Stupid question

I know this HAS to be a stupid question. I've never brewed an AG batch and reading up on the mashing technique, it seems that temp control and timing and getting the grains out of the wort is the whole deal.

My question is this: Why can't I buy a stainless steel strainer, similar to the ones that you put your crawfish in for boiling, then sink the whole thing in the boil kettle , mash at proper temps, then pull out the whole inner strainer with grains and start to boil? I could even sparge the grains with heated water as I pull out the inner container.

Thanks for your patience with bonehead beginners, but I've got the bug.

no stupid questions here, so no worries.
(and glad to have another Texan on board!)

the baskets in those pots have HUGE holes in them. grain would be all over the place, so i'm sure efficiency would suffer. plus, for a decent strength 5 g batch, 12-13 lbs of soaked grains are heavy. you wouldnt want to be having to lift that out of the kettle full of hot liquor. good train of thought, but would be tricky. you really dont want to disturb thegrain bed during sparging. it's best for it to set well for good run-off.

DeRoux's Broux said:

no stupid questions here, so no worries.
(and glad to have another Texan on board!)

the baskets in those pots have HUGE holes in them. grain would be all over the place, so i'm sure efficiency would suffer. plus, for a decent strength 5 g batch, 12-13 lbs of soaked grains are heavy. you wouldnt want to be having to lift that out of the kettle full of hot liquor. good train of thought, but would be tricky. you really dont want to disturb thegrain bed during sparging. it's best for it to set well for good run-off.

Click to expand...

I had a similar thought ... to use a pizza screen fitted with feet on top of the SS braided manifold. They have smaller holes and come in sizes ranging from 10 - 18" in diameter. The 13" fits snuggly in my 10 gallon rubbermade cooler. Although I would be removing it until the session was over - ouch!

Another thought here too is that you'll be sparging slow..50-60 minutes. You'd play hell holding on to that sucker for that long. Even if you were innovative ..like a engine hoist or block-n-tackle you would still be disturbing the grain bed. It would be messy too.Nice try, but don't stop thinking about how to do it other ways.

Not so stupid...this has been around on the uk for years, it either fits in a fermenter fitted with a kettle element and the grain is mashed and sparged in it or the grains are mashed in a pot in the stove/oven then are transfered to the bag and the sweet wort is run off through a tap and sparging takes place.

DAAB, how do you boil in that bucket? I was thinking grain bag too but he wants to boil in the same pot as he mashes in.

This is my two element boiler, there are a few on the market here in Englnd made by Bruheat and Electrim or you can build them yourself.
This bucket was specificaly sold as a boiler bucket being food grade and had been tested for use with very hot liquids. I then fitten two electric kettle elements and a high temp spigot. Its a very common method for making a boiler over here.

I dont mash in it but could do if I fitted a thermostat (or just kept an eye on the temp) and fitted the grain bag. If you wanted to boil afterwards you would have to run off and sparge into another bucket, remove the bag then returm the wort.

If anyone were to try making their own obviously it would be at their own risk and I would suggest a few test runs in a safe area outside as water and electricity can have leathal concequences.

So are y'all saying it might be worth a try to get a stainless insert with small holes to lauter/strain the grain after the mash is finished? My main worry is the time required for sparging and how tired my arm would get lifting the insert. Doesn't that take quite a while?

As far as disturbing the grain bed, I think a single lift wouldn't do that much, would it?

Good question,

The design of a lauter tun requires the sparging water to trickle through the full depth of the grain bed. By doing so it will be filtered and it extracts the remaining sugar from the grains. This would not be working as well in the system you are thinking of. I also imagine the recirculation of the first run-off to be difficult.

And you want to use less water to mash your grains than you will have for boil. In your system, there would be to much water and the enzymes, which are mostly in the water would also be flushed away from the grains.

I recommend to go with the time pr oven system of using a lauter tun.

Kai

Basicaly ! Although you dont want the holes to be much bigger than 3/32" (2-3mm) and you only want them in the bottom.

You would lift the strainer out completely though and support it inside another vessel with a tap before sparging, you dont want to have to hold it for any length of time....mash temps tend to be quite warm.

Another simple method of lautering would be to use 2 identical fermenter buckets. One stacked inside the other. The inner one has lots of 3/32 holes drilled in the bottom. The outer has a tap fitted. Once you have mashed in your boiler, transfer the grains to the buckets, open the tap and begin to run off the wort,then begin to sparge as the level drops.

You can even do the whole mash in this gadget...add your mash liquer at 162 deg to the buckets. Add the grain and stir in, the temp should drop to around 150 deg by doing this, adjustments can be made with kettles of boiling water or jugs of cold water.

Put on the lid and wrap the whole lot in old blankets, sleeping bags, bubble wrap or anything else that will insulate well. The temperature will stay fairly constant over a 1 1/2 hr period. You can check the temp of the mash half way through and add a few kettles of boiling if the temp has dropped a little.

When the mash period is over just open the tap and lauter and sparge as usual.

This is getting further away from your original idea though, I was just making the point that using a strainer type insert wasnt such a stupid idea. Infact it forms the basis for thousands of homebrewers mash tuns.

Good Luck

DAAB,
Do you boil the wort in your boiler or just the water? If so does the wort not caramalise or burn on contact with the elements?

DAAB said:

This is my two element boiler, there are a few on the market here in Englnd made by Bruheat and Electrim or you can build them yourself.
This bucket was specificaly sold as a boiler bucket being food grade and had been tested for use with very hot liquids. I then fitten two electric kettle elements and a high temp spigot. Its a very common method for making a boiler over here.

I dont mash in it but could do if I fitted a thermostat (or just kept an eye on the temp) and fitted the grain bag. If you wanted to boil afterwards you would have to run off and sparge into another bucket, remove the bag then returm the wort.

If anyone were to try making their own obviously it would be at their own risk and I would suggest a few test runs in a safe area outside as water and electricity can have leathal concequences.

Click to expand...

I use something like that for the water boiler.

I boil my water(brewing liquer) and wort in the boiler There is too much natural circulation for any caramalisation. I bring the water/wort up to temperature on 2 elements then maintain a boil on one, I also use a Cooker simmerstat to control the boil.

(the elements are both 2.4 Kw, I have also seen similar boilers with 2/3 2.75Kw elements)

Did you just fit the simmerstat in line with the power cable?

Yep.. See this link Simmerstat Controler Discussion