stove top biab..is it possible

[timbo41]

Have been thinking of expanding into biab in a small way but am lmited by lack of equipment, space and dosh! Just wondering, using my 15 ltr ss pot could I
Heat (?12 litres) water on stove top to about 70°c, then add grist in bag
put lidded pot into preheated oven to convert mash (how long folks..thinking 2 hours)
T-bag dunk bag in 3or 4 litres hot water in fv for sparge,while doing boil and hopping in ss pt,adding irish
Add boiled to sparge in fv, chill by inserting a couple of sanitised ice filled 2 litre bottles
Siphon off cold break into fv2, liquor back to 20 litre brewlength then pitch yeast starter

Am I missing anything really obvious folks

I've been feeling a bit let down by the price of malt extract for extract brews and hope to still make a few nice pints with much cheaper grain/crystal malt type combos

[alecwallace]

Its definitely possible to stove top BIAB. I have never used an oven as mine is very unreliable, but i get to strike temp on the hob and then wrap in a blanket and over night mash. This is purely for time saving but ive not had a bad beer from it. I think the key to a small volume is the water volume needed. As long as you can estimate or even know your efficiency then you can mash with as much water as possible, then when the grain is removed top up to boil volume. On another note, i dont sparge either as it simplifies my process. I just account for this in my efficiency.

Hope that helps?!

[jimp2003]

You are along the right lines but you would need to boil the wort you get from the sparge not just leave it in the FV to add to the wort you have boiled seperately. (hope I read your post right).

Of course you could try a halfway house of partial mashing where you get part of your fermentables by doing a small mash (and BIAB would be a good way to do that part) boiling the resulting wort with the hops as usual and then add some extract to get you up to the gravity target and liquoring back to the target volume in the FV.

EDIT: You would add the extract for the last 20 or 15 mins of the boil

[timbo41]

Certainly reassuring that it is possible. Never really worry too much re efficiency, as long as end beer s session strength, tasty and not moose piss I'm happy...easily pleased. Current goto beer is thwaites flying shuttle..any recipe ideas using my hamfisted method apprecited
Cheers for quick post Alex
Also cheers jimp..as I said its cost of extrct that's forcing a rethink...grain is so much cheaper. Yes ,after reading yor post, would add sparge to boil volume permitting..only got 15 litre ss

[timbo41]

Bloody smiley typos sorry!

[timbo41]

Ok couple of things I've worked out...but was always crap at physics. Put water into ss to 10 ltr.filled a 3 litre bottle on assumption 1litre=1 kg, so this equivalent to 3 kg goods. Liquor displaced to about 1 1/2 inch from top, so I reckon 10 litre is about my max volume for the mash.,to be safe. Is this enough volume for that amount of grist? Then I reckon to add about 3 litres of sparge liquor so about 13 litres for the boil....bit worried about boilover when hops go in. I know obvious answer is bigger pot but that's a no go this close to chrimbo! Please fellow skint brewers help me nail down the technicalities of this method!!

Edit reckon I might go hop pellet rather than flowers...seems safer
2nd edit..if I use beer engine can I enter total brewlength, 20 litres and boil volume, aprrox 13 litres, and still abv fg and ibu figures. Never really used

[ajclarkson]

Alright mate,

I brew on the stovetop, with a 19L pan rather than a 15, but still you can get good results from this setup. Have you had a look into maxi-BIAB (lots of information on biabrewer.info about it)

You basically mash your maximum volume at a higher gravity than you want, then dilute with dunk sparges (simiar to how you described in the first post) and even adding a bit of water part way through the boil to replace evaporation. It'll take a bit of reading to get your head around the numbers, but theres an Excel Spreadsheet calculator over on biabrewer (you need to register and make a welcome post to download it) and a couple of guys who are always willing to help out with recipe creating and such.

I've not had a go at it myself yet as I can just about squeeze a 10L batch out of my pot, but will be looking at in the near future!

[jaberry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7_nhV7 ... ata_player

Little vid I uploaded of how I BIAB on my stovetop

7 successful brews so far

[timbo41]

Aarghh..poxy shite nextbook!! Cheers, John. Will get on ex's pc tomorrow and watch that. Meantime if anyone in west sufflk comes across a dead,crushed dismembered tablet.....DON'T SEND IT BACK

[RdeV]

Timbo, apart from sympathy regarding malt extract prices, your very predicament (kettle- limited stovetop, not the poxed tablet!) is largely what initiated me to develop MaxiBIAB- I desired to squeeze bigger batches out of a limited kettle, much like yourself it was a small budget coupled with lateral thinking and it has been a terrific success. As far as the genesis goes, we knew that stock BIAB was a given, there was also plenty of info suggesting that over- gravity mashing works, plus sparging has been around for yonks, likewise fermenter dilution, but nobody I know of had tried all of these things with BIAB in the smaller kettle. After a few goes the method gelled into something coherent and that meant anyone could access the better performance cheaply and without modifying anything. If you're interested, the guide is at biabrewer.info although a revised one is underway.

You will have to boil all of the sparge- everything that goes into the fermenter must be sanitary apart from the yeast, this means that the wort/ sparge all has to be boiled. When you remove the grain from the kettle, you'll have some space for much of the sparge, then as the boil progresses, evaporation means you can add more if you have it. However, don't add any sparge to the boil later than 15 minutes from its end, just to be sure everything in it is sanitary. Oh, get yourself a 15L nappy bucket for sparging, its the only additional equipment required, IMO your fermenter doesn't need any more bugs inhabiting it than those desirable and necessary (i.e. reserve it just for yeast!).

In the MaxiBIAB world its my view that any water addition to the kettle should do something helpful to increase the efficiency of the process (otherwise, we may as well just do MiniBIAB), so always use it for sparge, never for straight dilution during the boil, only do that in the fermenter.

One other thing I strongly recommend for novice stovetoppers is to not over- reach, so try the standard BIAB methods with MiniBIAB first, get a handle on all of the processes with your gear and then open the throttle for MaxiBIAB when comfortable.

Oh and before anyone even begins to think about carrying on about beer quality and MaxiBIAB (as has been the case in some places), perhaps bear in mind this very method recently scored a 1st at the Australian nationals- choose the mark wisely!

[ajclarkson]

After a few goes the method gelled into something coherent and that meant anyone could access the better performance cheaply and without modifying anything. If you're interested, the guide is at biabrewer.info although a revised one is underway.

Excellent, I've been studying your original guide for quite a while while I get a couple of mini-BIABs under my belt. A couple more planned and then I'll be trying a maxi. Will be interested to read the revised version and see what you've added with a bit more experience and development of it.

Oh and before anyone even begins to think about carrying on about beer quality and MaxiBIAB (as has been the case in some places), perhaps bear in mind this very method recently scored a 1st at the Australian nationals- choose the mark wisely!

Fantastic, I've been in a few of these BIAB gives lower quality beer type arguments, so glad to hear so much success from this method!

[RdeV]

Excellent, I've been studying your original guide for quite a while while I get a couple of mini-BIABs under my belt. A couple more planned and then I'll be trying a maxi. Will be interested to read the revised version and see what you've added with a bit more experience and development of it.

No worries, glad its been helpful, although in all honesty the originals were a fairly rushed job. As far as the process goes not a lot has changed TBH, however there's some refinement and a more rational dialogue. May be hitting news stands in the new year.

Fantastic, I've been in a few of these BIAB gives lower quality beer type arguments, so glad to hear so much success from this method!

Don't believe a word of the criticism as it is largely ill- informed tripe and jealous gossip. It comes as no surprise to me that BIAB scooped an admirable proportion of the gongs at the Aus Nats and state comps, even Perth Royal, personally the most rewarding was the 1st for MaxiBIAB in Aus Nats in lagers.

[ajclarkson]

Yeah getting a 1st for a lager shows that the process is as sound as any other means of making beer if you know your equipment, good job!

[timbo41]

Cheers guys..am going straight to that maxi guide

[Cpt.Frederickson]

My first three batches were all made with an 11ltr stock pot and have been really decent efforts. The 3rd was using the maxi method too, and I've still got a bit left. The only reason I changed is the missus objected to me brewing in the kitchen
So now I have a 30 ltr Buffalo boiler as an early christmas present and am relegated to the shed.
Seriously, mini and Maxi BIAB were brilliant starting points for me and I would have been more than happy to continue brewing in that way, it was brilliant for getting the most out of a small budget. I can't recommend Rdev's Maxi calculator enough, it was a huge help.
Best of luck mate and happy brewing.