Greetings. I had a discussion with a fellow home brewer on vessels. I believe you can mash with a food grade pail. Also why not primary and secondary in the same fermentation pail. Have a valve at the bottom to drain the trub. Comments or problems are encouraged. Thanks
One vessel
- Thread starter Zeekstr
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For most of us 1 primary is not enough. I have 6 and am prowlley one of the smaller amounts.
how are you going to boil it in a plastic pail?
kombat
Well-Known Member
Wow, so much wrong here. First of all, mashing in a food grade pail is suboptimal because they're poorly insulated. You're going to lose a lot of heat. Secondly, you'd have to construct a manifold and a valve assembly to drain the wort from beneath the grain bed.
Thirdly, you'd need to transfer the wort to another vessel to boil, so it's not really "one vessel" brewing.
Fourthly, you don't want to "drain the trub," you want to rack the beer off of the trub.
Fifthly, you don't need to secondary at all.
Sixthly, I would never ferment in the same vessel I mashed in. Grain is absolutely crawling with bacteria, and no matter how well you think you've cleaned your mash tun, there will still be bacteria in the microscopic scratches in the plastic. To then fill it with sterile wort would be virtually guaranteeing an infection. Not to mention the difficulty in sanitizing the valve assembly and the hassle of removing the manifold.
Terrible, terrible idea, IMHO.
Thirdly, you'd need to transfer the wort to another vessel to boil, so it's not really "one vessel" brewing.
Fourthly, you don't want to "drain the trub," you want to rack the beer off of the trub.
Fifthly, you don't need to secondary at all.
Sixthly, I would never ferment in the same vessel I mashed in. Grain is absolutely crawling with bacteria, and no matter how well you think you've cleaned your mash tun, there will still be bacteria in the microscopic scratches in the plastic. To then fill it with sterile wort would be virtually guaranteeing an infection. Not to mention the difficulty in sanitizing the valve assembly and the hassle of removing the manifold.
Terrible, terrible idea, IMHO.
Sure you could mash in the bucket but I'd suggest boiling in a metal pot. The bucket is safe at boiling temperatures but you'd need to use an electric element (heat stick) in it to bring the wort to a boil and it's likely to scorch onto the electric element. I wouldn't advocate using a bucket for secondary because of the large surface and the lack of CO2 in secondary will let aerobic bacteria work on your beer but many of us never use secondary so that would be a moot point.
You don't mention boiling in a plastic bucket so I'll assume you'll use a standard brew kettle for that. However, it's probably possible to boil in a brew bucket but you'd have to deal with softening of the plastic, possible chemical leaching because of the temperature/ph combination, risk of melting a hole in your bucket if the heating element comes into direct contact with the plastic, etc...so not a great idea.
For the rest, yes it can all be done in a single vessel but it would be awkward and IMO, more trouble than it's worth. For mashing you want something that will hold temperature and allow easy access to the grain bed for stirring, cleaning, etc. A bucket meets the 'easy access' part but it's not insulated at all.
For primary/secondary you want something that will make it easy to get rid of trub...which implies something like a conical fermenter - https://www.thefastrack.ca/main/fastferment for example. This is great for dumping trub but not good for mashing - no easy access for stirring and cleaning, no easy way to keep the grain from clogging the drain...although I suppose you could use a BIAB bag...and I have no idea what the shape would do to your efficiency and there's still the comparatively small hole to get the grains in and out.
There are some 'do everything in one vessel' systems out there like the PicoBrew but for me at least they fall into the 'Wow, that's a lot of money' category.
So what it all boils down to is yeah, you can but why would you want to?
EDIT: Ignore what I said about the Picobrew. It uses different vessels.
For the rest, yes it can all be done in a single vessel but it would be awkward and IMO, more trouble than it's worth. For mashing you want something that will hold temperature and allow easy access to the grain bed for stirring, cleaning, etc. A bucket meets the 'easy access' part but it's not insulated at all.
For primary/secondary you want something that will make it easy to get rid of trub...which implies something like a conical fermenter - https://www.thefastrack.ca/main/fastferment for example. This is great for dumping trub but not good for mashing - no easy access for stirring and cleaning, no easy way to keep the grain from clogging the drain...although I suppose you could use a BIAB bag...and I have no idea what the shape would do to your efficiency and there's still the comparatively small hole to get the grains in and out.
There are some 'do everything in one vessel' systems out there like the PicoBrew but for me at least they fall into the 'Wow, that's a lot of money' category.
So what it all boils down to is yeah, you can but why would you want to?
EDIT: Ignore what I said about the Picobrew. It uses different vessels.
Skiffy
Well-Known Member
If you don't want to commit to a cooler mash tun I would recommend mashing in your boil kettle instead of your fermentation bucket.
Konbat's advice is sound but also a little extreme. People insulate their vessel safely with sleeping bags or blankets and I keep my kettle at temperature in my oven. A BIAB bag can be used instead of false bottom and valve, even if you don't boil full volume. Points 4 and 5 are true but not important to the issue. You could certainly clean and sanitize your bucket well enough to not guarantee an infection.
In the end, still don't see a reason to use your bucket over your kettle if you don't want to use a more sophisticated set up
Konbat's advice is sound but also a little extreme. People insulate their vessel safely with sleeping bags or blankets and I keep my kettle at temperature in my oven. A BIAB bag can be used instead of false bottom and valve, even if you don't boil full volume. Points 4 and 5 are true but not important to the issue. You could certainly clean and sanitize your bucket well enough to not guarantee an infection.
In the end, still don't see a reason to use your bucket over your kettle if you don't want to use a more sophisticated set up
