Electric BIAB upgrade

[HGJacko]

Now then brewers,

Hope you're all well.

Just looking for some help with upgrading my electric BIAB system...

I currently use a 30L electric kettle for my mash/boil, 1 x 20L cooler to hold sparge water, 1 x 25L plastic fermenting bucket. With this system, I'm currently making decent beers at around 75% efficiency which seems good for BIAB systems.

The goals for the upgrade would be to:

1. Have better temp. control - electric kettle seems to be hotter at the bottom (near heating element) and 3-4 degrees C cooler at the top.
2. Potentially try to mash separately in a mash tun
3. Make some more complex beers - using dry hopping (I was left with a lot of sediment in an IPA I tried with secondary hop additions)

If anyone has managed to successfully upgrade from BIAB, or if you have any ideas of equipment upgrades that would be great. Looking at spending around £100-200.

Cheers

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

If you do (2) you might also solve (1)?

I use a pump and recirculate the wort to even out the temperature. I also insert a plate chiller in the circuit to chill the wort down when done, and to create a whirlpool effect for hopstand/whirlpool. I have a mash on at the moment so I can show you the first bit...

A bit of sediment is no problem in a keg so I’m guessing you bottle. You can reduce sediment by cold-crashing the beer in a secondary fermenter or buy a keg/pressure barrel to condition your beer and bottle from that. Mind you, if you do this it will not be long before you stop bottling and buy more kegs!

 

[Galena]

I BIAB with a 30L Klarstein Fullhorn, over time I have got my mash efficiency up to between 77-80%
Circulating the mash I think goes a long way towards this, I don't have a pump (though may upgrade to one. As you say there is a big temperature difference between top and bottom but I recirculate with a jug and have a probe in the top and keep going until it equalises, then I monitor it and keep recirculating and stirring now and again.
I sparge the same as yourself.
I think a good pump like a Blichmann Riptide would be within your budget.

I have been considering upgarding to an all-in-one but not sure I can justify the additional cost, sometimes I find 30 litres (to the brim) is not quite enough volume for some brews, I would quite like a bigger version of what I have but can't seem to find a 45 or 50 litre kettle with good temperature control.

 

[HGJacko]

If you do (2) you might also solve (1)?

I use a pump and recirculate the wort to even out the temperature. I also insert a plate chiller in the circuit to chill the wort down when done, and to create a whirlpool effect for hopstand/whirlpool. I have a mash on at the moment so I can show you the first bit...

View attachment 43614View attachment 43615
A bit of sediment is no problem in a keg so I’m guessing you bottle. You can reduce sediment by cold-crashing the beer in a secondary fermenter or buy a keg/pressure barrel to condition your beer and bottle from that. Mind you, if you do this it will not be long before you stop bottling and buy more kegs!

Your setup looks really smart!

The pump looks like it works great - does it keep the temperature equal throughout the column of the kettle well? The plate on top looks handy too, great for hopstand. Do you use the pump and whirlpool effect when mashing?

I think I am leaning towards a pump to be honest, if it works as well as it does for others it would be a no brainer for temp. control.

Kegging is definitely something I want to do but we are pretty happy bottling for the time being. I think once I have refined our system a bit more and I know we can make really decent beers I'll look at investing in kegs!

Cheers for your help, hope the brew went well today. What beer did you brew? We managed a 4.9% extra Pale Ale this afternoon!

 

[HGJacko]

I BIAB with a 30L Klarstein Fullhorn, over time I have got my mash efficiency up to between 77-80%
Circulating the mash I think goes a long way towards this, I don't have a pump (though may upgrade to one. As you say there is a big temperature difference between top and bottom but I recirculate with a jug and have a probe in the top and keep going until it equalises, then I monitor it and keep recirculating and stirring now and again.
I sparge the same as yourself.
I think a good pump like a Blichmann Riptide would be within your budget.

I have been considering upgarding to an all-in-one but not sure I can justify the additional cost, sometimes I find 30 litres (to the brim) is not quite enough volume for some brews, I would quite like a bigger version of what I have but can't seem to find a 45 or 50 litre kettle with good temperature control.

Looks like we have pretty similar set ups. How is the klarstein fullhorn for you? I've seen it has good reviews. Ours is a OneConcept 30L electric kettle with a fitted bazooka filter. Only problem we have is the temperature control - thermostat isn't too accurate so it can be a pain keeping the mash at a constant temperature.

Like you said a decent pump would be a great investment, thanks for that. Will have a look at the Blichmann Riptide you recommended.

I have the same problem as yourself. 5gal/23L brews are a bit of a push for us as when boiling the wort it can easily boil over. I often end up in a trade off between less beer ( ), or topping up with water throughout the boil to compensate for evaporation and risking a lower OG. I'll have a look at some larger electric kettles - this seems the best way as the old 30L could be used as a water heater for sparging, and the new larger kettle for mashing/boiling? The all in one systems are expensive you're right, especially when you can get as good efficiency with your system. Just finding what you need is a pain!

Cheers

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Your setup looks really smart!

The pump looks like it works great - does it keep the temperature equal throughout the column of the kettle well? The plate on top looks handy too, great for hopstand. Do you use the pump and whirlpool effect when mashing?

I think I am leaning towards a pump to be honest, if it works as well as it does for others it would be a no brainer for temp. control.

Kegging is definitely something I want to do but we are pretty happy bottling for the time being. I think once I have refined our system a bit more and I know we can make really decent beers I'll look at investing in kegs!

Cheers for your help, hope the brew went well today. What beer did you brew? We managed a 4.9% extra Pale Ale this afternoon!

Yes, the pump is great. Now you ask, I’ve actually never checked the temperature through the grain bed! I’ll need to check and get back to you, I have another brew planned for tomorrow. I do expect the temperature to be consistent because the recirculation is constant throughout the mash.

The pump and spray are running all through the mash, yes.

I don’t use the spray during the whirlpool/hopstand. For that I just put the hose from the pump in the top of the boiler on full bore.

Today was my Summer Breeze ale (5.25%), this is it in the sun on Friday. Tomorrow is a brown ale.

 

[HGJacko]

Yes, the pump is great. Now you ask, I’ve actually never checked the temperature through the grain bed! I’ll need to check and get back to you, I have another brew planned for tomorrow. I do expect the temperature to be consistent because the recirculation is constant throughout the mash.

The pump and spray are running all through the mash, yes.

I don’t use the spray during the whirlpool/hopstand. For that I just put the hose from the pump in the top of the boiler on full bore.

Today was my Summer Breeze ale (5.25%), this is it in the sun on Friday. Tomorrow is a brown ale.

View attachment 43717

Top stuff. I can't imagine there would be much/if any difference in temperature through the grain bed to be honest! I reckon a decent pump would be the way forward for my system.

Summer breeze looks spot on, is it your own recipe? Do you keg yours? The head on it looks great!

 

[Galena]

How is the klarstein fullhorn for you? I've seen it has good reviews. Ours is a OneConcept 30L electric kettle with a fitted bazooka filter. Only problem we have is the temperature control - thermostat isn't too accurate so it can be a pain keeping the mash at a constant temperature.

Like you said a decent pump would be a great investment, thanks for that. Will have a look at the Blichmann Riptide you recommended.

I have the same problem as yourself. 5gal/23L brews are a bit of a push for us as when boiling the wort it can easily boil over. I often end up in a trade off between less beer ( ), or topping up with water throughout the boil to compensate for evaporation and risking a lower OG. I'll have a look at some larger electric kettles - this seems the best way as the old 30L could be used as a water heater for sparging, and the new larger kettle for mashing/boiling? The all in one systems are expensive you're right, especially when you can get as good efficiency with your system. Just finding what you need is a pain!

Cheers

I removed the bazooka filter and don't use it anymore, I chuck the hop pellets straight in and then filter with a aldi veg bag when decanting to the FV, that works pretty well.
The Fullhorn is not that accurate either but I monitor with a very accurate probe thermometer at the top and recirculate until it all equals out.
I agree that a larger kettle would be better value than an all in one I think, let me know if you find anything and I will carry on searching as well.
The Blichmann puimp is expensive but gets great reviews but Angel Homebrew something that looks similar but much much cheaper, not sure how it really compares though.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Top stuff. I can't imagine there would be much/if any difference in temperature through the grain bed to be honest! I reckon a decent pump would be the way forward for my system.

Summer breeze looks spot on, is it your own recipe? Do you keg yours? The head on it looks great!

Yes, it’s my signature ale. This pint was poured from a corny keg but it’s just the same from a pressure barrel. The head is the result of carbonation and a little torrified wheat in the mash. Torrified wheat is good for head retention (2%-3%).

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Top stuff. I can't imagine there would be much/if any difference in temperature through the grain bed to be honest! I reckon a decent pump would be the way forward for my system.

Summer breeze looks spot on, is it your own recipe? Do you keg yours? The head on it looks great!

I can now confirm temperature is consistent through the grain bed. I measured at the surface, at the base, and at 1” increments.

 

[HGJacko]

I removed the bazooka filter and don't use it anymore, I chuck the hop pellets straight in and then filter with a aldi veg bag when decanting to the FV, that works pretty well.
The Fullhorn is not that accurate either but I monitor with a very accurate probe thermometer at the top and recirculate until it all equals out.
I agree that a larger kettle would be better value than an all in one I think, let me know if you find anything and I will carry on searching as well.
The Blichmann puimp is expensive but gets great reviews but Angel Homebrew something that looks similar but much much cheaper, not sure how it really compares though.

Great idea with veg bag. We got a 35cm hop spider which sits really nicely over the side of our kettle through the boil. Worth a look if you're wanting a change, but sounds like the aldi veg bag works a treat.

Yeah sure I will keep looking too and let you know of any updates.

 

[HGJacko]

I can now confirm temperature is consistent through the grain bed. I measured at the surface, at the base, and at 1” increments.

Great stuff cheers, I thought it would. Have a good brew day.

Just another thing to ask whilst I remember. When making your own recipe, is there any particular method/formula you follow to finalise quantities of grain, hops etc? I have made a couple of my own before which have turned out quite well, but to be honest they have been largely a fluke as I have just followed past recipe quantities!

Cheers

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Just another thing to ask whilst I remember. When making your own recipe, is there any particular method/formula you follow to finalise quantities of grain, hops etc?

Absolutely. There are on-line recipe builders that can do all this for you but I’m happy to talk you through doing it all manually if you’re interested. You can calculate pretty much everything from grain bill to colour to bitterness. First though you need to understand your efficiency and losses because these affect the numbers.

If you don’t know these, start by measuring some things with your next brew:

• You need to know how much water you start your mash with, how much water you add during the sparge, and how much wort you have at the end of the mash (the rest has been absorbed by the grain).
• You need to know how much wort goes into your fermenter (you already measured your pre-boil volume, what’s missing has been boiled off or has been left behind in that sludge at the bottom of your kettle).
• You need to know your grain bill for the brew and the OG of the wort that went into your fermenter. We can use these, together with the volumes above to work out your efficiency.

 

[HGJacko]

Brilliant. Thank you very much - I will look at getting a smaller brew on this weekend and have a go at noting these numbers down and get back to you. It would be good to get my head round it all.

Thanks for your help. Hope the brown ale has come out well!

 

[AdeDunn]

My previous setup was a DIY eBIAB setup. To be honest, the biggest PITA was building the controller, it ended up rather large and cumbersome, and was a nuisance to use because of this.



With a PSU for my pump, power cable, power out cable and the temp probe cable, there were just so many trailing cables.... So yeah, you might want to go for something simpler and smaller.... lol Had I of been able to have a permanent brewing space, with the controller mounted on a wall or something, I might very well still be using it now, maybe just upgrading my stockpot to a larger one, when you are doing BIAB it really is a case of the bigger the better, 30 litres is JUST big enough IMHO.

2 other tips I'll give, get a decent bag, one without too fine a weave. Too fine a bag will reduce flow when recirculating and really reduce the efficacy of your pump. I ended up with one of the ones with the coarser bottom than sides (I think Richies make them?). The other tip, fit some pip lagging to your hoses, as well as insulating your vessel (copper/kettle/boiler or whatever other name you want to call it). Stable temps AND less power used. Oh yeah, and don't use taps like the one I used on the lid end of things on mine. It was all one part, so didn't come apart for cleaning. You want at least a 2 part tap so that you can take it apart to get inside and give it a really good clean every now and then.



Others have covered everything else I should think, especially the figuring out boil off etc, if you use brewing software it will ask you to build a profile using these, and will use this when you construct future recipes. Really helps you to nail down consistency between your brews, and also helps you to reach your target brewhouse efficiency.

Oh yeah, and be careful going to the brim during the mash with biab and some bags, they can be pigs for wicking once you put the lid on if the liquid level is very close to the lid..... Drip, drip, drip, drip... lol

 

[HGJacko]

Absolutely. There are on-line recipe builders that can do all this for you but I’m happy to talk you through doing it all manually if you’re interested. You can calculate pretty much everything from grain bill to colour to bitterness. First though you need to understand your efficiency and losses because these affect the numbers.

If you don’t know these, start by measuring some things with your next brew:

• You need to know how much water you start your mash with, how much water you add during the sparge, and how much wort you have at the end of the mash (the rest has been absorbed by the grain).
• You need to know how much wort goes into your fermenter (you already measured your pre-boil volume, what’s missing has been boiled off or has been left behind in that sludge at the bottom of your kettle).
• You need to know your grain bill for the brew and the OG of the wort that went into your fermenter. We can use these, together with the volumes above to work out your efficiency.

Hi mate,

Sorry its been a while - I have had a few system upgrades I have been doing the last couple of months.

I put a mosaic/cascade based IPA on today using mainly marris otter, vienna and cara malt. I recorded all the numbers from your previous message...

1. Started mash with 14L of water @ 67C
2. Added 20L of sparge water - I fly sparge into my mash tun so I am unsure on the amount of wort post-mash/pre-sparge! If this is a problem I can try a different approach to get this number to you.
3. Total wort into boil kettle was 23L
4. Wort to fermenter was 17L after 70min boil (as per recipe)
5. Total grain bill = 5.438kg - 4.31kg Marris Otter, 0.94kg Vienna, 0.188kg Cara
6. Target OG was 1055 - my OG was ~1054 (see pic). Albeit the recipe is for 19-23L. I usually make less due to my kettle size. I tend not to top up with boiling water during the boil as it threw OG off pretty wildly last time.

Let me know if there's anything else we need to calculate efficiency and get kickstarted on making my own recipes!

Cheers

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Efficiency is a measure of how much sugar you’ve extracted from the grain so we need to determine how much sugar could be extracted.

There are tables available that tell you how much sugar can be extracted from each grain. Here’s a link to one of these tables...

http://www.brewunited.com/grain_database.php
If you open the table you’ll see various grains listed down the left column and that there’s a column headed “Potential”. It’s this column we’re interested in. There are a couple of Maris Otter values listed for Muntons and for Crisp and they have potential of 1.036 and 1.038 respectively. You haven’t stated which Maris Otter you’re using so I’ll pick 1.037 as being in the middle. These numbers incidentally are compiled from the grain suppliers so I got the value from Simpsons for my Simpsons Maris Otter (1.037).

Anyway, this “potential” number is the maximum potential gravity reading you can get if you mash 1 pound of grain in 1 US gallon of water. The numbers we need for your brew (I’ve just made some assumptions about which grain you’ve used for this explanation) are...

Maris Otter: 1.037
Vienna: 1.036
Cara: 1.034

Next, you need to know how many gravity points you could possibly get from each of these grains in your fermenter. You use litres and Kg, the tables use pounds and US gallons so we’ll need to do a little conversion:

4.31Kg (Maris Otter) is 9.50 lbs
0.94Kg (Vienna) is 2.07 lbs
0.188 (Cara) is 0.41 lbs

17l (in your fermenter) is 4.49 US gallons

Now we need to use these numbers to work out the extract potential from each grain. We just use the gravity points in these calculations so for Maris Otter we use the 37 points, for Vienna the 36 points, and for Cara the 34 points.

The formula is points x lbs / US gallons

Maris Otter = 37 x 9.5 / 4.49 = 78.3
Vienna = 36 x 2.07 / 4.49 = 16.6
Cara = 34 x 0.41 / 4.49 = 3.1

Adding these together gives us

78.3 + 16.6 + 3.1 = 98

The maximum possible gravity reading in your fermenter with no losses and 100% conversion would be 1.098

Your OG is 1.054 so your brew house efficiency is

54 / 98 = 55%

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

If you’re not concerned about 55% efficiency we can move on. If you want to improve your efficiency there are things you can do. Some immediate observations:

Your mash is quite thick, you could use more water in the mash and less for the sparge.

The volume of mash + sparge water is 34 litres but you only get 23 litres into your kettle. You can work on absorption by the grain being 1 litre of water per Kg of grain (it’s actually a little less in my experience), this might account for 5 litres but there’s still a big gap. Are you leaving this behind in your mash tun? Most people find a way to tip the mash tun and/or gently press the grain bed to extract more wort.

You lose another 6 litres in the boil kettle so you could try a less vigorous boil (a rolling boil is good enough), a shorter boil (45-60 mins?), and maybe leaving less wort behind in the boil kettle. Leave the cooled wort to settle for a while maybe so the sludge is more compacted in the bottom.

There are other considerations but these might be a good start.

 

[crowcrow]

Another vote for the Klarstein - less than 200quid and all I need in addition to it is something to heat 5 litres of sprage water in.

I wrap mine in a camping mat and then a towel around it too and another towel on the lid - holds the temp really well - even when brewing outside.

 

[Galena]

Another vote for the Klarstein - less than 200quid and all I need in addition to it is something to heat 5 litres of sprage water in.

Yes, I could do with another cheap water heater, but I always need more than 5 litres, more like 18 litres for a 21 litre batch with total water of 29 to 30 litres. What I do at the moment is one of 2 methods:
1) Heat the Total Water to 85 or 90C then decant off the sparge water to an insulated plastic drinks chiller (like SOME people mash with) then chill the mash water back down to mash temperature.
2) Heat the sparge water to 85-90C, decant off as above, then add and heat the mash water to mash temperature.

I think I want a Burco or similar but they are quite pricey.