Electric Brewing - BIAB Options

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mike on September 9, 2013 at 2:53am

Great thread with lots of information on these urns, I've been waiting for one to pop up secondhand for $100 like the one on here went for, great price. Can't really justify the $265 pricetag at the moment, in saying that - for a fully self contained indoor BIAB system it's a steal. 

Have been looking at Chinese ones also, so far these are the best I've found in terms of price, postage and size for anyone interested: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Stainless-steel-electric-heating-ket... NZD $94 to your door (after a month or so :P)

Some things to note about buying from China for people unaware:

-Actual internal volumes on these Urns are lower, 18L =13L 28L=19.6 38L = 26L 48L=34L In saying that 34L is plenty for 20-23L BIAB, esp with a small sparge rinse.

-Supposedly it takes 1 hour and 35mins to boil a full 38L( 26L) and 48L (34L) kettle, 18(13) and 28L(19) take 35mins to boil - so it sounds like similar elements in both. Not sure what those times are boiling from (0C, 10C, 20C etc), but an hour and a half from tap seems comparable with the results posted here. Obviously you can start with warm tap water out of your home hot water cylinder plus a few boiling jugs if you like to get it started faster.

-Postage is free through China Post. The 38L(actual 26.6L) Urns go on trademe for 99 reserve/140 buy now and the sellers still make a profit.

-If you can't be bothered dealing with slow and potentially unreliable chinese postal services (15-34 days), trademe might be easier...however the biggest ones aren't on there and 26L is a bit small for BIAB IMO, you'd want the biggest one. Make a fine HLT though. http://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/retail-hospitali.... 

-The Chinese company people are notoriously difficult to deal with. A friend in our brewing club asked for a 38L (assuming it was, actually, 38L). They had run out of the 38L urns but were happy to make the transaction and sent an 18L(13L) with a note saying they had ran out of 38L ones...so now he has to sell that one. I think they worked out something in the end but the lesson is - be absolutely clear with what you want and don't want, English is very much lacking. Correspond with them and sort it explicitly before buying (the site lets you do this easily if you signup).

If you've read all that and you're still keen, it's about as good a deal as you're gonna get on a 34L HLT/BIAB system, short of converting a dumped hot water cylinder :P (these make great pot stills, by the by - converted HWC and hot water urns - just cut out the top and add water jacketed copper pipe. Commercial one http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/lifestyle/other/auction-635394... no reason they can't pull double duty either)

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Permalink Reply by Grant R Baker on September 9, 2013 at 8:55am

Wow.. great write up.

That deserves to go into the Library......!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Graham on September 9, 2013 at 11:21am

I purchased what was advertised as a 38L urn from Trademe and ended up receiving the 48L model (actual volume about 34L). It had been rewired locally with a 10A cord. The wiring was very poor so I had to fix that.

Bigger issue is the element was 3kW. Great because it means a faster boil but technically needs a 15A plug and socket. Important to check this if you are looking at one of the cheap Chinese ones. Nothing worse than melting a power point or burning down your house!

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Permalink Reply by Mike on September 9, 2013 at 2:50pm

Ah cheers for that info Andrew. If that's the case I wonder if the other trademe ones are actually that size? Did you replace the plug and socket or is it just something you have to be aware of?

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Graham on September 10, 2013 at 7:06am

I have only used it once and haven't replaced the plug or had a 15A socket installed yet. One day I will get an electrician in to install a new socket in my brew cupboard but for now I will just keep a close eye on things. I did note the wall around the power point was getting abnormally warm.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Dillon on September 9, 2013 at 11:59am

Hi guys. I'm relatively new to BIAB, just 4 under my belt so far. Here's my experience to date...

I purchased a Birko 40L hot water urn. It wasn't cheap at $380 but I had heard that the Chinese ones can burn out so I figured I'd pay the extra for something that lasts. The model I got is 10 Amps, but you can get a 15 Amp version.

I replaced the tap with a ball valve and some food grade tubing. I'm happy to say there've been no leaks.

The element in the urn is exposed, so to protect the bag I place a regular colander upside down over the element. It fits perfectly snug which is great. I've also wrapped the urn with some leftover insulation matting.

Getting water up to 66C or thereabouts takes about half an hour from memory. I start with 30-35L of water. Once I've mashed in I leave the thermostat at 66C and check the temperature every 15 mins or so. I also wrap it all up with a couple of old blankets. I had been concerned about leaving the thermostat on could cause problems, but with the extra blankets the power only comes on a couple of times for just a minute or two.

When the bag comes out I turn the power to full and let the bag drip into the urn, giving it a good squeeze as it cools down. Getting the urn up to boil is slow - it takes about 45 minutes. 

With the lid off the urn is at a low boil. I recently learned that you need to leave the lid off in order to boil off DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide). There's info here: http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/04/10/dimethyl-sulfides-dms-in-home-... about that. I had been keeping the lid about halfway over the urn to get a good boil going.

However, I have been a little worried that the boil is still not vigorous enough so I've recently purchased a 2400W portable immersion element that I'll place in to the urn as well. 4800W should be plenty! I hope I don't blow any fuses in the house.

Finally, I use a copper pipe chiller that I got off trademe to cool the wort after the boil. 

Cheers
Matt

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Permalink Reply by Mike on September 11, 2013 at 1:54am

Another thing you can do it cut a round hole in your boil kettle lid like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zsrxfgPumbc/UUVL4D0OlrI/AAAAAAAAARo/w-ZHD... http://banksbrewing.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/kereru-brewing-100l-pilo... Or find another lid and do that to it - this mimics boil kettles in pro breweries and will help your boil. You can leave it on while getting up to boil and boiling and DMS will escape fine, that plus the extra element should cut your times in half. You can add tags to the removed bit so you can put it back on during mash and getting up to boil if you like.

.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Dillon on September 11, 2013 at 9:03am

Thanks for the pointers Mike. I didn't know how open the kettle needed to be. I'll try to rig something up for the next brew. Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by Hayden Baxter on September 10, 2013 at 10:36pm

I'm using something similar. This http://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/retail-hospitali...

It does take a while to heat up though but when I set it to 110C it boils nicely

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Permalink Reply by Dene McDonald on September 11, 2013 at 8:51am

Bargain of the day:

Grab One

Pay $69 for a 14L urn.
Pay $79 for a 22L urn.
Pay $89 for a 28L urn.
Pay $109 for a 48L urn. 

http://www.grabone.co.nz/dunedin-invercargill/hot-water-urn-14l

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Permalink Reply by Matt Dillon on September 13, 2013 at 11:26am

You could always get one of these: http://morebeer.com/products/braumeister-20l.html

You can even get a decorative copper hood!

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Permalink Reply by Des Ross on September 14, 2013 at 1:23pm

Unfortunately Morebeer will not export Speidel products to New Zealand.

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