gregfreemyer
Well-Known Member
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- Sep 22, 2012
- Messages
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I just came across this thread and it is fantastic for anyone thinking of doing a 1 barrel nano. My sincere thanks for posting all the great info you did. I'm fantasizing about doing my own one barrel nano and have done some research.
I do have a few questions I didn't see answered. Feel free to only answer the easy ones!
- are there small distributors that are willing to take on a nano for distribution? If not, maybe creating a niche distributor is the best business plan of all, especially in 3-tier only states.
- Now that you have been doing this for a few years, have you ever started
doing kegs? It seems like an easier way to package. I know you expressed concerns about handling / cleaning / etc. Is it really so bad that hand bottling is the way to go.
- Now that you have replaced all your 1 BBL BK, MT, HLT system with a 3 BBL system have you considered taking the old 1 BBL system and trying to turn it
into a 1 BBL BIAB system. You wouldn't need the MT or HLT, just the 55-gallon blichmann. You would need to get a BIAB bag and build a pulley/winch system to lift it, but that seems well within your skills (or your welder friends skills)
If you don't know BIAB, here's the basic steps for a barrel recipe I put together (tested at 5 gallons only, so this may overflow the kettle!):
- add 48 gallons water to the BK
- heat to strike temp, remove heat
- insert the (large) biab bag
- add the grains (ground finer than a normal grind for a MT) - the BK will be almost 100% full at this point
- mash (60-90 minutes)
- add heat making sure the bag doesn't touch the heating elements (false bottom to raise bag?)
- After mash, add heat and raise temp to 170 for mash out, give the grains a last vigorous swirl to dissolve any remaining sugars attached to the outside of the grains
- pull the bag and let it drip - if you have a winch it can just sit above the kettle dripping while you bring the wort to a boil - a squeeze is normal, but i suspect a long drip would work just as well. And I don't know how to squeeze a bag with 60+ lbs of grains and absorbed water.
- after pulling the grains, you should have 45 gallons or so left
- continue heating until boil achieved
- do your normal boil process
- about 41 gallons at the end of the boil
- chill to ambient
- should be about 39.5 gallons now
You will lose a little more during fermenting, etc. but you should get a barrel of finished beer easy. A bigger beer with more grains won't reduce your final beer volume too much, so I think you can brew even a barrel of a big beer in a 55-gallon kettle.
Supposedly you can get efficiencies with biab comparable to the traditional approach. And you don't have to spend time doing a separate sparge, and a stuck sparge never happens because of how big the bag is (ie. huge).
The only negative I see is having to heat so much mash water. It seems much easier to work with. You still need a pump to pull the post-boil wort out and chill it, but any simple pump will work.
Here's a picture of a nice 10-gallon setup:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-80-20-biab-stand-pump-hoist-404898/
Notice how he has the winch swivel to the side after drip draining. Then he can just lower the bag to the ground and unhook it.
The 55-gallon blickmann is 27 inches tall, so if you have it near ground level, you should be able to build a winch that is no more that 10ft tall I'm guessing. I assume you can go up 10 ft in the barn.
- Have you considered using plastic 55 gallon food safe drums as
fermenters? If not for beers that need high clarity, what about for
wheat beers?
You can get them used on ebay for really cheap.
For instance these are $40 each and just a short drive from me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PLASTIC-Rai...475?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43c7621023
I know used may have off-flavors in them, but you can buy food safe disposable drum liners pretty cheap. A drum liner is basically just a big plastic trash bag. I found at least one source of oxygen impermeable drum liners. I suspect a drum liner should always be used, but a oxygen impermeable one may be over kill and too expensive. The other nice thing about a drum liner is it makes clean-up a snap. Just pull it out and throw it away.
With fermenters that cheap, you could afford to have a bunch a brew everyday instead of every 3rd day or so.
- Has anyone used a dudadiesel plate chiller? The price looks great. This one (B3-36A 60) can cool 50 gallons in 10 minutes and it is only $275: It uses 19 gallons of tap water to cool 10 gallons of wort, so about 70 gallons of tap water to cool a barrel of wort.
http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=HX3660
They say any of their chillers can be used to chill wort:
http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=+beer++wort++chiller&i=beerchillers
- Why do most breweries not brew every day. Is it just that the fermenters cost too much?
- Is the fermentation room still working for you, or are having to actively cool your 3bbl fermenters?
- Do you cold crash your beer to maintain consistency? If so, in the fermenters, or after you have the beer in bottles.
Sorry for all the questions, but thinking about doing a nano is a fascinating process with way more questions than answers.
I do have a few questions I didn't see answered. Feel free to only answer the easy ones!
- are there small distributors that are willing to take on a nano for distribution? If not, maybe creating a niche distributor is the best business plan of all, especially in 3-tier only states.
- Now that you have been doing this for a few years, have you ever started
doing kegs? It seems like an easier way to package. I know you expressed concerns about handling / cleaning / etc. Is it really so bad that hand bottling is the way to go.
- Now that you have replaced all your 1 BBL BK, MT, HLT system with a 3 BBL system have you considered taking the old 1 BBL system and trying to turn it
into a 1 BBL BIAB system. You wouldn't need the MT or HLT, just the 55-gallon blichmann. You would need to get a BIAB bag and build a pulley/winch system to lift it, but that seems well within your skills (or your welder friends skills)
If you don't know BIAB, here's the basic steps for a barrel recipe I put together (tested at 5 gallons only, so this may overflow the kettle!):
- add 48 gallons water to the BK
- heat to strike temp, remove heat
- insert the (large) biab bag
- add the grains (ground finer than a normal grind for a MT) - the BK will be almost 100% full at this point
- mash (60-90 minutes)
- add heat making sure the bag doesn't touch the heating elements (false bottom to raise bag?)
- After mash, add heat and raise temp to 170 for mash out, give the grains a last vigorous swirl to dissolve any remaining sugars attached to the outside of the grains
- pull the bag and let it drip - if you have a winch it can just sit above the kettle dripping while you bring the wort to a boil - a squeeze is normal, but i suspect a long drip would work just as well. And I don't know how to squeeze a bag with 60+ lbs of grains and absorbed water.
- after pulling the grains, you should have 45 gallons or so left
- continue heating until boil achieved
- do your normal boil process
- about 41 gallons at the end of the boil
- chill to ambient
- should be about 39.5 gallons now
You will lose a little more during fermenting, etc. but you should get a barrel of finished beer easy. A bigger beer with more grains won't reduce your final beer volume too much, so I think you can brew even a barrel of a big beer in a 55-gallon kettle.
Supposedly you can get efficiencies with biab comparable to the traditional approach. And you don't have to spend time doing a separate sparge, and a stuck sparge never happens because of how big the bag is (ie. huge).
The only negative I see is having to heat so much mash water. It seems much easier to work with. You still need a pump to pull the post-boil wort out and chill it, but any simple pump will work.
Here's a picture of a nice 10-gallon setup:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-80-20-biab-stand-pump-hoist-404898/
Notice how he has the winch swivel to the side after drip draining. Then he can just lower the bag to the ground and unhook it.
The 55-gallon blickmann is 27 inches tall, so if you have it near ground level, you should be able to build a winch that is no more that 10ft tall I'm guessing. I assume you can go up 10 ft in the barn.
- Have you considered using plastic 55 gallon food safe drums as
fermenters? If not for beers that need high clarity, what about for
wheat beers?
You can get them used on ebay for really cheap.
For instance these are $40 each and just a short drive from me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PLASTIC-Rai...475?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43c7621023
I know used may have off-flavors in them, but you can buy food safe disposable drum liners pretty cheap. A drum liner is basically just a big plastic trash bag. I found at least one source of oxygen impermeable drum liners. I suspect a drum liner should always be used, but a oxygen impermeable one may be over kill and too expensive. The other nice thing about a drum liner is it makes clean-up a snap. Just pull it out and throw it away.
With fermenters that cheap, you could afford to have a bunch a brew everyday instead of every 3rd day or so.
- Has anyone used a dudadiesel plate chiller? The price looks great. This one (B3-36A 60) can cool 50 gallons in 10 minutes and it is only $275: It uses 19 gallons of tap water to cool 10 gallons of wort, so about 70 gallons of tap water to cool a barrel of wort.
http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=HX3660
They say any of their chillers can be used to chill wort:
http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=+beer++wort++chiller&i=beerchillers
- Why do most breweries not brew every day. Is it just that the fermenters cost too much?
- Is the fermentation room still working for you, or are having to actively cool your 3bbl fermenters?
- Do you cold crash your beer to maintain consistency? If so, in the fermenters, or after you have the beer in bottles.
Sorry for all the questions, but thinking about doing a nano is a fascinating process with way more questions than answers.
