Second time lucky, maybe...

As I mentioned in another thread, my attempt at a BIAB with a 30 litre stock pot on our gas hob was less than perfect, struggling to reach a rolling boil. So I accepted that I needed a better solution.

To this end, I've ordered one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391218805137. Reading around I can't find any terrible reviews for them, and no need to break warranty to "fix" a normal tea urn...:lol: Bonus it comes with a bag, false bottom filter etc. Ordered about 5 minutes ago, had an email from DPD telling me it's coming tomorrow.

Plan is to improve the insulation on my stock pot, and use it as a sparging vessel, I think. Changing my process so instead of doing mash out in my mashing/boiling vessel I'll do it as part of the sparge. Hopefully this might help my efficiency a little.

I've also ordered a bottle of Brupaks Antifoam to hopefully allow me to optimise boil volume.

Boiler arrived today, so did a bit of testing. Only with water, but gave me a rough baseline to work with. I won't have proper number until I do a brew though.

First thoughts though:-

Temperature control is handy. When you turn the jog dial it's a digital thermostat, setting the temperature you want. After a few seconds it reverts to a thermometer, telling you the current temperature. I compared this to my dial meat/jam thermometer and it read the same temperature on both.

I insulated the boiler and lid with 2 layers of reflective loft insulation. Took 1 hour and 2 minutes to reach 66 degrees Celsius. Turned the heat off and after 1 hour the temperature had dropped to 59 degrees Celsius. My insulated stockpot was worst than that on a water test, but performed really well once I had grain in there, so I have high hopes for the boiler.

Whacked the boiler up to 110 and timed how long it would take to reach a rolling boil. 34 minutes from 59 degrees to a very vigorous boil. Switched to just the 1600 watt element, and it maintained a nice rolling boil. Again, will need to test with actual wort. Left it to boil for an hour, then whacked on my immersion chiller to bring it back down as I want to measure how much of the 25 litres of water are left.

Lessons I learned: 1) Don't leave the lid on whilst bringing to the boil, it's a condensation trap! Soaked the surface the boiler sat on... Not clever. 2) Need to site the boiler either outside (summer), or under the cooker hood (autumn, winter etc...).... Probably should have seen that one coming, but my wife persuaded me it'd be fine sat by the back door with it open... Guess not. :lol:

Timer is basically pretty much an egg timer/microwave dial timer, but also turns the elements off when it hits zero. You can just set the timer to On though instead.

The bag, it's a bit of a PITA. The handles hook over the handles of the boiler, which also serve to secure the lid... They get in the way.

The design of the lid, well it has a vent, then a void, then a vent above... Aka a condensation trap... Fine for mashing as not much steam.

Anyway, managed a really good rolling boil on just the 1600 watt element on, with just water, so fingers crossed!

Oh, and I've ordered 2 meters of suitable heat resistant silicone hose to go on the tap.

Ok, another lesson, just under the full mark is no way 25 litres... :lol: Doesn't even say it is in the instructions either, but for some reason I decided it was....

You can see in the pic I had a good rolling boil, and the water level dropped a fair bit. Measured the remain water after cooling, I still had 24 litres of water. So, on my to do list now is to work out just how many litres I had in there to start with... Once I know that, I can work out an approximate boil off rate. :thumb:

Looks great for the price. Presumably you can set a mash temperature and leave it at that rather than switching off and letting it cool? When using as a mash tun, can you pour the grain in and later drain off into another vessel or is the bag there to contain the grain?
Tempted by this rather than getting a gas burner to move my brewing outside or to the garage.

The bag contains the grain, so you can do brew in a bag. :thumb: No need for another vessel then, you just lift out the bag of grain after mashing.

You can set mash temp yes, need to make sure you stir it if the elements come on though, apparently if you apply heat whilst mashing the wort can scorch if you don't stir. I prefer to add more insulation and turn the heat off though, saves on electricity for one thing.

Just keep in mind the amount of steam produced, hence I am going to have to make sure to use it under our cooker hood or outside. Gas burners aren't a good option for us, no transport would make getting gas refills an absolute PITA, plus our back is pretty much a woodland, with trees that drop leaves and alder cones pretty much year round..

Oh, and the price dropped the day after I bought mine....

I’ve got the earlier version of that boiler (with an analogue thermostat which isn’t very good so I use my Inkbird to keep an eye on the temperature) and it’s never let me down.

MickDundee said:

I’ve got the earlier version of that boiler (with an analogue thermostat which isn’t very good so I use my Inkbird to keep an eye on the temperature) and it’s never let me down.

Click to expand...

Sounds good bud, thanks. :thumb:

I mean, I can't give a long term review yet, I've only just got it. Also I haven't brewed with it yet either. But from my testing last night I'd say the changes they promised to have made mentioned in this post) and this post seem to have improved things a fair bit.

The only bit not much use to me is the timer. I'd rather use the Beersmith 2 timer in the smart phone app as that reminds me for hop additions etc too, rather than just going ding and turning the element/s off.

I'm actually looking forward to my next brew to be honest.

Thought I'd throw up some pics of the boiler, with my attempt at insulation in place. :thumb:






Here is one of the cons, the bag interferes with closing the lid fully:-










I'm assuming that you remove the false bottom after mashing/before boiling? My wife has ordered some butchers twine to tie to the handle to make this much easier to do.

AdeDunn said:

Thought I'd throw up some pics of the boiler, with my attempt at insulation in place. :thumb:

Here is one of the cons, the bag interferes with closing the lid fully:-

I'm assuming that you remove the false bottom after mashing/before boiling? My wife has ordered some butchers twine to tie to the handle to make this much easier to do.

Click to expand...

I never bother. It acts as a good trub trap when you transfer to FV.

So, used this for 3 brews now, and can happily say it does a really good job. :thumb: Nice rolling boil.

Only problem I have found is that the supplied bazooka blocks with trub REALLY fast, regardless of whether I leave the false bottom in or not. Also, it fastens directly to the tap bit using a jubilee clip, making cleaning a difficult and fiddly task.

To this end, I bought a replacement from The Malt Miller. 12 inches instead of barely 6, fastened to it's own thread piece. Holes in the mesh are bigger too, so between increased surface area, and larger holes, it shouldn't block as badly. I'm slowly moving over to flower hops instead of pellets too, so hopefully this will also help. Oh, and I bought a connector so I can actually attach the new bazooka in the kettle... :lol:

Anyway, here's a pic of the 2 together. Quite a big difference. One day I want one of the big disk filters, but this should do for now.