Thinkjng of downsizing from 3v to BIAB, any downsides?

[Scout]

Currently i have an electric HERMS 3v setup. I've brewed maybe 3 batches in the 6 or so years I've owned it. (10 gallon batches) I really don't drink that much, and don't like spending all day on it. What would be the downsides to selling it and moving to a 5 gallon BIAB setup?

 

[Bassman2003]

It depends on how far you push your 3 vessel system. If you enjoy very specific things about a three vessel setup like very clear wort at every stage or more control over little things, then it might bug you to go to a simpler system. Convenience is always at a cost but only if you brew utilizing the things that are compromised.

I have an Anvil Foundry and have gravitated to using it with an HLT and a separate boil kettle. For me, I needed more than just the one vessel. For others' that might not matter. I do not think beer quality is that much in the conversation unless you want to implement low oxygen hot side practices. Then it is multi-vessel all the way.

 

[shoengine]

Yeah, a lot less cleaning.

Oh, you don't like cleaning? Never mind.

 

[doug293cz]

You can't do a proper fly sparge with BIAB, but you can batch sparge using a plastic bucket. Just put the drained bag in the bucket, add the sparge water (even cold water works fine), stir well, lift and drain the bag, and add the sparged wort back into the primary vessel. Also, as mentioned previously, full hot-side LoDO practices cannot be done with BIAB.

Other than that, you can do pretty much everything with BIAB that you can do with 3 vessel.

Brew on

 

[bruce_the_loon]

There's the lack of coolness factor that a 3 vessel system can bring. Less ooohs and aaaahs with one vessel with a bag in it.

Other than that, it works nicely.

 

[SFC Rudy]

The only issue I had when I went from a 3 vessel to an AIO (BIAB in a malt pipe) was the loss in efficiency. You can ignore it, add more grain or sparge.

Myself I bought a second AIO, I use two Mash & Boil units, mash in one and sparge in the other. Works for me.

 

[odie]

You can't do a proper fly sparge with BIAB,

? really? I do a pretty good fly sparge with my BIAB set up.

 

[doug293cz]

? really? I do a pretty good fly sparge with my BIAB set up.

How? With a pour over sparge you cannot guarantee that the sparge water uniformly rinses the spent grains. How can you keep a liquid layer above the grain bed, when you can't control the drain rate?

Brew on

 

[hottpeper13]

I have both systems and use the BIAB for 5 gal batches. I got a bag for the MT so I could use the same grind on the grains. I don't know why but the same recipes from the 3 v system made on the 1v need more hops for the same ibu's. I use the HLT so I can do a step mash by adding boiling liquor to a mash that starts with a 1:1 qt/lb ratio.

 

[mnbrewr]

I moved from a 3V Blichmann top tier setup to an eBIAB system and have no regrets. It knocked about 3-4 hours off my brew day (much of it in setup/takedown/cleaning). The big tradeoff is efficiency as others mentioned but there's steps you can take to minimize that. I've been asking myself more and more "what is my time worth?" (not just with brewing, but many things) so this was a worthwhile change for me.

 

[odie]

How? With a pour over sparge you cannot guarantee that the sparge water uniformly rinses the spent grains. How can you keep a liquid layer above the grain bed, when you can't control the drain rate?

Brew on

you don't pour directly into the grain bed. that will just tunnel thru.

I have a diffuser plate of sorts...distributes the sparge water evenly over the top of the grain bed. I use the same plate during the mash for recirc. You can also use a hose sprayer set on mist or similar wide pattern and manually work the top of the grain bed for uniform sparging.

It's not about a liquid layer on top, it's about getting sparge water evenly distributed over the grain bed...whatever your method is to achieve that.

 

[doug293cz]

you don't pour directly into the grain bed. that will just tunnel thru.

I have a diffuser plate of sorts...distributes the sparge water evenly over the top of the grain bed. I use the same plate during the mash for recirc. You can also use a hose sprayer set on mist or similar wide pattern and manually work the top of the grain bed for uniform sparging.

It's not about a liquid layer on top, it's about getting sparge water evenly distributed over the grain bed...whatever your method is to achieve that.

If you have a liquid layer on top, and a controlled slow drain rate, you can insure that you are not running water thru the bed too fast, and chances for channeling are minimized. If you don't have control of the drain rate, then the water can run thru the grain bed at its maximum speed, and even if you disperse the water evenly over the top of the grain bed, you can still get channeling deeper in the bed.

The primary reason you want a slow flow of sparge water thru the bed is you are depending on diffusion to mix the sparge water with the more concentrated wort clinging to the grits. Flow too fast, and you don't get as much diffusional mixing, and your lauter efficiency takes a small hit. To contrast, with batch sparging you use stirring to mix the sparge water with the retained wort, and the shearing action does the heavy lifting of mixing rather than diffusion.

Using a misting sprayer to distribute sparge water would be a big no-no for LoDO brewing, as a mist can pick up O2 much faster than a solid stream (huge difference in surface area to volume ratio.)

Brew on

 

[odie]

no LoDO for me ...

 

[doug293cz]

no LoDO for me ...

That's OK, I don't do hot side LoDO yet either. The LoDO comment was just for completeness.

Brew on

 

[Bobby_M]

Currently i have an electric HERMS 3v setup. I've brewed maybe 3 batches in the 6 or so years I've owned it. (10 gallon batches) I really don't drink that much, and don't like spending all day on it. What would be the downsides to selling it and moving to a 5 gallon BIAB setup?

Switching FROM a system you don't use to one that you will use is 100% upside if you actually want to stay engaged in the hobby.

If you want to brew more often and not have so much beer to drink through, scale down to 2.5 gallon batches for a case of beer at a time. A great option for that batch size is the Anvil Foundry 6.5. If you have a 240v outlet, you can get a brew day done in 3.5 hours all in. The required skill to not be frustrated with a system like this is to take all your favorite recipes and ones you find online and make sure you scale them to deal with 65% brewhouse efficiency. If you do that straight out of the gate, there won't be any shock and awe about missing numbers.

 

[madscientist451]

Currently i have an electric HERMS 3v setup. I've brewed maybe 3 batches in the 6 or so years I've owned it. (10 gallon batches) I really don't drink that much, and don't like spending all day on it. What would be the downsides to selling it and moving to a 5 gallon BIAB setup?

If you don’t drink that much perhaps consider a 120v 4 gallon electric. Make 2.5 -3 gallon batches. Put the grain in with the proper temp strike water, wrap it up in a cold coat, and go do something else for a hour or so. Just go for it; easy brew day, simple clean up. I used to do fussy fly sparing and all that, going BIAB the beer is just as good.

 

[Pennine]

If you don’t drink that much perhaps consider a 120v 4 gallon electric. Make 2.5 -3 gallon batches. Put the grain in with the proper temp strike water, wrap it up in a cold coat, and go do something else for a hour or so. Just go for it; easy brew day, simple clean up. I used to do fussy fly sparing and all that, going BIAB the beer is just as good.

Does this actually exist?

 

[madscientist451]

Does this actually exist?

https://homebrewing.org/products/gi...M9N6MsT6kzv_IRkPPb-6N8RAeG2nTxxQaAs9PEALw_wcB

 

[crazyjake19]

Nothing wrong with that at all. I've been brewing single-vessel BIAB since day one and have no plans to change.

The only "downside" I see is not being able to do back-to-back batches as quickly but it doesn't sound like that's something you're concerned with, nor would I ever be. One 3-4 hour brew is enough for one day for me.

 

[kohalajohn]

Different things for different folks.

I think you would enjoy biab. You don't like spending all day on it, which is what three vessel is.

I started with three vessel. am now coming back to the hobby. buying all new equipment. I went biab and it's the right choice for me.

Add a dollar's worth of grain to account for the slight drop in efficiency from the loss of fly sparging and save a few hours in your day.

Later on you can figure out how to sparge onto a biab if you wish. you may just never bother.

You said you don't drink much. Great. Get a small 35 liter one ,Anvil, Brewzilla whatever. 220v if you can. I make four gallon batches, small enough so corny kegs do my fermenting as well as packaging.


And you avator indicates you are the gender with the high intelligence and the poor upper body strength so you'll like the easy lifting of small batches.

 

[kohalajohn]

Switching FROM a system you don't use to one that you will use is 100% upside if you actually want to stay engaged in the hobby.

If you want to brew more often and not have so much beer to drink through, scale down to 2.5 gallon batches for a case of beer at a time. A great option for that batch size is the Anvil Foundry 6.5. If you have a 240v outlet, you can get a brew day done in 3.5 hours all in. The required skill to not be frustrated with a system like this is to take all your favorite recipes and ones you find online and make sure you scale them to deal with 65% brewhouse efficiency. If you do that straight out of the gate, there won't be any shock and awe about missing numbers.

I would like to learn more about scaling down. Currently I am doing full volume, no sparge. I imagine that the main grain item is the one that is increased.

Can you direct me to the brewing software to calculate this. thx

 

[Bobby_M]

I would like to learn more about scaling down. Currently I am doing full volume, no sparge. I imagine that the main grain item is the one that is increased.

Can you direct me to the brewing software to calculate this. thx

I'm pretty confident that all the brewing software has the concept of equipment profile and batch size scaling. The popular and still growing favorite seems to be BrewFather.

The equipment profile is basically batch size, vessel size, extraction efficiency, losses...

So, if you have a profile set for a 5 gallon batch, you can have another one for a 2.5 gallon batch and it makes it easy to scale a recipe back and forth.

The most important thing to understand is that when you find a recipe "out in the wild", which is any recipe that you didn't create yourself, you have to shoehorn it into your profile to be able to successfully brew it as intended. Think of a brewing recipe as an appointment (a location and time) but without turn by turn instructions. No one tells you what time you have to leave your house to arrive on time.

My analogies have been stinking lately but the point is, a recipe is:

An original gravity (The recipe doesn't know your system efficiency)
...achieved with a proportional grain bill (each grain type listed by a percentage of the total amount)
...mashed at an approximate temp range to yield the appropriate level of fermentability
...hopped to a certain IBU (It doesn't know the alpha acids of the pack in your hand)
...flavored with a certain hop ratio
...fermented with a yeast strain


Software like Brewfather supports what I'd consider the "best practice" for adopting a recipe as your own.
1. Load your equipment profile
2. Enter your grain bill - just find the grain types and add them to the list just entering each as 1 pound or KG or whatever.
3. Click on % and set each of the grains by the recipe's prescribed portions. (e.g. pale malt 87%, carapils 3%, etc)
4. Click OG and enter the recipe's prescribed original gravity.
5. Enter the hop schedule similarly to the grains... enter the hop types but put in the actual alpha acids on the packs you have.
6. Click the IBU button and enter the recipe's prescribed IBUs and click SCALE. This part requires a little tweaking. For the most part, I scale any hop additions between 60 minutes and 15 minutes. Anything later than 15 minutes, I usually keep the recipe's ounces/gal or grams/liter the same. If it over or under bitters, I'll compensate by adjusting the 60 minute addition amount.

This was a lot to write out, but I'm going through the mental hoops because I'm doing a talk on this at my next club meeting so I needed the practice anyway.

 

[kohalajohn]

I'm pretty confident that all the brewing software has the concept of equipment profile and batch size scaling. The popular and still growing favorite seems to be BrewFather.

The equipment profile is basically batch size, vessel size, extraction efficiency, losses...

So, if you have a profile set for a 5 gallon batch, you can have another one for a 2.5 gallon batch and it makes it easy to scale a recipe back and forth.

The most important thing to understand is that when you find a recipe "out in the wild", which is any recipe that you didn't create yourself, you have to shoehorn it into your profile to be able to successfully brew it as intended. Think of a brewing recipe as an appointment (a location and time) but without turn by turn instructions. No one tells you what time you have to leave your house to arrive on time.

My analogies have been stinking lately but the point is, a recipe is:

An original gravity (The recipe doesn't know your system efficiency)
...achieved with a proportional grain bill (each grain type listed by a percentage of the total amount)
...mashed at an approximate temp range to yield the appropriate level of fermentability
...hopped to a certain IBU (It doesn't know the alpha acids of the pack in your hand)
...flavored with a certain hop ratio
...fermented with a yeast strain


Software like Brewfather supports what I'd consider the "best practice" for adopting a recipe as your own.
1. Load your equipment profile
2. Enter your grain bill - just find the grain types and add them to the list just entering each as 1 pound or KG or whatever.
3. Click on % and set each of the grains by the recipe's prescribed portions. (e.g. pale malt 87%, carapils 3%, etc)
4. Click OG and enter the recipe's prescribed original gravity.
5. Enter the hop schedule similarly to the grains... enter the hop types but put in the actual alpha acids on the packs you have.
6. Click the IBU button and enter the recipe's prescribed IBUs and click SCALE. This part requires a little tweaking. For the most part, I scale any hop additions between 60 minutes and 15 minutes. Anything later than 15 minutes, I usually keep the recipe's ounces/gal or grams/liter the same. If it over or under bitters, I'll compensate by adjusting the 60 minute addition amount.

This was a lot to write out, but I'm going through the mental hoops because I'm doing a talk on this at my next club meeting so I needed the practice anyway.

Thanks. Helpful

 

[FloppyKnockers]

If you love cleaning, you're gonna be pretty disappointed.