Small Scale BIAB

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Pivovar

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Afternoon ..

I was just wondering .. as you do, when you are meant to be working .

I have a 15L Burco Boiler.

Would it be possible to use this to produce a Brew In a Bag beer? or is there just not enough volume there to make it worthwhile?

Thanks In Advance

Nick
 
I'm sure you could boil at least 10l in there. Or you could do what many others have done and make it extra strong then liquor back in the FV. If you make 10l @ OG 1060 you can add 5l of water to get 15l @ OG 1040. There is a name for this but I can't remember it:doh:
 
Perfectly feasible, I made 4 batches in a 10 L stock pot before buying my grainfather.

With 15L capacity you could comfortably make 10L batches, I made 8L in my pan but had to split the wort between 2 pans and top up the main one during the boil.

I cooled in a bath of cold water, you'd probably be best making an immersion chiller from some copper pipe, or going no chill like some others.

Any more questions?
 
BTW if you're using the boiler as a mash tun you can add a sparging stage. That way when the grain is removed you can add more volume to the boil as sparged liquor. It also improves efficiency, especially with MAXI BIAB. That's it. I remembered! That's where you liquor back later and it can be less efficient.
Good. That could have plagued me for 5 minutes or until I'd forgot about it.
 
YES!! go for it.. 1st ag brew is always a lil nerve wreaking, get it over n done with, ;) fwiw i think the brewing gods always smile down on first brews ;)
 
No problem. I have a 15L pot and do up to 23L, provided the OG is lowish. I basically make a concentrated wort (kind of like a kit but not as concentrated) and dilute in the FV. It's called Maxi - BIAB
 
Ah! Brilliant! Thats encouraging! I'd better start planning and get onto the Malt Miller!

IF I buy a preppared recipe... can I just break down a 20L kit in half and make two separate brews? Is there anything I need to be aware of? Thanks !
 
I do AG BIAB with a 15L pot, starting off with just over 11 litres. Only get about 8 litres out of it in the end but that's enough for me. For now! I use beersmith so use that to scale any recipes. Works a treat.
 
Ah! Brilliant! Thats encouraging! I'd better start planning and get onto the Malt Miller!

IF I buy a preppared recipe... can I just break down a 20L kit in half and make two separate brews? Is there anything I need to be aware of? Thanks !

Just give the full bag of grains a good mix up to get approx. the same proportion of grains in each half. Like in the breakfast cereals - "some settling of contents is inevitable". :whistle:
 
Ah! Brilliant! Thats encouraging! I'd better start planning and get onto the Malt Miller!

IF I buy a preppared recipe... can I just break down a 20L kit in half and make two separate brews? Is there anything I need to be aware of? Thanks !
Why not keep it REALLY simple and just buy 2kg of Maris otter and a 100gms of EKG and away you go. Obviously for BIAB you will need a bag, thermometer, and a sieve / colander (for sparging to get up to about 14L) I heat water in a domestic kettle with a thermometer in it and when it reaches 70 degrees away you go, pour it gently over your grain bag which is in your sieve.
 
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Some brilliant advice here! Thanks chaps!

Going to take it all onboard and give a simple recipe a go !

Nick
 
Excellent. Give it a go. I posted my brewday on the forum today for the first time in years. The way I do it is a little unconventional but the steps are the same as a BIAB with a sparge stage. I got 23.5l from my 32l stockpot heated on the stove so you never know, some of it may be relevant.
 
What would you say is the biggest volume you can do on a kitchen gas hob? Want to buy a pot but worried I will want a bigger one as soon as I do!
 
What would you say is the biggest volume you can do on a kitchen gas hob? Want to buy a pot but worried I will want a bigger one as soon as I do!

I depends on the gas ring of course. The biggest ring on my hob is 10cm across and I used to have an 18.5L (I do maxi -biab so could do full 23L brews using this pot) pot which it could get a good boil with. I'm not sure it would be able to handle anything bigger though
 
Cheers for that. I'm thinking I should maybe get a 30l pot and hopefully that would cover my options pretty well. Couldn't see your post you mentioned unfortunately. Thanks for the advice, this forum is a goldmine but it's hard to know what's best for an individual isn't it
 
before I went over to a ace microbrewery
I had a 50lt pot on my gas cooker and got a good rolling boil with it
 
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