Multiple Concurrent Small Batch Brewing

[Bobby_M]

I've cut back on drinking quite a bit so I can't justify large batches. I enjoy brewing quite a bit more than the drinking part so I've been splitting 6 gallon batches into 2 separate fermentations to keep up the hobby and learn a lot more from a academic standpoint. Yeast comparisons, fruits, temps, dry hops, fermenter types, etc are all on the menu. I generally take the results to homebrew club meetings to spread the experience to the maximum audience and it's fun. It occurred to me that it would be great to be able to brew a half a dozen concurrent batches at a time with a high level of control.

This idea was pretty well exhibited by James Spencer's Basic Brewing Radio Hop Sampler series. Quick extract worts with various isolated single hop flame out stands to a targeted IBU, then chill and ferment a 6 pack's worth of each. This separate boil, separate ferment can be easily done from a common larger mash and short boil, then distribute to heat safe containers and add hops. Chill and ferment. I have a little micro immersion chiller to chill these down if I can find 1 gallon heat capable fermenters with a wide mouth and it would avoid the need to separately sanitize a one gallon jug for example.

The problem with this plan, which has me brainstorming a more complete equipment solution, is the desire to run the same amount of side by side MASHES and continue to run the process from there. I've been generally underwhelmed by doing malt tea tasting exercises because I can't make a meaningful correlation between those flavors and the end result beer. Side note, I've thought about maybe trying to blend a very basic beer with a malt tea, top off carbonation and serve to get closer but that doesn't help with base malt comparisons.

Those who have worked in the restaurant biz would probably recognize a Bain Marie, which is a heated water bath that keeps containers of food items like sauces and soups hot.

I don't really plan to buy one of these things because the Bain Marie is not meant to try to bring things to a boil but I think I could make something similar and heat it with steam. I suppose that could get pretty dangerous without PRVs and all that.

One thing I haven't tested yet is whether my 3500 watt induction burner could heat four small kettles spaced on the top because that might be the simple move.

At this point, I'm just posting this out as a brainstorm to see if anyone had any bright ideas that I'm not thinking of.

 

[wootz001]

I like the idea, but, coming from the perspective of struggling to mash and boil even a single batch at a time — I think you would want to have an individual level of control for each batch that steam or a single induction burner would make difficult to provide. Considering 1 gallon batches, you could go with multiple 120v induction burners or heating elements.

 

[Bobby_M]

I like the idea, but, coming from the perspective of struggling to mash and boil even a single batch at a time —

The comparisons will always be the same volume with the same grain amount so I think a common water bath temp or symmetry on an induction (using the same heating vessels) would yield a good control. On the other hand, using separate systems could inject unwanted variability (temp probe calibration issues or element wattage variation).

 

[Bobby_M]

These divided kettle inserts seem like a pretty viable option, but I've only seen them as steamer baskets. I'd likely have to fabricate the solid wedge inserts myself. I do enjoy TIG welding practice, but it does seem like a pain in the butt. Making them myself would mean being able to make six wedges that fit my 15 gallon kettle perfectly and that thing is already capable of high temp precision and water bath circulation.

 

[wootz001]

Yeah, I’ve only seen wedges like that as strainers for cooking pasta portions or blanching veggies. Was thinking you could do something similar with steam tray pans sitting up on a false bottom. All kinds of sizes to chose from, but they are pretty much round, square or rectangle shapes. Would have to see how to Tetris them in to maximize the packing efficiency.

 

[sibelman]

Dude, you're taking pilot brewing to a whole new level!

I found this on aliexpress.com. Too small, and only four-way, but no welding and might exist in a larger size. Your intriguing concept probably ends up requiring a totally DIY solution, though.

I wonder if multiple small pots would be heated uniformly enough in a convection oven instead of a countertop/stovetop arrangement. This would eliminate the need for an exotic partitioned kettle.

Happy brewing!

 

[mashdar]

Love the idea in general.

I imagine you know this, but to boil with steam, you'd need to operate under pressure. Definitely PRV and high-temp blow-off needed, as well as temperature controls for steam generator.

I wonder if there's any kind of electric pressure cooker or slow cooker with temp control for mash? Would be pretty handy to just set N cookers going for mash and boil, although I guess mash temp uniformity may be an issue.

Maybe this is the wrong direction, and full volume biab in small coolers makes more sense? If not stepping... For just comparing grains in a single infusion, it seems readily repeatable/parallelizeable?

Then whatever tea kettle, slow cooker, or pressure cooker for boil?

Just spit balling.

Edit: hardest thing for me in split batch has been getting liquid yeast evenly divided. Requires more handling than I like, or eyeballing.

Edit2: Problem with vessels-in-vessel is at atmospheric pressure in outer vessel, you wont actually boil the inner vessels. Idk if this matters eg for DMS. (Is this one of the commandments that Mel Brooks has since shattered on his way down beer mountain?)

 

[Bobby_M]

Love the idea in general.

I imagine you know this, but to boil with steam, you'd need to operate under pressure. Definitely PRV and high-temp blow-off needed, as well as temperature controls for steam generator.

I wonder if there's any kind of electric pressure cooker or slow cooker with temp control for mash? Would be pretty handy to just set N cookers going for mash and boil, although I guess mash temp uniformity may be an issue.

Maybe this is the wrong direction, and full volume biab in small coolers makes more sense? If not stepping... For just comparing grains in a single infusion, it seems readily repeatable/parallelizeable?

Then whatever tea kettle, slow cooker, or pressure cooker for boil?

Just spit balling.

Edit: hardest thing for me in split batch has been getting liquid yeast evenly divided. Requires more handling than I like, or eyeballing.

Edit2: Problem with vessels-in-vessel is at atmospheric pressure in outer vessel, you wont actually boil the inner vessels. Idk if this matters eg for DMS. (Is this one of the commandments that Mel Brooks has since shattered on his way down beer mountain?)

If I did the steam thing, I'd buy a square stainless fuel tank from a boat, cut circles out and weld the drop in bain marie pots into the holes to be able to hold pressure. I'm pretty fixated on being able to mash and boil in the same vessels just like mini versions of what I do now.

The primary plan, which can easily change, is the wedge style stainless inserts to put into a single kettle. I thought about just dedicated a kettle to it and heating some mineral oil as the heat conductive bath since it be run hot enough and I wouldn't have to worry about boiling it off or keeping it topped off.

While that's effective for heating, it wouldn't allow me to flush that out of the kettle and run a cooling bath of tap water through that same area.

 

[mashdar]

If I did the steam thing, I'd buy a square stainless fuel tank from a boat, cut circles out and weld the drop in bain marie pots into the holes to be able to hold pressure. I'm pretty fixated on being able to mash and boil in the same vessels just like mini versions of what I do now.

The primary plan, which can easily change, is the wedge style stainless inserts to put into a single kettle. I thought about just dedicated a kettle to it and heating some mineral oil as the heat conductive bath since it be run hot enough and I wouldn't have to worry about boiling it off or keeping it topped off.

While that's effective for heating, it wouldn't allow me to flush that out of the kettle and run a cooling bath of tap water through that same area.

Oh, mineral oil bath is a good idea. Need to keep it safe from drips of water, as any water would cause splatter. Might be an issue for kettle inserts?

If you had hot oil and cold oil storage tanks, and a pump that can handle the high temps and high head, you could swap hot oil for cold oil.

Or set up a herms style loop for oil cooling?

Googling around, the thermal properties of oil are pretty disappointing. Less than half the specific heat of water, and poor conductivity. To get decent cooling, might need some vigorous pumping, and storing thermal mass for cooling would require a pretty huge reservoir. (Or do ice bath herms-style? Would have to watch pump head at low temps too.)

 

[Somesaymybeerisdrinkable]

Have you thought about building separate mini all in one systems? A 120V, 1500W heater should be plenty of power for a small batch. Maybe start with something like this coffee urn, or stock pots and heating coils.

What I like about separate small systems is you can build as many as you need depending on how many parallel batches you want to brew.

While on the subject of experimenting with small batches different carbonation methods can produce noticable results. Example just 3 Skittles have enough sugar for a 12oz bottle and provides an artificial flavor that can be described as "interesting".

 

[T Murph]

IDK but I'm thinking you might be on to something with the marine fuel tank approach. If you could find a tank/vessel to hold 3 one gallon vessels beside 3 additional vessels and modify it into a Bain Marie vat then fabricate a burner to distribute heat evenly to each of the six kettles you should be able to control temps evenly. A little welding and fabrication would be required but that is right within your wheelhouse.

Good luck and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

 

[Bramling Cross]

If I'm reading your post correctly, it boils down to this sentence: "Side note, I've thought about maybe trying to blend a very basic beer with a malt tea, top off carbonation and serve to get closer but that doesn't help with base malt comparisons. [My emphasis]"

If I'm understanding this correctly, a system capable of running a series of base malt comparisons should be the starting point for your rig--quite a handy thing to have! Different base malts are fundamentally different beers, there's no difference between brewing a beer with Great Western 2-row and Crisp Maris Otter vs. brewing a pils and a stout, right? They both require fundamentally different grists. So I think it's the mash tun, not the energy source, that needs to change. Am I following you?

To my mind, this suggests a design akin to a revolver pistol. You want to quickly apply a measured amount of energy to an object, then quickly do the same to several more identical objects. That suggests to me that you want a very large, very powerful HLT feeding a series of small, energy efficient MLTs. I think two very powerful HLTs provides the best solution. I don't see how you can strike and sparge off of one vessel. You're going to need at least two: one to strike, one to sparge.

So this means you need two powerful HLTs and a bunch of smaller MLTs. There's lots of small, highly efficient (rather expensive) cooler options available. Custom BIAB solutions are readily available. So that's not hard, if you're willing to splash the cash.

That just leaves the problem of boiling and chilling several batches sequentially without inadvertently doing hop stands. Again, I think you're going to need at least two boil and chilling energy sources (you're sure as hell going to need a lot of ice to keep pre-chilling your favored chilling method--If I were doing this, I'd be spending close to thirty bucks on ice at the corner store to make this happen) for each task if you want to approximate a normal 5-6gal recipe.

I hope you found this useful--I read your post several times and I'm not sure I fully understand it, forgive me if I've missed the mark entirely. Nevertheless, I thought it was a fun thought experiment, so I took a stab at it

 

[tracer bullet]

What about 6 electric single burner stoves next to each other? Mash temps might be maintained with an external controller that turns the stoves on and off, for boiling they are just allowed to run at some setting that seems to work.

Of course you need 6 120V 20A or so outlets next to each other, on individual breakers, but that might be easier than fabricating something else.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

At this point, I'm just posting this out as a brainstorm to see if anyone had any bright ideas that I'm not thinking of.

Following along because I am also interested.

Yeast is very easy to trial. Just brew x gallons of beer and split that up into multiple fermenters.

I have done a number of 3/4 gallon extract based hop samplers similar to Basic Brewing. I do like this process, but I have realized that oxidation in the bottles has been an issue.

A while back I did some experiments where I did a mix of 20% Hop Tea and 80% Malt Liquor. That actually worked out very well. I used Steel Reserve, mostly because it came in resealable PET bottles. I just found that making a 6-pack of hop sampler was worth the extra time to make a beer that was actually enjoyable to drink.

I tried something similar with mixing Malt Liquor with a Grain Tea to evaluate specialty malts. The results were not as good. The resulting mixture just had too much harsh grainy character. Just tasting the grain tea alone was about as useful as mixing it. I have thought about cycling back to this again, or cycling back to do more hot steep trials.

As far as base grains, or evaluating full recipes...I have done maybe 6 or so 1 gallon single grain batches to evaluate base grains. I have just found that 1 gallon all-grain brewing is a bit too much time and effort for 9 bottles of beer. On the other hand, I am not sure I would want to invest a lot of money into equipment dedicated to 1 gallon batches.

Fermentation temperature control has also been a challenge for me with small batches. I have one chest freezer chamber. It is often tied up with a larger batch. I usually don't want to tie up my chamber for a single 1 gallon batch, but trying to use ambient temps can be a gamble.

 

[tracer bullet]

If money is no object: Amazon.com

I have a couple of these (bought when they were like half this price, sheesh they went up) and they've worked super well attached to an Inkbird and a TC probe in a thermowell (the business end of this chiller and the thermowell both in the beer of course). They can just handle a 3 gallon Imperial beer or a 5 gallon regular gravity beer at a fermentation temp up to about 10 degrees below ambient. I did add my own rubber gasket outside the fermenter, and of course you have to punch some holes into the fermenter, but these are easy things.

Since we're brainstorming

You'd be pushing $1000 by the time you had 5 or 6 of these with temp controllers. But I do think they'd work if you wanted to try a bunch of different fermentation temps at once.

An external glycol chiller might work, it could always be running and circulating, with valves that turned on or off as needed to supply cooling for each individual fermenter.

 

[Bobby_M]

What about 6 electric single burner stoves next to each other? Mash temps might be maintained with an external controller that turns the stoves on and off, for boiling they are just allowed to run at some setting that seems to work.

Of course you need 6 120V 20A or so outlets next to each other, on individual breakers, but that might be easier than fabricating something else.

That is a thought. Wow, some small hot plates go for as little as $13 with variable heat knobs... The pro for this build is that the experiments can easily be split by mash temp like same base malt mashed at 148, 152, 156, 160 for example. The downside is that each vessel needs its own controller if I wanted to be that precise.

 

[mashdar]

Something like this (slow cooker with sous vide mode) might be more of an all-in-one solution? This is the first one I found; probably cheaper other brands.

https://www.target.com/p/A-89039440
edit: I wonder what kind of boil it can manage?
edit2: Yikes Target page says 280 watts. Seems hard to believe it can even cook stuff at that rate...

 

[brooksbrew]

I know this threads old but, Bobby_M did you ever come up with a method/system to do this?

 

[Bobby_M]

I got fatigued trying to figure out how to get it done in my larger brewing system but just decided yesterday that I was going to compromise by setting up twin Foundry 6.5g systems. I almost took them out of the boxes yesterday but I'm giving it another couple days to reconsider possibly doing it in 1 gallon batches with four smaller electric powered "urns" but the lack of insulation and built in accurate controllers gives me pause. Sometimes my tinkering ambitions get in the way of actual progress.

 

[brooksbrew]

I got fatigued trying to figure out how to get it done in my larger brewing system but just decided yesterday that I was going to compromise by setting up twin Foundry 6.5g systems. I almost took them out of the boxes yesterday but I'm giving it another couple days to reconsider possibly doing it in 1 gallon batches with four smaller electric powered "urns" but the lack of insulation and built in accurate controllers gives me pause. Sometimes my tinkering ambitions get in the way of actual progress.

Good to know I’m not the only one having a tough time with this. I agree the 2 foundry’s is prob the best way to do it with some level of automated temp control (mash/boil). I’ve been wanting to do at least 4 separate recipes at once with different mashes but the only thing I can come up with is very manual (not automated) - 4 very small pots like these on the stovetop

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstay...CeIXIVodh7175pdp5c0-2eiSWeAB5_dhoCnl4QAvD_BwE

Small diameter footprint so all 4 can fit in the sink for ice bath. I prob would use a bag vs the metal strainer. Put them in the oven during the mash to hold temp. It’s very hands on and may be difficult to multitask all 4 but it’s all I can think of without being overly elaborate or expensive. Very tiny batches but gets 4 recipes tested in one brew day. I could use bigger pots if I wanted to wrap them in insulation for mash and use a small immersion chiller on all 4.

 

[mashdar]

Would you buy 1gal kegs? I see plenty of 2.5gal, but 1gal seems much less common. What would the fermenter be?

I'm curious what all the other steps would look like!

 

[brooksbrew]

Would you buy 1gal kegs? I see plenty of 2.5gal, but 1gal seems much less common. What would the fermenter be?

I'm curious what all the other steps would look like!

If I got the bigger pots yeah prob buy some 1 gal kegs. For the smaller ones I would maybe get 2 liter batches so I might just use x2 1 liter plastic soda style bottles. I typically ferment in kegs with floating dip tubes so the fermenter would be the kegs or soda bottles - I’d just be careful pouring the bottles to not disturb the trub.

 

[Bobby_M]

If I go with twin Foundry 6.5, the batch size into the fermenter would be around 2.25 gallon and I'd ferment in either 3g Fermonsters or 2.5g corny kegs. I'm thinking the serving tank will be either Oxebar kegs or 2.5 gallon cornies (or I may even just bottle condition most of these batches).

Ideally, I'd get to my original goal of up to 6 side by side batches, or maybe even four which could be done with some double wall coffee urns. It's conceivable to run four of them on my single 30amp controller by just immersing the probe in a single mash but I have to verify how the urns react to be powered off and back on again via their mains cords. I can get 500oz urns for about $90 each and if they don't need their own dedicated controllers, it's a pretty inexpensive project. Of course, this eliminates the possible variable of different mash temps, but that's kind of why I'm leaning towards just the pair of foundries... UGH!

 

[tracer bullet]

If I go with twin Foundry 6.5

That's my go to (a single one, but a 6.5 vs my 10.5 or propane). I aim for 3 gallons after boil, about 1/8 less into the fermenter, and another 1/8 less (for 1/4 total less of course ending with 2.75 gallons) into the keg. I have a few 3 gallon kegs. I like my fermonsters with the spigots on the bottom. I modify lids to do various things, they're cheap and easy to drill holes into.

 

[Somesaymybeerisdrinkable]

If I go with twin Foundry 6.5, the batch size into the fermenter would be around 2.25 gallon and I'd ferment in either 3g Fermonsters or 2.5g corny kegs. I'm thinking the serving tank will be either Oxebar kegs or 2.5 gallon cornies (or I may even just bottle condition most of these batches).

Ideally, I'd get to my original goal of up to 6 side by side batches, or maybe even four which could be done with some double wall coffee urns. It's conceivable to run four of them on my single 30amp controller by just immersing the probe in a single mash but I have to verify how the urns react to be powered off and back on again via their mains cords. I can get 500oz urns for about $90 each and if they don't need their own dedicated controllers, it's a pretty inexpensive project. Of course, this eliminates the possible variable of different mash temps, but that's kind of why I'm leaning towards just the pair of foundries... UGH!

If you rewire the coffee urn to bypass the thermostat I'm sure switching by your controller would be fine since all that would be left is a resistive heating element. I'm not sure if their thermostat is adjustable or preset like my cheap Mr. Coffee drip coffee maker.

 

[Bobby_M]

I found some decent 2.6 gallon double wall urns that run 1,000 watts and have manual temp control knobs. I would have to fab up some false bottoms to keep the bags off the element bottom, but seems like a worthy project to compare up to four variables.

 

[Whisky River]

These 1 gallon unitanks are on sale now so six of these would only set you back about $2400 (plus tax)

https://www.craftmastergrowlers.com/product/uni/

 

[day_trippr]

Holy cow

 

[flipster]

That thin line between genius and madness...!

I recently stumbled across the following thread, and this got me into thinking about how to do smaller batches (again), maybe trying BIAB: Advice in how to enjoy homebrewing over the years without becoming an alcoholic.
Some time ago I've tried to build some kind of "laboratory setup" for ~5 liter batches (and at least used it twice), as I wanted to be able to just try things, with less effort and material than running my 6-8 gal setup.

So I came up with this on the picture (just put it together for the pic).

I've used two stackable buckets, drilled a hole for a tap in one and carved slits into the other, ready was the lautering pot. For insulation I put it on some styrofoam and wrapped it with some fluffy towels, that was good enough for the moment, but thought about getting something better by using a bigger bucket around that and filling the space between with PU foam.
For mashing and boiling I used a big pot, sparging water came out of the electric kettle, just added 25% to the boiling water to get the right temperature. I used a (preboiled) cotton diaper to filter the hop particles pouring it into the fermenting bucket.
Cooling went pretty neat in a ice water bath and some ice-packs.
The bucket was out of a homebrewing kit I got as a present, that did it (also fits in a fridge for lager beers, big plus). Add some silicone tube and sealing rings, and you're still under 25 bucks, I'd guess.
After rinsing everything a bit I put everything in the dishwasher at 75°C.

Except for how to boil more than one batch at the same time, this might be a way into this, running multiple batches at the same time.
If you have a big kettle to boil big amounts of water you could do multiple infusions steps at almost the same time. I recommend sparging to maximize the output and minimize the amount of infusion water needed.

I know, there's room for improvements, like the insulation thingy. The result was pretty good (60% brewhouse yield) and the beers were fine - one was a stout with oats, the other a weizen, both probably a stress test for lautering.

PS: sorry, if the terms are not correct, I'm just getting into this topic in English. Although I'm from Germany, technical brewery terms are not part of our English language education - yes, I also think this is ridiculous.

PPS: I also thought once about some kind of Thermomix(R) kitchen device to use for the mashing program ...

 

[Bobby_M]

I bought four 10 liter electric water boiler/urns and plan to BIAB in them. I already have two tiny immersion chillers to cool two at a time.

I already have a four channel type K thermometer data logger to be able to fine tune the analog temp controllers. If it becomes too difficult to get the mash temps within a degree F of each other, I'll go full nerd and build a 4-PID control box.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I bought four 10 liter electric water boiler/urns and plan to BIAB in them.

How much did they cost? Do you plan to boil in the urn as well? I could see something like this being a good solution just for doing 1 small batch at a time. I have done a handful of 1 gallon all-grain batches mashing in a 2 gallon beverage cooler with a bag. It works okay, but an electric vessel with temp control and masing and boiling in a single vessel sounds appealing. It might make the process easy enough for me to give it a try again.

 

[tdf]

Another option, particularly if you don’t already have the controller setup like @Bobby_M is to get some gigaworts from northern brewer. Double walled 15l urn with a built in controller, perfect for 8-10L biab. They are often on sale for $199 (including right now).

 

[Bobby_M]

How much did they cost? Do you plan to boil in the urn as well? I could see something like this being a good solution just for doing 1 small batch at a time. I have done a handful of 1 gallon all-grain batches mashing in a 2 gallon beverage cooler with a bag. It works okay, but an electric vessel with temp control and masing and boiling in a single vessel sounds appealing. It might make the process easy enough for me to give it a try again.

They were $85 each shipped. I don't have a lot of hope in using the built in analog thermostat. I'm more concerned about keeping the boil in check but it's 1,000 watts so it shouldn't be too crazy. Since I'm building this as an experimental brewing rig, I'm just leaning towards building a control box with a 240v/30 amp input, which I already have access to, and running four controllers and 4x 120v outputs. I almost got too thrifty for my own good and nearly pulled the trigger on MyPin PIDs but I thought better of it and will probably go with the Auber DSPR120s. I have a couple dual channel SSRs to keep it more compact and since I'm only switching a total of 4,000 watts, I can get away with a single medium sized heat sink.

While I don't have an unlimited budget, the knowledge gained over the course of a couple years will easily justify the ~$400 on the kettles/bags and another $400 on a precise controller. Knowing how much tinkering I like to do, it may end up being an expensive frankenstein's monster.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

While I don't have an unlimited budget, the knowledge gained over the course of a couple years will easily justify the ~$400 on the kettles/bags and another $400 on a precise controller. Knowing how much tinkering I like to do, it may end up being an expensive frankenstein's monster.

Sounds like some good content for your YouTube channel! (at least for us beer geeks!)

 

[IslandLizard]

I bought four 10 liter electric water boiler/urns and plan to BIAB in them.

Much hinges on how well you can insulate those urns.
Are you planning on recirculating these mashes?

I'm just leaning towards building a control box with a 240v/30 amp input, which I already have access to, and running four controllers and 4x 120v outputs.

My emphasis.^
As you know, don't forget a 40 amp "neutral" wire going into your controller box too.

 

[Bobby_M]

The urns are double walled with an air gap so they should hold pretty well.

My main brewing controller already has a L1/L2/N/G pass through with outlet (not under the control of the main PID at all. It's only going to be drawing 16 amps so I can technically run 12/4 cable to the new controller but I already have the 10/4 on hand so will go with that. It's load balanced so 16 amps per phase so L1 and L2 will see 16 amps each but the neutral won't be carrying any current if all the elements are drawing equally. Think sub panel. If both elements on L1 are drawing full load but neither of the elements are drawing any current, the neutral sees a max of 16 amps. If both elements on L1 are full load and only one element on L2 is drawing full load, the current on the neutral is only 8 amps.