Can you make good beer in 1 pot

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Mash (BIAB), boil, ferment in the same pot!  Make good beer?  I don’t see why not.  Has anyone tried or does anyone do this?  Mostly looking at 1-2 gallon batch size in 4-5 gallon pot.  Any tips or tricks?

2

I think there was a Basic Brewing Radio episode a couple weeks ago on this subject.  You might want to check that out.

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

I haven’t done it personally, but I suppose you could.

3

Try it and see. If it’s not as good as you’d like try adding a small fermenter with an air lock to the mix.

4

I have a Pale Mild recipe I have been wanting to do this way. Ferment in the pot until close to terminal gravity and then rack to my cask to complete the ferment and condition. If your worried about dust or dog hair or something floating in there just stretch a piece of voile fabric (BIAB bag material) over the top of the kettle and affix around the rim of the pot with a large elastic hair band. Voila, open ferment in your pot.

Don’t like hops and trub in with the fermentation? Do the opposite of whats commonly done. Instead of racking to the fermentor the top 5.5 gallons of 6 gallons and leaving the hops and trub behind, instead, rack off the bottom 0.5 gallon containing most of the hops and trub.

5

I’ve done it. Partially successful. My issue was not oxygenating, so not really to do with the process. There are also concerns about not separating the trub \ cold break during fermentation. I BIAB’d, and just left the kettle to cool naturally after boiling. I would advise thorough oxygenation with a wand after pitching yeast and try to use a lid with a goodish seal. The positive pressure from CO2 will vent even from a weighted lid during fermentation. I fermented in a bucket with temperature controlled by an aquarium heater. Here’s some pics of my process..
There’s also a guy who blogs about this and seems to have some success.

FWIW I now ferment in a separate vessel as I believe there are benefits to separating trub during ferment and it doesn’t tie my kettle up.
cheers
steve

6

I have done it with a simple beer rather than making a large starter.  I just put the lid on the pot and let it ferment out in a fermentation chest.  But it was a very basic helles that I kept the hops low on.

7

Thanks folks, I think I’ll give it a shot.

8

Absolutely.  Just did it as an experiment for our next book.  2 gal. batch in 5 gal. pot.