BIAB to traditional AG

[FreshZ]

I am going from using a BIAB system to a normal mash tun set up. I currently have:
9 gal pot with valve and thermometer (main boil kettle)
5 gal pot
And I am going to buy a 10 gal cooler mash tun.
I am trying to figure out my HLT needs. To be clear, a HLT holds and dispenses your Sparge water, correct? Using BIAB, I've never had more than 3-4 gallons of Sparge water. Does this change when switching methods?

Basically, what do I need for a HLT? 5 or 10 gallon and cooler or kettle? Or can I use my old 5 gallon pot without a spigot? Any help is appreciated.

 

[kapbrew13]

I am going from using a BIAB system to a normal mash tun set up. I currently have:
9 gal pot with valve and thermometer (main boil kettle)
5 gal pot
And I am going to buy a 10 gal cooler mash tun.
I am trying to figure out my HLT needs. To be clear, a HLT holds and dispenses your Sparge water, correct? Using BIAB, I've never had more than 3-4 gallons of Sparge water. Does this change when switching methods?

Basically, what do I need for a HLT? 5 or 10 gallon and cooler or kettle? Or can I use my old 5 gallon pot without a spigot? Any help is appreciated.

I took this route. Doing it again, I would skip the 10gal round and get a 70qt extreme cooler. Its cheaper then the 10 gal round also.
I batch sparge. This weekend I used 4 gal during mash. Sparge 1 was 2 gallons and final was 3.5 gallons.
I have 9.5 gallon boil pot and a 10 gallon extra for heating up water for sparging.

 

[Kaz]

Not to hijack the thread, but kapbrew, did you notice a difference in the finished product after going from BIAB to 2/3 vessels? What if any were the differences?

 

[kapbrew13]

Not to hijack the thread, but kapbrew, did you notice a difference in the finished product after going from BIAB to 2/3 vessels? What if any were the differences?

Don't have to lift heavy grain bag, better efficiency, existing equipment now can do higher gravity and larger volume brews.

 

[FreshZ]

Bump?

 

[kapbrew13]

Not to hijack the thread, but kapbrew, did you notice a difference in the finished product after going from BIAB to 2/3 vessels? What if any were the differences?

Better efficiency. No need to pick up heavy wet grains. Beer quality was good with biab and now good with ag batch sparging.

 

[aeviaanah]

Don't you have to pick up the tun full of grain to clean?

 

[kapbrew13]

Don't you have to pick up the tun full of grain to clean?

With biab, the wet grain has more liquid in it then what's left in the mash tun. I would let the bag drain for a good 10 minutes then squeeze the heck out of it. So bag is heavier. Plastic cooler mash tun doesn't add that much.

 

[JayDubWill]

I just converted from BIAB to cooler MLT as well when SWMBO bought me a 40qt brew pot and I discovered my grain bag would no longer fit around the diameter of the new pot. I was using a 20qt pot before and it just wasn't cutting it so I was happy to get the new pot...but back on topic, I had a Coleman Xtreme 36qt cooler collecting dust so I converted it to a MLT using CPVC pipe and a weldless cooler bulkhead kit I bought from bargain fittings. Make sure to disassemble whatever cooler you buy and measure the wall thickness before you buy the valve assembly. I was surprised by how thick the Coleman cooler was. Making the manifold out of CPVC was a snap and only cost about $8 or so if I remember correctly. Do a search on these boards for CPVC manifold and more than a few threads will pop up. Using the MLT was easy, I would say even easier than doing BIAB. The hardest part will be tweaking the strike water temp to account for the thermal loss of the MLT as it heat ups and then again when you add your grains. I lost 2 degrees over the course of a 60 minute mash, which I think is in the range of normal.

 

[hogwash]

I am trying to figure out my HLT needs. To be clear, a HLT holds and dispenses your Sparge water, correct? Using BIAB, I've never had more than 3-4 gallons of Sparge water. Does this change when switching methods?

Unless you are fly sparging or want to do a 3 tier system you really don't need an HLT. I heat my sparge water in the kettle while I'm draining my first runnings into a bucket. Once the first runnings are done I drain the sparge water into the mash tun, dump the wort into the kettle and fire up the burner and let that heat up while I'm sparging. Two vessel (+ 1 bucket) system.

 

[alestateyall]

I have done 5 BIAB batches and about 12-15 batch sparge batches. Both methods are good.

BIAB makes it easy to hit your mash temp and seems a bit faster than batch sparge. I use a steamer basket in my kettle. That limits the amount of grain to about 12# with BIAB. My 10g cooler can mash about 20-25# of grain.

Batch sparge has vorlauphing which leads to a lot less flour in the wort. I pour everything from the kettle into my fermenter. With BIAB the volume of trub at the bottom of the fermenter is about 2X what I get from batch sparge. I think that extra trub sucks up some sugars and reduces the efficiency of BIAB with the same crush. Also the extra trub meant I had to increase my batch size when doing BIAB which makes the grain bill cost slightly more.

As far as the finish product goes they taste the same. I can't tell a difference.