Bad Kitty Brewery eBIAB

[schwartzr33]

The bag arrived today. Dang! That was fast, thanks. Yes, I'm doing 5 gal batches, though I went with the 20 gal pot in order to do the occasional 10 gal batch. With the Reflectix, it really seems to hold the temperature pretty well. I'm looking forward to trying the new bag.

 

[schwartzr33]

Bad Kitty Brewery won best in style (15A) for our Hefeweizen at the first ever homebrew competition at O'Connor's Home Brew Supply.
http://www.oconnorshomebrew.com/

 

[schwartzr33]

Checkout our new stainless steel basket from Arbor Fabricating. Chad was great to work with. The feet have 3" of clearance, well above the element and the pickup tube. I sent Chad a piece of voile fabric that my bag is made of and he measured it as 200 microns x 600 microns, so we decided to go with 400 micron mesh. While it has only been one brew, I am thrilled with how well it worked. The temperature was rock solid throughout a 4-step mash (no stirring, no fussing) and cleanup was a snap (just hose it out).

You can also see the return tube that is now going through the lid and the hole the wort created in the mash bed. That's the next challenge... how to do a better job dispersing the work across the grain bed. I'm thinking a circular series of Loc Line nozzles, but I'd appreciate any other suggestions.

Finally, you can see the mash plate. Chad also makes these, but this is just an old aluminum pot lid that I had around. It worked fine, though next time we will push more aggressively. Our grain retention rate for this batch was 0.12 gallons per pound of grain. I hope to get that down closer to 0.10 gal/lb. I would have preferred to do a simple medium gravity beer for our first batch, but our schedule called for a 1.082 dopplebock. We drained the wort into another pot and then did a 2 gallon rinse, then poured back the "first runnings" back into the main pot. This gave us a mash efficiency of 68%, which I think is decent for a high gravity beer in BIAB setup.

Really looking forward to the next batch!

 

[Yambor44]

I use a bucket lid for dispersion. Drilled a series of holes in the lid then lay it on the grain bed. Wort comes thru the lid of the pot, hits the plastic lid and disperses thru the holes.

 

[KPSquared]

How much was that bucket? I would love to eliminate all plastic in my brewing process and getting rid of the bag would be awesome. Single vessel, no bag. . . Sweet!

 

[jeffmeh]

How difficult have you found the mesh basket to clean? With a bag, I dump, hose it out well, and throw it in the washing machine.

 

[schwartzr33]

How much was that bucket? I would love to eliminate all plastic in my brewing process and getting rid of the bag would be awesome. Single vessel, no bag. . . Sweet!

The basket is 16.5" wide x 15" tall, with 3" feet. It cost $150 plus shipping. Certainly not cheap, but given how well it work and how many problems it solved, I am thinking it was well worth the cost.

 

[schwartzr33]

How difficult have you found the mesh basket to clean? With a bag, I dump, hose it out well, and throw it in the washing machine.

Jeffmeh, it wasn't a whole lot harder than what you do with your bag. We dumped the grain in the composter, turned the basket upside-down in the driveway and hit it with the hose for less than a minute. There was no grain stuck in the mesh after that. At 16.5" wide, it is wider than the utility sink in the basement, so I need to get a tub so I can hose it out inside in February in Michigan.

 

[jeffmeh]

Jeffmeh, it wasn't a whole lot harder than what you do with your bag. We dumped the grain in the composter, turned the basket upside-down in the driveway and hit it with the hose for less than a minute. There was no grain stuck in the mesh after that. At 16.5" wide, it is wider than the utility sink in the basement, so I need to get a tub so I can hose it out inside in February in Michigan.

Thanks. Any sense of how fine a crush you can use relative to the voile bag? My guess is that it would be similar, even though your 400x400 micron openings are larger than 600x200 openings in the bag, but I am speculating.

 

[schwartzr33]

We did the same crush as with the bag, 2x times through at the tightest setting at our LHBS.

 

[jeffmeh]

We did the same crush as with the bag, 2x times through at the tightest setting at our LHBS.

Nice. I crush pretty fine and generally get high efficiency with the bag, and would not want to give that up.

 

[Yambor44]

I use a bucket lid for dispersion. Drilled a series of holes in the lid then lay it on the grain bed. Wort comes thru the lid of the pot, hits the plastic lid and disperses thru the holes.

Here's a pic of it...