Figure it might be helpful if I detail my current process, as I have changed it over time, so it's now different from the standard BIAB process. I welcome suggestions etc, but please know that I am quite happy with my process as is, that doesn't mean that I dislike new ideas though. :wink: My current process has been influenced a lot by having to brew in the family kitchen, fitting in around normal meal times etc. It's not the fastest way to do things for sure, but it works way better for me.
So, I start preparation the night before, preparing my brewing water. I do this as I mix water filtered through my RO filter with a much smaller volume of our tap water (our tap water has VERY high alkalinity, TDS and GH. I have found that mixing some back in though adds back the salts I WANT for the brew, without ending up with a high mash pH again. Down the line I will probably phase this out, replacing it with adding the salts back myself, but for now it has been working fine.). It takes a LONG time to get 25 litres of RO filtered water... Doing it on the day I brew just slows me down.
The next day, I try to start at around 8 am. I fill my ACE with the strike water (from the water prepared the night before) in the diner area of the room (where my racks are, we don't eat in there. lol), after making sure the tap is closed, the bazooka is fitted, false bottom in place, back in.... The rest of the water goes into my 33 litre SS pan on the stove to sit and wait. Set my boiler to strike temp and turn it on. Time to weigh my grain. No big scales etc here, just kitchen scales, so I weigh a bit at a time in a large mixing bowl, tipping this into a clean bucket until I have all of my grist prepared.
Once at strike temperature, my co-brewer (my wife) joins me, I turn off the elements, and we dough in. She adds the grain to the BIAB bag in the boiler with a small scoop, I stir whilst she scoops the next lot. Zero dough balls ever, lovely and well stirred in mash. Once it's all in I give it a bit more of a stir (making sure to lift the grain off the bottom of the bag into the water column), check the temp with a thermometer (the boiler one lies...). If all is well (it usually is) on goes the lid, and I wrap the whole thing with airline blankets (this is in addition the insulation fitted to the boiler, in the form of an exercise mat and a layer of reflective bubble wrap stuff). I have found that by wrapping it like this I don't need to heat it back up at all over a 90 minute mash (the temp display on the boiler would have me reheating regularly, but a proper thermometer barely moves, which is why I make sure to turn off the elements). Time to start the mash timer (Beersmith 2 Android app), I stir the mash every 20 minutes, again making sure to get all of the grain off the bottom of the boiler. Whilst it's mashing, I weigh out my hops, and if I need to I label them with the time they go in (sometimes it's pretty obvious, when your bittering addition is huge and the only other addition is a small flavour one... lol). 20 minutes before the end of the mash, I turn the heat on under my 33 litre pan and heat the water in there to 76 degrees. Having done some reading, I wouldn't mind using those 17 minutes of mash out to experiment with recirculation/vorlauf, see if I can get clearer wort from the mash. I can mash in the diner end for the simple reason that there isn't really any steam produced. I fetch the packet of yeast out of the fridge, and put about 250 mls of boiled water into a small sanitised jug to cool.
End of mash, I do a mash out at 76 degrees. I turn up the temperature on my boiler, turn on both elements and stir, a lot, until it hits mash out temp. Off go the elements, back on go the blankets, rest for 10 minutes.
This is where it gets different... I don't lift and drain the bag. Instead, I run the wort off into the bucket I had the prepared water in, put a lid on and move it to the other end of the room. I then rinse the grain in the bag/sparge, with the water from that 33l pan, still in the boiler. SS colander goes on the rim over the bag, and my wife gently pours the "sparge" water through the colander (she seems to get a higher sparge SG than I do... lol). Once the pan is empty, I take over and give the bag of grain a good dunk and swish. At this point, the sparge liquor has been turned into a milky cloudy mess, so I keep passing the runnings back through the colander until they clear again (vorlauf?). Doing this last brew, I got an SG of 1.026 in the sparge runnings! I drain the boiler again, adding this to my bucket of wort. Grain bag gets rested on a rack over another bucket to drain more. False bottom is removed (I tried leaving it in for the boil, I ended up with MORE trub rather than less).
Now comes time to relocate my ACE to the other side of the room, right in front of the cooker....:headbang: I do this, as we have a massive, powerful, extractor hood there that sucks the steam right out of the room. Wort goes back into the boiler, and it gets set to max temp (110 degrees) for the boil, both elements on. As more wort drains from the bag I add this to the wort in the kettle. If I am a little under volume once the bag drain has slowed down to next to nothing (I tend to give it only a gentle squeeze, as a more vigorous one just puts tons of flour into my wort again...), I'll add a bit more RO filtered water. Once a rolling boil is reached, I switch off the 600 watt element, add my bittering hops and start my boil timer (Beersmith 2 Android app). The app beeps when I need to make any hop additions, protafloc, wort chiller or the like (they both go in at 10 mins, 1/4 protafloc tablet first, then the wort chiller, I turn the 600 watt element back on briefly to get the rolling boil back faster). I've gone back to 90 minute boils, as find they work best for me. Also in the last 10 minutes of the boil I fit a short length of cured silicone tubing to the boiler tap, and start repeatedly running boiling wort through it into a jug, sanitise the jug and the tubing, wort goes back into the top of the boiler.
Whilst the boil is going, I empty out my grain bag, rinse it well, and give it a soak in some percarbonate. I also clean any equipment that I can, wash out the bucket I used for the brewing water and wort and sanitise it with Starsan, as that baby is gonna be my FV. I sanitise the boiler lid too with some Starsan.
End of the boil, I turn the water supply to my immersion chiller on, once the wort has stopped producing steam (usually at or just under 80 degrees C) I put the boiler lid loosely on top. I try to get the wort down to about 19 degrees C as quickly as possible. Once it's there, out comes the IC, and the lid goes on properly whilst the wort settles down. Yeast goes into the cooled boiled water to rehydrate.
When the time comes, wort gets transferred SLOWLY (tap turned down, so just a thin stream splashes into the FV) into the FV. I make sure it splashes lots, usually producing a big layer of foam in the process. I tip the boiler to get the last dregs out. FV is taken back to the racking in the diner area, yeast is pitched, lid goes on. Blow off tube is fitted, bucket gets lifted onto top shelf of brewing rack. End of the blow of tube goes into a 2 litre water bottle with a bit of Starsan in the bottom.
Equipment gets washed and put away. lol
I am very happy with my efficiency (you'll call me a liar, or try to prove me wrong, if I tell you what the software says I get, so I'll just say it's over 80%.... lol). I'd love to get clearer wort into the boil though, hence I am looking into vorlaufing, and maybe getting a recirculation pump to use during the mash stage.
Most importantly of all, touch wood I've not produced bad beer yet. In fact since I started using these techniques it's actually improved! :beer6:
It takes time, and it makes my back and arms ache (who needs a gym? lol), so it wouldn't be everybody's idea of a good system for sure....:laugh2: It works for me though. YMMV. :thumb1:
So yeah, from my last brew on (Wen's Lunch), that's my typical brew day.:cheers9: No stress, no fuss.
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