# Bag Not Draining



## 1974Alby (10/6/12)

I use a craftbrewer BIAB bag which I have done about 15 brews with. The last four brews have been particularly troublesome to drain, with many litres of wort pooling above the grain and taking ages to drain :angry: ...with a bit of twisting and squeezing I can make a lot of mess but get it drained within 5 minutes. If I justs let it hang Im sure it would take an hour or longer just to drain the free liquid.

One onlooker watched my method and raised concerns of hot-side aeration with all my forcing of liquid through the mesh, or the alternative of prolonged slow draining...I dont even know what hot-side aeration is, should I be worried about it? :huh: 

I havent experienced this in my first 10 or so brews, its just a recent thing...To my disappointment I have found that the presence or absence of wheat or the finenes of crush makes no noticeable difference as yesterdays brew with no wheat and a coarse mill still failed to drain like it used to...prior to this I had thoroughly cleaned the bag and even put it through the hot cycle in an effort to get any possible clogging out of the material. Its giving me the sh!ts cos it used to drain so well and nothing has changed (that Im aware of).

Any suggestions or similar experiences?

Cheer


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## beerdrinkingbob (10/6/12)

lots of stuff has been done to try and prove hot side aeration, you should always try and avoid excessive splashing but if it's preboil then you would need paint mixer and a high speed drill to make an impact.

Cheers 

BDB


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## manticle (10/6/12)

First up I don't BIAB* so my advice is based on extrapolation.

How well does the bag drain with just water? If it drains slowly even then, it would suggest to me that the holes are blocked (maybe with grain flour).

Stick the bag in a stockpot, cover with water and add some sodium percarbonate. Bring to the boil, turn off heat then let sit till cool. Rinse well, soak in starsan solutuion (as much to get rid of the sodium perc residue as anything else) then hang to dry. If that doesn't work, buy a new bag.

*Do the occasional minimash in a craftbrewer bag designed for the purpose when I want to add something extra to a brew so not completely unfamiliar with the process or material.


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## ekul (10/6/12)

This happens to me as well. The holes on a craftbrewer bag are slightly smaller than the spotlight voille. I don't like to squeeze my bag, so i shake the bag from side to side, this gets the fine grain out of the holes and allows it to drain. If you have your bag hanging from something you can grab either side of the bag and pull one side up, then pull the other side up and keep repeating this really quickly. Again it will make the bag drain quickly.

I recently had to bleach one of my grain bags and it has come up completely white. I haven't used it again but it makes me think that it will drain very well again...

As for HSA, i haven't experineced it. I saw some guy on here using a paintmixxer to whilr pool with once.


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## wombil (10/6/12)

I just use a sheet of voille and haven't had trouble over 20 or so brews.after use I just hang it on the clothes line and hose it off,no trouble.Never heard of that hot side stuff but i have pair of rubber gloves and squeeze the shit out of it to get all the stuff out.
Beer comes out ok.Maybe chuck the bag in the washing machine with the next lot of overalls ,nappies etc and see how it goes and turn it inside out.If it doesn't work better, I would get another bag,or a 1200 mm square of swiss voille from spotlight works well.
Good luck with it,
wombil.


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## Morebeer4me (10/6/12)

I use the same bag and I only really have problems with high gravity brews, the extra grain, takes longer to drain.
I also believe that it could be one of the grains being cracked too small, as with some batches I have no problems at all.
Any way I hang above pot for about 10 Mins while i start boil, then i twist to extract as much as possible. I then hang it above a clean bucket
normally a Green One . This usually collect another litre, it then gets chucked into the pot for boiling. Mine is stained brown now, so perhaps a bleaching as 
suggested above may work as well


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## Bribie G (10/6/12)

Craftbrewers bags are a nylon material. They are well built and robust but are a bit closer weave than voile, which is a polyester material. I've found voile to be more free draining and the nylon material can be less free draining with some recipes, especially when using wheat. Nothing wrong with the quality and value of the CB bags but for easier draining I'd go the voile, on balance.


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## Nick JD (11/6/12)

I like to drink sweet mother lodes of beer when the bag is draining under gravity. It's the responsible thing to do. 

One must drain the bag like watching a woman in labour; it's a fool who squeezes until she's ripe. The placenta is where you may squeeze, for the first parts of BIAB are precious.


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## beerdrinkingbob (11/6/12)

Nick JD said:


> I like to drink sweet mother lodes of beer when the bag is draining under gravity. It's the responsible thing to do.
> 
> One must drain the bag like watching a woman in labour; it's a fool who squeezes until she's ripe. The placenta is where you may squeeze, for the first parts of BIAB are precious.



Agree with you Nick, you only have to look at the wort when you squeeze to realise that maybe you shouldn't, it doesn't take long for most of it to drain via gravity anyway!!

Not sure what i think of the rest of your statement, I'm still trying not to resent my son for having a 95th percentile head......... h34r:


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## 1974Alby (11/6/12)

beerdrinkingbob said:


> it doesn't take long for most of it to drain via gravity anyway!!



Oh yes it does!!!!this is my problem...my bag now takes ages to drain and it didnt used to! 

Have put it through washing machine, hosed it, sodium perc soaked...coarse milled grain and no wheat...all makes no difference. I dont want to buy another bag cos it used to work fine and if I spend more $$ on another maybe the same problem will arise after a dozen brews...I might try the swiss voile but feel like I shouldnt have to having paid good money for a well constructed purpose built bag.

Will try the shaking thing too...happy if it works but again feel I shouldnt need to...let us know if bleaching improves anything!!!


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## Spork (11/6/12)

Mine also takes ages to drain, and has done since the first batch.
First batch was an oatmeal stout, so pretty thick, gluggy mash.
Most batches since have had wheat (or more oatmeal) so perhaps it's due for an overnight napisan soak.
If I "shake" the bag to get the wort thats sitting above the grain out then hang to drip it's still dripping (and still holding a fair amount of wort) after an hour boil.


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## Deebo (11/6/12)

Am encountering the same problem.

Have done about 20 brews with the CB BIAB bag and am now getting the wort pooling above the grain.

I think the problem became noticable after I did a few witbiers, prior to that it seemed to drain fairly well without much squeezing.

Will try some of the suggestions like boiling with sodium perc etc and if I have no luck will just grab another bag I guess.


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## Thirsty Boy (11/6/12)

buy some actual PBW - not sodium perc. Sodium perc is not as effective a cleaner as pbw. Long soak and scrub in HOT pbw should solve the problem and set the bag to where it was. Caustic will do the trick too but isn't as safe and i wouldn't stick my hands in it to scrub like i would with pbw.

The only reason that the bag isn't draining the way it was in the past, is because the holes are now smaller, which they are because crap builds up on the cross weaves. PBW, heat and scrubbing.will release the organic build up.

When you are draining your bag, a nice way to get it to drain, is to just poke it with a stick. You bag is hanging over your pot, you get a stick and poke it, this makes waves in the liquid in the bag, the waves "wash" the bits of the bag that they hit... liquid goes through, the holes clog up again. So what you do is stand there and poke the bag rhythmically to set up a standing wave. The standing wave constantly rinses the edges and liquid constantly goes through.... your bag will drain reasonably rapidly. No need to whack the thing, just set the liquid inside to jiggling a few cms.


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## manticle (11/6/12)

Thirsty Boy said:


> buy some actual PBW - not sodium perc. Sodium perc is not as effective a cleaner as pbw.



I haven't used PBW so obviously I can't compare the two products but pure sodium percarbonate and boiling water is an amazing cleaner.

I can (I usually don't but I can and I have) leave a crusty cube right up until I'm about to drain the kettle, tip in a kitchen kettle full of boiling water and a TBSP of pure sodium percarb, shake it about, drain and rinse and she's as good as new. Same with kettle taps right before I drain the tun. I ferment in my cubes so I'm talking encrusted yeast and hop debris.

Like magic - if PBW is better than that, then it's magic x 2.

Pure stuff also leaves less filmy residue than napisan etc (presumably lack of surfactants etc).


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## Thirsty Boy (11/6/12)

manticle said:


> I haven't used PBW so obviously I can't compare the two products but pure sodium percarbonate and boiling water is an amazing cleaner.
> 
> I can (I usually don't but I can and I have) leave a crusty cube right up until I'm about to drain the kettle, tip in a kitchen kettle full of boiling water and a TBSP of pure sodium percarb, shake it about, drain and rinse and she's as good as new. Same with kettle taps right before I drain the tun. I ferment in my cubes so I'm talking encrusted yeast and hop debris.
> 
> ...



Its magic x 2 then.


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## manticle (11/6/12)

Will have to give some a shot.


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## Rowy (14/6/12)

My bag wasn't draining well either so I am presently soaking mine in NapiSan and boiling water right now. It's been in there about 20 minutes and I cannot believe the stuff that is coming out................I always keep my stuff clean but I'm a bit embarrassed at the moment. I will report back after my brewday this Saturday to say whether this treatment made any difference.


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## Shifter (14/6/12)

I have two of CB's grain bags, both of which have given me problems with draining. I have since had SWMBO make another from some not so fine material purchased from a well know fabric shop. I have tried all sorts of remedies to get my "bag" free flowing, to no avail. 

I tend crack my grain quite fine, which may be a problem in it's self? I have experimented with a more course crack but the problem of draining appears to still exist. I squesse hard too to get it to drain. The lifting of the bag to and fro does not seem to work. 

Going to try the new bag tomorrow so will see if there is any applicable difference.


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## Rowy (14/6/12)

My first bag was a cracker this one not so good but I'll try this and see how it goes.


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## kelbygreen (14/6/12)

get a manifold it flows well for me  Well untill you knock the end off stiring the mash and have to put on a glove then a leather glove then a chemical glove to try repair it in the mash lol So mines hard fixed in there now and good back flush fixes it clean


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## Rowy (14/6/12)

kelbygreen said:


> get a manifold it flows well for me  Well untill you knock the end off stiring the mash and have to put on a glove then a leather glove then a chemical glove to try repair it in the mash lol So mines hard fixed in there now and good back flush fixes it clean



I do the bucket in a bucket half spargey doover type thing with my BIAB...............seems to work


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## The Village Idiot (14/6/12)

Rowy said:


> My bag wasn't draining well either so I am presently soaking mine in NapiSan and boiling water right now. It's been in there about 20 minutes and I cannot believe the stuff that is coming out................I always keep my stuff clean but I'm a bit embarrassed at the moment. I will report back after my brewday this Saturday to say whether this treatment made any difference.




Hope things get better for you..... Napisan and boiling water on your bag..... :wacko: ..... any wonder "stuff" is coming out.....


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## beerdrinkingbob (14/6/12)

Just read the title and thought just another bloke married with kids h34r:


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## The Village Idiot (14/6/12)

beerdrinkingbob said:


> Just read the title and thought just another bloke married with kids h34r:



I'm hearin' ya bob.....


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## Bribie G (14/6/12)

I have no trouble draining Spotlight Voile, after several hundred brews. Not deliberately knocking the CB bags - I've owned a couple personally - but I'd have to say at the end of the day I think that the nylon material was a good idea but doesn't quite step up to the plate as the Americans say.


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## beerdrinkingbob (14/6/12)

Bribie G said:


> I have no trouble draining Spotlight Voile, after several hundred brews. Not deliberately knocking the CB bags - I've owned a couple personally - but I'd have to say at the end of the day I think that the nylon material was a good idea but doesn't quite step up to the plate as the Americans say.



I bought a new bag for the Keggle today, cost me $12 at spotlight!!!

As you pointed out Bribie my last voile sheet never blocked on me either, want to recruit the mother and law on this one and make a clone of the old gryphon bag rather that just a sheet of fabric :beerbang:


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## dr K (14/6/12)

Lipton (with apologies to TB) jigglers....
Let us go back to first principles...after mashing we need to get reasonably husk free wort into the bolier, whether you choose to mash at an L:G of 2:1 or 8:1, whether you choose to spray sparge, dump sparge, no sparge or FVB; slowly, quickly, squeezing or jiggling this holds true.
A mesh bag (whether Swiss Voile, nylon, Trevira CS or polyester) will do an admirable job, of course the run-off will be slow, but an SS false bottom or a mash manifold or a slotted manifold or a bucket of holes should aslo be slow, slowed perhaps to the speed of mesh bag or lower.
The whole hole in the bag concept is of course the hole, the small holes get, bit by bit blocked, more so even after cleaning brew by brew, you put up with poor results or you buy or build another.
It worries me to suggest that for a serious brewer a false bottom (what $60 from CB) may be a better long term deal than a bag..but suggest I do
K


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## Crusty (14/6/12)

dr K said:


> Lipton (with apologies to TB) jigglers....
> Let us go back to first principles...after mashing we need to get reasonably husk free wort into the bolier, whether you choose to mash at an L:G of 2:1 or 8:1, whether you choose to spray sparge, dump sparge, no sparge or FVB; slowly, quickly, squeezing or jiggling this holds true.
> A mesh bag (whether Swiss Voile, nylon, Trevira CS or polyester) will do an admirable job, of course the run-off will be slow, but an SS false bottom or a mash manifold or a slotted manifold or a bucket of holes should aslo be slow, slowed perhaps to the speed of mesh bag or lower.
> The whole hole in the bag concept is of course the hole, the small holes get, bit by bit blocked, more so even after cleaning brew by brew, you put up with poor results or you buy or build another.
> ...



Well I'm now a jiggler & absolutely love it. The easiest brew day I have ever had. I see your idea of the false bottom but a false bottom is no benefit to us jigglers. We need to extract the grain from the wort not the wort from the grain like a traditional 3V brewer. The whole point of biab is a one vessel rig so the bag is probably the cheapest & easiest option. I guess I am not so serious cause all I have is a bag & not a false bottom, damn.


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## dr K (14/6/12)

Crusty said:


> Well I'm now a jiggler & absolutely love it. The easiest brew day I have ever had. I see your idea of the false bottom but a false bottom is no benefit to us jigglers. We need to extract the grain from the wort not the wort from the grain like a traditional 3V brewer. The whole point of biab is a one vessel rig so the bag is probably the cheapest & easiest option. I guess I am not so serious cause all I have is a bag & not a false bottom, damn.



Crusty..I have no doubt you are brewng incredible beer, and I am certainly not suggesting that you or others are not serious brewers, nor do I make comparisons with 3V brewers, I was merely (based on the previous content of this thread) questioning the economic benefits of of bag vs false bottom or similar.
My bag, sorry.

K


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## Crusty (14/6/12)

dr K said:


> Crusty..I have no doubt you are brewng incredible beer, and I am certainly not suggesting that you or others are not serious brewers, nor do I make comparisons with 3V brewers, I was merely (based on the previous content of this thread) questioning the economic benefits of of bag vs false bottom or similar.
> My bag, sorry.
> 
> K



I know you weren't mate, I was having a shot at ya. Something more solid would be much better for sure & some guys have gone to the extent of making another pot inside the original & use that as the bag, kind of like the Braumeister. I have a CB bag but it's new so won't have to worry about mine for a little while yet hopefully. A few people have reported better results with the swisse voile & I might head that way myself. :icon_cheers:


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## manticle (14/6/12)

dr K said:


> Crusty..I have no doubt you are brewng incredible beer, and I am certainly not suggesting that you or others are not serious brewers, nor do I make comparisons with 3V brewers, I was merely (based on the previous content of this thread) questioning the economic benefits of of bag vs false bottom or similar.
> My bag, sorry.
> 
> K



Economic benefits need to take into account 1 pot, 2 pots or 3 pots as much as bag vs bottom. Also space considerations might be paramount for some and less so for others.


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## Fat Bastard (15/6/12)

manticle said:


> Economic benefits need to take into account 1 pot, 2 pots or 3 pots as much as bag vs bottom. Also space considerations might be paramount for some and less so for others.



I'm one of those brewing in a confined space and my hybrid rig where I use a single vessel as a mashtun and kettle works very well with a false bottom, but I've since returned to a solid sided bag arrangement as it works like a FB, but is easier to use due to the fact you can just lift the bag and throw it into the sink after draining the MT/Kettle into a holding vessel instead of digging out between 4 and 9 kilos of wet grain with a big spoon.

There are many ways to separate a cat and it's dermis.


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## gone brewing (15/6/12)

If anyone is thinking of taking a nylon bag and boiling it in bleach - please think again.

Nylon doesn't take oxidising agents too well, especially at high temperature. Or the next time you go to use your bag and give it a light squeeze might be the last time you use it.

Polyester stands up much better but I still wouldn't go boiling it in bleach. Google "chemical resistance of polyester and nylon" if you want some details.

I think PBW and sodium percarbonate are both safer although I believe these do have some oxidative potential (much, much less than bleach).

Another point I gotta make is whether the material being used is stable with respect to heat. When you do your mash (and maybe a mash out) you are putting it in fairly hot water for a long time. Just like shrinking your jeans in the wash, using the bag several times for the mash could be shrinking it if the material has not been heatset very well. This is going to make the material denser and drain less freely.

I have no experience with the different materials used for BIAB except for the swiss voile that I used for mine. I have not had problems with slow draining, after about 50 uses.


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## tavas (15/6/12)

I use a Gryphon bag and give it a wash and soak every 3 or 4 brews. So far no noticable difference in draining.


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## Bribie G (15/6/12)

I sold my Craftbrewer FB / Lauter tun in October and went back to the bag. No perceptible difference in beer quality with my house recipes. Also the FB system took a lot longer to drain and sparge, whilst on the other side the coin the wort into the kettle _was _clearer. At the end of the day, like Crusty, the mound of cleaning up and scrubbing up at the end of the session was really getting to be a chore, compared to the baggy where I tip the grain into the garden beds and stick the rinsed bag in a jug of perc while the boil is happening, then when the boil is finished and drained, wash up one urn and a few utensils, hang baggy on line and done for the day.


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## stux (15/6/12)

Thirsty Boy said:


> buy some actual PBW - not sodium perc. Sodium perc is not as effective a cleaner as pbw. Long soak and scrub in HOT pbw should solve the problem and set the bag to where it was. Caustic will do the trick too but isn't as safe and i wouldn't stick my hands in it to scrub like i would with pbw.
> 
> The only reason that the bag isn't draining the way it was in the past, is because the holes are now smaller, which they are because crap builds up on the cross weaves. PBW, heat and scrubbing.will release the organic build up.
> 
> When you are draining your bag, a nice way to get it to drain, is to just poke it with a stick. You bag is hanging over your pot, you get a stick and poke it, this makes waves in the liquid in the bag, the waves "wash" the bits of the bag that they hit... liquid goes through, the holes clog up again. So what you do is stand there and poke the bag rhythmically to set up a standing wave. The standing wave constantly rinses the edges and liquid constantly goes through.... your bag will drain reasonably rapidly. No need to whack the thing, just set the liquid inside to jiggling a few cms.



A gentle jiggle left and right on the top of your bag will accomplish the same thing. Works best if you set up a rhythm


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## Nick JD (15/6/12)

I mill my grain so damn fine that I usually have to squeeze the living crap out of it to get at all that cloudy goodness. 

Since I kettle chill, the wort into the fermenter has 30m visability (for the scuba fans out there).


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## Shifter (15/6/12)

New Bag works a treat and drains and squeezes well.


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## mwd (15/6/12)

Home made or bought from where?


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## Shifter (15/6/12)

Home made by SWMBO. Material from Spotlight, but it's not SV.


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## matt white (15/6/12)

Best BIAB advice I've ever had - grab the bag and shake it above the high water (wort) mark and all the wort will come out within 30 or so seconds.

No sky hook/squeezing required.

That said I only do 20 litre brews so only 5kg of grain = 10 or so kg to lift.


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## tipsy (15/6/12)

I'm not a BIABer but I know if I open my tun up full bore I'll get a stuck sparge.

I wonder if this could happen with BIAB, a quick hoist as opposed to a slow one that sets the grain bed/ball


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## Verbyla (15/6/12)

Very nice bag but don't let it burn on the element!!!


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## milob40 (15/6/12)

cold soak in unscented nappy san o/nite works for me, if i do a back to back brew with just a rinse, i notice it blocks up too.


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## Thirsty Boy (16/6/12)

Dr K has a point - One of the reasons people like BIAB is that its a cheap start up option. Which it is if you pay $5-10 for the bag and expect to get years of service out of it.

If people are paying decently high amounts for pre-made bags that are potentially losing their effectiveness in a short time frame and needing to be replaced, thats really false economics.

On the other hand - if you do make a bag and use the polyester voile that is after all the material that is mostly and consistently recommended for bags.... well, they last for years and dont seem to suffer from this issue.

Dr K - just reading your post. I'm not sure that you 100% get the way BIAB is supposed to work. We know how FBs work and that runoff time is an important factor in FB based lautering. In BIAB time is NOT a factor. Remember, this thread is about things not working properly. When they _are_ working properly, there is pretty much no run off time at all in BIAB. You lift out the bag - the vast majority of the wort simply stays in the pot - the grain you lift out is of course holding some liquid, but the vast majority of that _should_ come out in seconds not minutes - at this point you should have already recovered as much or more of your wort than a FB lautering system would get in total. All the talk of draining, squeezing, dripping.... is about a litre or three that you are able to access sensibly, only because the mash is contained in a bag. Thats how its supposed to happen - if its not working that way, you aren't doing it right.


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## Bribie G (16/6/12)

I squeeze in order to reach the magic mark on the sight tube so that after an hour's boil (or 90 mins if it's at the other mark on the sight tube) I'll get the cube full plus about 3L which I can glean for starter wort etc etc. If I went to no-squeeze then I'd have to reformulate my house recipes.

Thus - or hence?? - the important thing is to do it exactly the same _every _time, (like scrunchers vs folders B) )


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## Shifter (16/6/12)

Phew - at least I'm doing something right! 

Second BIAB with new bag and volumes have been very consistent, and drainage is very, very good, far better than the bought in bag. No loss, though, I'll use it as a hop bag.


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## pk.sax (16/6/12)

I don't get where all this hard to clean bias comes from. Half litre jug to scoop out single batch of grain from tun into a bucket takes about 2 minutes, while the kettle boils. Hose, tip, hose, tip. The mt is fairly clean. Throw a bit of nappisan in there and pour a kettle full of hot water and lid to nuke the inside, all clean in barely 5-6 minutes. Final rinse and done.
Takes longer to put the voile on the line and hose it, then worry about having to bring it in and holes clogging. Blah.

Of course, if someone wraps themselves in foil while brewing it's gonna take time...

Ps: don't listen to me, I've been sober today.


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## Nick JD (16/6/12)

Once I walked into my shed and saw the bag of grain still hanging on the hook 3 days after brewing. Shed smelled a tad sour. Actually - smelled like dousing a thai hooker with balsamic vinegar.

Cleanup was very easy - dump entire thing into wheelie bin. Go to Spotlite for 1.5m of voile.


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## 1974Alby (19/6/12)

Rowy said:


> My bag wasn't draining well either so I am presently soaking mine in NapiSan and boiling water right now. It's been in there about 20 minutes and I cannot believe the stuff that is coming out................I always keep my stuff clean but I'm a bit embarrassed at the moment. I will report back after my brewday this Saturday to say whether this treatment made any difference.



How did this turn out Rowy?...Im really keen to hear if it made a noticeable difference..hope it did.

I brewed on the weekend and tried the jiggle method...definately drained faster, but still took about 5-10 mins whereas it used to take less than a minute...but without the jiggle it would now take hours!!

Tried poking with a spoon too but wasnt as effective as gently shaking back and forth, plus it was messier with wort running down my spoon and out of the keggle.


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## Rowy (19/6/12)

Didn't get to brew Al..............got tied up at craft brewer for the day...............then a couple of venues including the scratch. Ross and Still Scottish are pricks! Will definitely be brewing Thursday so I will post during the brew!


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