure you can pull it of somehow but...
 
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