mikebanyai
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- Joined
- Dec 11, 2013
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The new Anova immersion circulating heater is an awesome tool for a BIAG homebrewer. I have no relationship with the company and admittedly am a newbie to its use, although I have been homebrewing for more then 10 years. I have been able to do a 3 gallon all grain batch in 3 hours from the time I put the water in the pot to the time I pitched the yeast in a 5 gallon bucket. The heater is a thousand watts, the circulating fan pushes the water around just fine, the solid state control will keep a specific temp for an infinite amount of time or a set amount of time as set on the control screen. So you can dial in one batch at 158 and the next one at 152 or start at a protein rest of 122 for 30 min and then go to 153 or whatever number you like. My conversion rate has always been in the 80 % range. To be sure, there are things I do to make it work well but they are mostly self evident and there are caveats that I will lay out up front. It is designed for about 4 gallons of water to do Sous Vide, a food cooking method worth checking out in its own way, makes the unit more of a multitasker. The cost of the unit is a bit more than two hundred bucks delivered. I have gone to doing 3 gallon batches even before I started using the unit, partly because I find it fun to make many different brews and partly because I can't drink or give away all that I make. It could be used to make five gallons but it would be more of a chore then benefit in my opinion. it is not a tool for the boil and I use it in a 5 gallon pot on the top of my stove in my kitchen and do cheat a bit by using the gas flame to assist the rise to 122 and then again to 158, not because the unit won't do it but just to do it faster. It can be helpful to use a small flame to help hold the temp with the heater doing the last bit of control once you are at target temp. You can actually walk away for the hour and go watch TV or whatever and it will stay at that temp. The heater alone works fine but used alone you can get a small amount of caramelization on the hot element which is fine for scotch ale or porter but maybe not for a very light wheat beer. I start with three gallons of water at a mark on the side of my pot, add the grain in a couple of bags, do the hour at a specific 1 degree temp and then put the bags in a strainer. I then pour a quart of water over them at a time and add that back to the pot untill I get to the 3 gallon mark. That is then your OG, and then I add about a half gallon for the boil in my house which is back to the mark at the end of the boil. I believe that you could get to your OG in half an hour with the unit at a few percent less conversion but generally use the standard hour. This could change as I become used to this way of doing things. It is hard to have folks change the way they do things and I put this out as just my way of doing homebrew. The rock solid reproducible temp profile and potential time advantage are the reasons I have chosen to do it this way. I suspect that with experience you could get it down to making a 3 gal allgrain in two hours from the time you start to the time you pitch the yeast.
PS subsequent read of the website says that it will handle 5-6 gallons of water at a time.
PS subsequent read of the website says that it will handle 5-6 gallons of water at a time.
