The brew before last my BIAB bag ripped, dumping the grains and ruining the batch - a California Common. It was actually the first batch of home-brew I ever had to dump after 3 years
So, I designed a stainless steel metal mesh filter basket to custom-fit my 15g kettle instead of getting a new fabric bag. It's designed with some swing-out hooks to hold the basket up while draining.
We had the first brew with the new basket a couple of weeks ago -- a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone. The basket worked beautifully -- no more worries about the bag getting sucked in by the pump and stopping flow, no hassle holding the bag and squeezing while draining. Draining is aided by just pushing down on top of the grain bed with a lid from a large pot. Had a bit of a foam overflow during mash which never happened with the bag, but was easy enough to clean up. Not sure why that happened...
In any event, this first batch with the new basket is cold crashing now and should be ready to drink next week (& tasting pretty good already!)
If I were to design this again, I would make the diameter of the basket 1" smaller to allow more room for the swing-out hooks in the "up" position. As it stands now, they press in a little bit into the mesh which may fail in the future. So far it doesn't seem to be an imminent problem.
Anyway, I thought I would share this in case any other BIABers were looking for ideas to add a bit more stainless to their kit!
So, I designed a stainless steel metal mesh filter basket to custom-fit my 15g kettle instead of getting a new fabric bag. It's designed with some swing-out hooks to hold the basket up while draining.
We had the first brew with the new basket a couple of weeks ago -- a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone. The basket worked beautifully -- no more worries about the bag getting sucked in by the pump and stopping flow, no hassle holding the bag and squeezing while draining. Draining is aided by just pushing down on top of the grain bed with a lid from a large pot. Had a bit of a foam overflow during mash which never happened with the bag, but was easy enough to clean up. Not sure why that happened...
In any event, this first batch with the new basket is cold crashing now and should be ready to drink next week (& tasting pretty good already!)
If I were to design this again, I would make the diameter of the basket 1" smaller to allow more room for the swing-out hooks in the "up" position. As it stands now, they press in a little bit into the mesh which may fail in the future. So far it doesn't seem to be an imminent problem.
Anyway, I thought I would share this in case any other BIABers were looking for ideas to add a bit more stainless to their kit!