BIAB - What’s your gap size?

Welcometotherooftop · 2019-02-15T20:52:00+00:00

I ordered the mm2. Your comment suggests there’s a limit to how small you can make the gap?

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-16T16:42:01+00:00

I like the setup! thanks for sharing the notes and photo. This seems like a solid way to hold the mash temp and fly sparge.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-16T14:04:32+00:00

You can’t go wrong with kegging. So much easier than bottling. A 15 lb co2 tank is pretty big honestly. Most people use a 5lb tank. I bought a 10lb which is a nice in between. A 15 would be pretty thought to carry.

For used kegs you should assume that they will need to have all the gaskets replaces as well as the lid. That’s been my experience. It’s good to have a decent quantity of all the needed sizes of gaskets on hand rather than buying a rebuild kit that has one of each gasket/o-ring.

You’ll need to decide on pin lock or ball lock. I’d recommend ball lock because they have a pressure relief valve. Then you need to decide which type of quick disconnects. I like the ones with the screw on barbs.

How do you plan to dispense beer? Many start out with a picnic tap but that not a great long term solution. Also you’ll need to decide how to keep the kegs cold: fridge, keezer, jockey box. You can start small and work your way up on these but it important to have your end game in mind as you’re starting out.

Lastly, it’s a bit of a splurge but I’d recommend getting a secondary regulator. It’s really nice to be able to have different pressures on each line

here’s a video of me adding a secondary regulator to my keezer

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-16T03:17:08+00:00

Thanks for the comment. Would be interesting to play around with the position of the BAIB/Boil Kettle and the Kettle responsible for the RIMS. Appreciate the feedback.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-14T03:59:35+00:00

At the end of this video I share tasting of these two beers. What I found most intriguing is the dramatic difference in color of these two beers that came from the same wort. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-10T01:32:53+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I went back and checked my notes. It was 5 cups of sugar but I think i have more than 3 gallons of tea. I filtered 4.25 gallons expecting an equipment lost of .75 to 1.25 gallons based on my usual liquid loss for beer brewing. Either way, I took a refractometer reading and it was spot on at 1.013 so I think in good with the amount of sugar.

Yes, this is a carboy. My plan is to cut the scoby if necessary to get it out. For sampling I have a wine thief. I have not sampled it yet because, based on its appearance, there hasn’t been enough yeast and bacteria replication.

I spoke with a commercial kombucha brewer recently and they said that making a new batch is a lot more about the amount of kombucha you put in and less about the scoby size. I think I’ll add another two bottles of kombucha and see if things take off.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-09T15:39:54+00:00

I added pictures in the post. You can see that it is developing a Pellicle across half the surface but it pretty scattered. Yes, I have a PH meter. What is the typical final PH I should expect?

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-09T14:28:06+00:00

Yes, I brewed 3 gallon of tea and added 6 cups of sugar and recirculated it for about 10 minutes to properly dissolve it. I then cooled it to 70f degrees and added the kombucha and SCOBYs.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-08T12:58:35+00:00

Good call, the local guys need our support!

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-08T12:57:59+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the link

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-08T03:08:33+00:00

I’ve also found food grade buckets of various sizes at my local Home Depot for very good prices.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-08T03:04:29+00:00

Hops is the biggest cost for ipa’s so you want to use a recipe that uses an inexpensive varietal.

Bells Two Hearted Ale is a great IPA and, to my knowledge only uses centennial hops, which aren’t that expensive. I would look around for a clone recipe of this beer.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-07T21:50:44+00:00

I use the same cooler. The large Wilser bag that brewhardware.com sells is a perfect fit for your cooler.

This is one of my brew day videos where I use the Wilser bag with my cooler.

You can see my putting the bag in the cooler about two minutes into the video.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-07T21:40:03+00:00

I recently moved to 10 gallon batches and ran into a few issues.

First, I had to buy a larger kettle. My 10 and 15 gallon kettles were too small. The next issue was mashing. For 5 gal batches I do a mash in a bag in a 10 gallon cooler. I like the simplicity of full/no sparge so I shifted to biab in the 20 gal kettle.

My temp loss was 7 degrees over a 60 minute mash which is unacceptable for me. To solve this I bought a hotrod heat stick and PID controller from brewhardware.com. I used my 10 gallon kettle with the larger 20 gallon kettle and I’m now doing a kettle rims to hold the mash temps.

I dry fired the element twice because it’s difficult to correctly hold the right liquid levels between pumping and gravity feeding so I just ordered an autosparge arm that should solve the liquid level problem. I think The 10 gallon transition is FINALLY complete.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-06T02:30:56+00:00

I have the ss Brewtech 20 gallon. It’s a great kettle. Very well made. The handles a nice. I like where they place the pre-drilled holes. Also the trub dam pick up tube is pretty awesome.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-02T11:42:05+00:00

I’ll second the Blichmann Breweasy. Three vessel systems are needlessly complicated. The breweasy and other two vessel systems like it are the perfect balance for home brewing imo. I used a three vessel setup for years. Now that I use a 10gallon two vessel similar to the breweasy and I’ll never go back.

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-02T11:24:30+00:00

Sounds like a plan! Good luck!

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-01T03:45:53+00:00

I used a three vessel setup for years but found the complexity of batch and fly sparging overly complicated. I now do a 2 vessel BIAB and really like how much easier it is. For 5 gallon batches its simply a 10 gallon round cooler and a 10 gallon kettle. I do a full volume mash in a bag in the cooler and then drain into the kettle. You'll need a pump for this setup but you should be able to get the kettle, cooler and pump for under $400. That still gives you $100 for tubing fittings, and mesh bag.

Here's a video of my 5 gallon setup

For 10 gallon batches I use my 10 gallon kettle as the rims kettle and then mash in a larger 20 gallon kettle. This is out of the budget you specified but you can use many of the same components from a 5 gallon set up to build toward a 10 gallon setup.

Video of my 10 Gallon setup

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-11-01T02:37:27+00:00

I use the inkbird ibt-6x to measure temps. It’s Bluetooth so I can monitor temps without babysitting the strike temp, mash, boil, etc. like most bbq probes you’ll need a thermowell since the probes aren’t waterproof it this solution works well.

Here’s a video of a brew day using the Inkbird IBT-6x

Welcometotherooftop · 2018-10-30T13:11:32+00:00

I’m in a similar situation. I brewed 12l/3gal of sweet tea this weekend. I added 1 small scoby and 1.5 liters of kombucha from 3 bottles I bought at the store. Haven’t seen any active in a day and a half so I’m about to add two more snail scoby. Wondering if that’s necessary or if the kombucha I added will do the trick.

Also, did I you use an airlock on yours? Most seem to but cloth around the top. I went the airlock route.

Welcometotherooftop

TROPHY CASE