I don' wanna grow up, I'm a BIAB kid!
OK, so maybe I DO wanna grow up, at least a little bit.
I have brewed somewhere around 35-40 batches, over probably the last two years. The first several were extract, with a PM batch or two thrown in. Long story short, I "graduated" to all grain brewing rather quickly.
Here is my current setup.
33 qt aluminum pot with bottom spigot, on top of a turkey frier burner. Heat the mash water in that, and then pour it into a 5 gallon Igloo cooler. Mash in a grain bag, with the grain ground in a Corona mill. Heat the sparge water in the same AL pot, and sparge the grain in the bag in the same pot. (Kinda like Deathbrewer's method in his Stovetop All Grain thread, except I use the cooler instead of a second pot).
After the boil, I have an immersion chiller made out of ~30' of 3/8" AC copper, and a prechiller made out of ~15' of 1/4" copper. Cooling 7 gallons down to 100 degrees takes about 20 minutes, 15 if I stir a lot. After that, I add a gallon sized block of to the prechiller, and take it down to 65-70 in another 10 minutes or so.
Then I leave the wort to settle out, usually about an hour, so that most of the trub stays in the kettle. I loose just about 1 gallon when I drain off, but end up with a LOT less trub in the fermentor, and it seems like clearer beer, as well. My kettle has a bottom spigot, about 1 inch off of the bottom, so this is how I drain the wort, into a bottling bucket for a gravity test, and then into a fermentor.
Anyway, today I was squeezing the everliven' crap out of the grain bag, and the bag developed a rip. Not a bad one, but I will be lucky to get one more batch out of this bag. A new bag will probably run me 6 bucks or so, but the 6 bucks got me thinking.
I already have a cooler, and as a plumber, I have access to supply tubes and CPVC, so a braid or a manifold would only cost me the parts to change out the bulkhead fittings. And then if I were to batch sparge, I wouldn't loose so much to trub (right?).
With my current setup, I can brew 6 gallons of 1.060 beer. I have to be dead on top of my game to do so, but I can.
Just recently, I acquired a pump that was used as a circulator on a solar water heating system. I have been dreaming up ways to use it to move water and wort around, from the kettle to the cooler, from the kettle through chillers to the fermentor..... OMG, I think I have some type of viral infection.
So, back to my original question. Is it time for me to grow up? Should I convert my cooler? The cost to do so wont' be much more than that for a new bag. Should I pump the wort through my prechiller in a bucket of icewater on it's way to the fermentor, thereby shaving 1 1/2 hours off of my brewday?
I have started to get several "beer groupies", and if I let it happen, I can easily have demand for twice as much beer as I can drink personally. So that makes me think that I ought to increase my pipeline capacity. I can see a 10 gallon cooler, and a 15 gallon kettle in my future. So then, what would I do for a fermentor?
So, is it time for me to grow up? And if so, how do I go about this maturing process?
OK, so maybe I DO wanna grow up, at least a little bit.
I have brewed somewhere around 35-40 batches, over probably the last two years. The first several were extract, with a PM batch or two thrown in. Long story short, I "graduated" to all grain brewing rather quickly.
Here is my current setup.
33 qt aluminum pot with bottom spigot, on top of a turkey frier burner. Heat the mash water in that, and then pour it into a 5 gallon Igloo cooler. Mash in a grain bag, with the grain ground in a Corona mill. Heat the sparge water in the same AL pot, and sparge the grain in the bag in the same pot. (Kinda like Deathbrewer's method in his Stovetop All Grain thread, except I use the cooler instead of a second pot).
After the boil, I have an immersion chiller made out of ~30' of 3/8" AC copper, and a prechiller made out of ~15' of 1/4" copper. Cooling 7 gallons down to 100 degrees takes about 20 minutes, 15 if I stir a lot. After that, I add a gallon sized block of to the prechiller, and take it down to 65-70 in another 10 minutes or so.
Then I leave the wort to settle out, usually about an hour, so that most of the trub stays in the kettle. I loose just about 1 gallon when I drain off, but end up with a LOT less trub in the fermentor, and it seems like clearer beer, as well. My kettle has a bottom spigot, about 1 inch off of the bottom, so this is how I drain the wort, into a bottling bucket for a gravity test, and then into a fermentor.
Anyway, today I was squeezing the everliven' crap out of the grain bag, and the bag developed a rip. Not a bad one, but I will be lucky to get one more batch out of this bag. A new bag will probably run me 6 bucks or so, but the 6 bucks got me thinking.
I already have a cooler, and as a plumber, I have access to supply tubes and CPVC, so a braid or a manifold would only cost me the parts to change out the bulkhead fittings. And then if I were to batch sparge, I wouldn't loose so much to trub (right?).
With my current setup, I can brew 6 gallons of 1.060 beer. I have to be dead on top of my game to do so, but I can.
Just recently, I acquired a pump that was used as a circulator on a solar water heating system. I have been dreaming up ways to use it to move water and wort around, from the kettle to the cooler, from the kettle through chillers to the fermentor..... OMG, I think I have some type of viral infection.
So, back to my original question. Is it time for me to grow up? Should I convert my cooler? The cost to do so wont' be much more than that for a new bag. Should I pump the wort through my prechiller in a bucket of icewater on it's way to the fermentor, thereby shaving 1 1/2 hours off of my brewday?
I have started to get several "beer groupies", and if I let it happen, I can easily have demand for twice as much beer as I can drink personally. So that makes me think that I ought to increase my pipeline capacity. I can see a 10 gallon cooler, and a 15 gallon kettle in my future. So then, what would I do for a fermentor?
So, is it time for me to grow up? And if so, how do I go about this maturing process?
