Piggy back brew day, one bag, one boiler makes two beers.

I was in Aldi the other day and they were clearing a pallet of 36L picnic coolers for $19.95 and in an instant it occurred to me that for very little extra outlay $$ I could do two brews in far less time than two separate BIAB brews end to end, by piggy backing a mash tun onto a standard full volume BIAB mash.

Batch #1 is a Malt Bomb Vienna ale with Vienna, Munich, Melanoidin, NZ Hallertau and US-05
Batch #2 is a Pom with Halcyon, Crystal, the usual suspects hops and Wy 1768

Equipment: one urn, one cooler, one bag - and two grain bills.

Batch #1 is mashed as a bog standard BIAB in urn, which I won't elaborate on, further details in the sticky in electric biabs.
As shown I have a skyhook with double pulley, and the brewstand is on castors and can be accurately positioned.

While the bag is draining in #1, prepare 30L strike liqour in the cooler, using immersion heater to adjust temp.

When bag drained and emptied, wash it out and fit into cooler, while bringing #1 to boil.
Dough in #2, seal cooler and mash while #1 is boiling.

When #1 boil is complete and BrewBright has been added, put lid on urn and allow to sit for 20 mins to settle trub

Meanwhile slide brewstand along so that #2 is under skyhook, and hoist bag, allow to drain.

(notes: the schedule really slotted in well, as I was waiting for the trub to settle in the urn prior to cubing, the mash of #2 was complete and I had time to bring it to mashout with the OTS element and also hoist the bag, so by the time the cube was full, #2 was begging for its shot at the urn. Noice)

Fill cube with #1 while #2 is draining.
Immediately clean and wash urn with particular attention to the element.
Return urn to brewstand and start jugging in wort #2, turning on power once element well covered.
Remove drained bag from #2 and pour remainder of wort into urn.
Complete boil of #2

Wash bag and cooler and dry.

Continue with #2 as normal.

Cube the #2 brew

Result is that I completed (from dough in of #1 to 2 cubes) two brews in five and a half hours (dough in 2.30, two cubes at 8.00 pm), as opposed to around nine hours for a back to back series of 2 full BIAB brews. All I need now is to clean up the urn, everything else done during the boil of #2.
Very happy.


Comp season is fast approaching, so I'll be able to do my comp brews without interrupting my regular house brews. Anyway it's not double batches of the same beer, it gives me the flexibility of doing two entirely different styles in one session as I have done today.

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No sparging, both brews were full volume. I tried a few different sparging / lautering systems last year, but minimal increase in efficiency.

Compared to two urns it was longer, because with my two urn system (before I got rid of one of them) I would stagger the start of the brew by 40 minutes to spread the workload. So this current system I guess is about 20 minutes longer maybe.

Malt Bomb: I love Vienna lagers, Oktoberfests etc but can't be bothered to tie up fridges and lager for weeks and weeks.

Bomb 1


Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 25.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.700
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.053 (°P): 13.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.21 %
Colour (SRM): 7.5 (EBC): 14.8
Bitterness (IBU): 28.0 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 74
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
4.500 kg Vienna (78.95%)
1.000 kg Munich I (17.54%)
0.200 kg Melanoidin (3.51%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Hallertau Aroma NZ Leaf (7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
15.0 g Hallertau Aroma NZ Leaf (7% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
5.0 g Calcium Chloride @ 0 Minutes (Mash)

Single step Infusion at 64°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 18°C with Safale US-05


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

This version uses New Zealand Hallertau, but I'm planning another version just using one addition of Columbus (Tomahawk) to around 25 IBU, which is easier to get hold of for US brewers of course, but I reckon it would be a great background hop.

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Beachbum wrote:Malt Bomb: I love Vienna lagers, Oktoberfests etc but can't be bothered to tie up fridges and lager for weeks and weeks.

Bomb 1

Grain Bill
----------------
4.500 kg Vienna (78.95%)
1.000 kg Munich I (17.54%)
0.200 kg Melanoidin (3.51%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Hallertau Aroma NZ Leaf (7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
15.0 g Hallertau Aroma NZ Leaf (7% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)

This version uses New Zealand Hallertau, but I'm planning another version just using one addition of Columbus (Tomahawk) to around 25 IBU, which is easier to get hold of for US brewers of course, but I reckon it would be a great background hop.

I love the maltiness of german vienna/dunkel lagers etc... So much so that I have a sack of munich I and a sack of vienna now

Sounds like a great recipe to use 3 of my favourite german grains... without taking forever... I just don't have time to do lagers at the moment... banging out 60L ales seems to be the only way to keep keg fridge full

I have a fair bit of german hallertau, would you think they would work well, or do you think it has to be a fruity hop? (assuming that NZ hallertau is typically fruity... which might be wrong )

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I tend to find flowers a pain to store and a pain to use with massive losses to trub and blockages... maybe I just need to use a hop sock

BUT it is nice playing with flowers

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I like the look of this side-mounted hop "spider"

http://www.brewgeeks.com/a-biab-brewday-tknice.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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I hang mine with a couple of rods that run through holes in the pipe and straddle the top of the kettle allowing the sack to hang down into the wort. So far I have only lost the sight in one eye. Changing my user name soon to lylopatch

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Vinyl Chloride monomer is a carcinogen and I wouldn't trust garden pipes etc made from PVC if there's any danger of monomers getting "sweated out" of the material. Some years ago there was a big scare about clingwrap made from PVC and I think it's all been returned to polythene type material.

In any case the "hop spider" looks functionally similar to the hop socks http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=946 we get in Australia from the major supplier. I've had two of them and gave them away to people as I found they constricted the hops too much and didn't give them a good boil.

The hop swimming pool gives them a nice ride and interestingly as the bag material billows up at random then sinks back into the boil due to the stream passing through from below, it seems to give the hops a good massage as well.

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Despite me posting at #5 that I don't sparge, I'm doing a fairly strong Foreign Extra Stout for the club / State / Nationals ( ).
At about 7% ABV I'll make an exception this time and do a side sparge in the cooler.

It's not so much about efficiency, just about getting my regular length of wort out of the brew because, with my 40L urn, bigger grain bills hold back more wort that gets absorbed. So at those gravities, a reasonable sparge will release a lot of that. As Pat and I agreed a long time ago, wouldn't it be lovely if they had decided to make 50L urns.

The thing that has annoyed me about sparging in a bowl or bucket has been the lack of somewhere to hang the bag, and the sheer mess that always seems to eventuate.
However the new "system" should fix that, I'll report

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I have two sky hooks setup in my brew area

So I hang the bag above my primary pot, then swing it down to my secondary pot and reopen the bag for some agitation

10 minutes later I raise and drain the bag on the sky hook above the secondary pot.

Of course I don't have a rolling brew rig like some

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Update, I just kegged the malt bomb and, sipping the green beer it's so malty it's like eating toast - I'm glad I mashed a bit low to give a bit of balancing dryness.
Can't wait to try it gassed up and cleared out.

Man, it's coated the inside of my mouth, I can see why it's not recommended to use too much Melanoidin in a brew, it could easily get OTT.

Mmmmmm - still some green beer left in the fermenter

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