A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[The King of Spain]

Noticed in Bunnings yesterday 41x41x41cm nylon fine mesh collapsable storage container. Perfect for BIAB. Easy to clean, feels strong and only $8

 

[PistolPatch]

Excuse the delayed (and very quick for me!) replies to the below. If I missed any question specifically for me, let me know.

Morrie - I think using 2 bags if you had to do a double-batch is a great idea. Your velcro idea just made me think of maybe even having loops (tags) along the top seam and feed a rod through them alternately so as the rod lies midway across the top of the kettle while mashing if that makes sense. Good on you for posting up your first AG too.

Rossco - Brew day at your place sounds fun. Am starting to worry about finding the time to do it before moving though. Mind you one more trip to the Carbrook Brewery is pretty mandatory even if it always seems to turn into an all-day or night event!

Phrak - Still got your PM! Will post it up early this evening. Can't believe you didn't post at the time - lol.

davekate - Hope you got the bag sorted and managed to do your first brew this weekend. Will look forward to hearing how you went.

deaves - Thanks for the heads up on the Bunnings bag. I'd be fascinated to have a look at it.

Spot ya!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

This whole BIAB thing sounded to good to be true, so I had to have a go.

Today I brewed up a 10 litre batch of a scottish 60 schiling and I did it in a bag!!

A 16litre stock pot, a slighyly abused cake cooling rack and a circle of voile curtain material... done

I've go to say it was one of the most stress free brewdays I have ever had. I like it, I like it a lot.

From other peoples experiences of BIAB I worked on 75% efficiency, and bloody near hit my numbers on the head. Shooting for 10litres @ 1.033 and got 10.5 @ 1.0325. To be perfectly honest, thats the closest I have ever come to getting it exactly right, and on my first BIAB.

Cut an hour and a half off my brewday, but thats probably mainly due to the smaller batch size. Next time I will take it out of the kitchen down to my proper brewery, and there I will use a real chiller instead of the sink and things are a little better set up, then I think that I'll save even more time.

I'm not ready to give up my mash tun yet, but if this beer turns out well, and I can't see why it wont, then I plan to explore the whole BIAB thing a bit more thoroughly. I can certainly imagine that the day might come whe my mash tun reverts to being no more than a spare eski.

Pistol and all you other BIAB pioneers out there. Thanks. This was a lot of fun, and might just revolutionise my whole homebrewing practise.

Thirsty

 

[PistolPatch]

I've go to say it was one of the most stress free brewdays I have ever had. I like it, I like it a lot.

Very impressed Thirsty!

Also very pleased to hear all went well and that you enjoyed it. Thanks for giving the detailed feedback too. You did well to get close to your targets with such a small pot but the main thing I'm impressed with is that you had the sense of adventure to give this a go despite being already set-up. How good is that?

Taste results of a BIAB versus batch test will be out next Sunday and should give others quite some confidence in the method.

Many cheers to you Thirsty :beerbang:

Hey Phrak?

Man, I had a little accident on my computer. I discovered that you can archive PMs and so promptly did it. Then the shift key started playing up on my computer and permanently deleted my entire AHB folder. Whoops! I've had a good bash at reovering it but no luck yet. So the record of your first BIAB has probably dissapeared into cyberspace forever. Agh! Anyway, how did it taste mate? And, when do we get pics of your super-strong bag?

 

[poppa joe]

Friend of mine is going to give me a program to recover deleted
files ....next week... he came here today ..but left it at home...
He tried it and got back files...
PJ

 

[The King of Spain]

[Taste results of a BIAB versus batch test will be out next Sunday and should give others quite some confidence in the method]

PistolPatch

Are the results going to be posted in this thread? I am keen to see the results. The only additional step to an extract brew is that you have to mash and have (in my case) a bigger volume to cool. So why isn't every one doing it?

Far as I can see there is only a little extra effort. Ive got a cooler ready to go, ouch - copper prices up 400% or somthing over last year.

Ive got two batches from Ross ready to go. Was going to do first one tonight but time got me.

Cheers

 

[PistolPatch]

Poppa - Would love the file once you get it. I used to have one of those but can't find it!

Deaves - Will post a link to the results in this thread for sure. You are absolutely right on the BIAB only involving the mash as the extra step above extract. I think a lot of the newer AG'ers are doing BIAB from what I can gather so that's great. Not all who are doing it post here. Most seem to have jumped straight from kits to BIAB without going via extract. Not sure what the extract brewers think of the process?

Good luck with the first one Deaves and please let us know how it all goes.

Thanks,
Pat

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Pistol,

I thought that it was only polite to contribute some feedback on my BIAB session to the place where the process was concieved and developed. If only to say thanks to you and the others who have put in the hard yards blazing the trail for the rest of us to follow.

I actually made a conscious effort to NOT use any of my existing brewing equipment for the BIAB brew (well, sanitiser and hydrometer etc aside) because I wanted to see just how little Eq you really need to get into AG.

I'm teaching a mate how to brew on New Years Day and had written him out a couple of pages worth of instructions on how to build all the gear before I come up there. Now instead of a couple of pages, the list is only going to be a couple of lines.

1 - 1 pot (35+ litres) and a round cake rack to fit
2 - 2 meters of Voile curtain material
3 - A wort chiller (just dont like the idea of no chill I'm afraid)
4 - A good thermometer and; well...... nothing really

He's already a kit brewer so he has all the stirring, measuring sanitising gear already. How good is that!! Why wouldn't you go AG??

See ya

Thirsty

 

[bonj]

PistolPatch,

I'm new to the forum, so I've just discovered this thread. I noticed that you want better photos for your instructions. I have a decent amount of photography gear, and I'm more than happy to shoot some new images. Photography is my other main interest, so let me know if you want to organise something.

-Bonj

 

[Paleman]

Im trying to nut out the BIAB method. I have read as much info as i can find.

One step i dont understand is......theres no sparge, so how does one get ones efficiency around the mark ? Thus the appropriate SG. do you use more grain than normal ?

PP, i'm not knocking the method, as i have never brewed allgrain. But i thought the sparge was a very important step. :huh: or am i missing something.

Anyway, as a beginner, if it makes my first allgrain easier, and still taste great....i'm a willing participant.

 

[PistolPatch]

Thirsty - I love it when people are polite! Many thanks. Am really looking forward to more feedback from you after you taste the results. Feedback is especially valuable when someone has tried both methods.

Bonj - Mate, thanks for your kind offer. Unfortunately I'm moving to Perth in a few weeks so no more brewing for me in QLD. Agh! We are having a major drinkathon this Saturday if you want to attend though. If so, PM me or post back here.

Paleman - Your post is really good as it points out a flaw in the BIAB Guide I hadn't spotted as yet and will need to think on some more. I wrote the guide as a simple way for people to start at AG straight from kits with little prior knowledge of AG (could well have failed in this area as well!) I never thought of people who have too much knowledge but have not had the hands-on - i.e. people like you and me!

I know exactly where you are coming from and am really quite glad that there is at least someone else besides me that makes a concerted effort at studying their brewing. The problem with this concerted study is that it leads you away from the basic principles and often into the quite inaccurate ******** where I have been. (I should probably edit that last sentence but it's been a long day and it is correct. Rarely do people in their posts on AHB specify whether they are batch or fly-sparging. THese are two totally different methods. No wonder us readers get bewidered!)

Let's answer your question...

The only purpose of mashing and sparging grain is to extract sugars. End of story. I mentioned this maybe 20 or 30 posts above but following a thread like this is a big ask. I promise I will summarise it in a new thread once the taste results come out next week.

Traditional methods are reliant on trying to extract the maximum amount of sugars with minimal capital cost. This leads to compromise on vessel shape, time etc. Hence, people use a small amount of water first (mashing) to get a fair whack of sugar out of the grain then add more water later (sparging) to get a little more from the grain. This more water later bit, in a commercial brewery, is done in a specialised lauter tun. (I was surprised to find that many top brewers on this forum did not even know there was a difference between a mash tun and lauter tun in a commercial brewery.) The simple reason thay have two such vessels is economy though I am still unsure as to what the economics are - I suspect a time thing mainly.

Traditional batch and fly-sparging follows in the above footsteps.

BIAB is a form of what a few of us now call, 'full-volume brewing.' You add a heap of water (mash plus sparge water) all at once. To me, this makes more sense. (You will read things about a thick and thin mash producing different beers but I really do wonder if this is more irrelevant twaddle - it definitely is at the beginner to intermediate stage and should most certainly be ignored by those new to AG.) Your mash and sparge are done in one meaning all sugars are extracted evenly.

Does that make any sense Paleman? It's been a long day but hopefully something I wrote is of value. If not, please ask questions. It will help me tidy up or create a whole new BIAB Guide.

Spot ya,
Pat

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

Hey Pat,

Although I couldn't resist the lure of a mash tun at "the right price", I'm still inspired whenever I check in on this thread

My major concern, as you may have noticed based on previous posts (aside from my "disaster" posts) is mash temerature control.

Well...I've got a 40L esky here and as this is "Brew In A Bag", not "All In One Vessel" I figure my idea applies...mash in a bag in the esky! :super:

Now, as my first full AG batch isn't even in the fermenter yet (still in the no-chill jerry), I'll probably wunna' see how that turns out and use the tun again soon, but I'm keen to do both...yes, how better to up the output than employ two mashing methods at once aye? B)

Plus, I love tinkering

PZ.

 

[The King of Spain]

Yeah, Ive wondered about efficiency too Krausen. Pistol, I was going to modify a 30 litre drum or similar with a stainless steel mesh base to use instead of a bag. WOuld be easy to clean and would also allow you to pick it up and rinse some of the sugars through it. Any thoughts??

 

[Paleman]

Thanks for your detailed reply PP. Much appreciated.

I like the term " Full Volume Brewing ".......sounds to me like it does simplify things.

 

[The King of Spain]

First BIAB away. No problems. I was a little worried about efficiency so I made sure that I had 23 litres at mash out to test gravity. It came in at 1.036 (was targeting 1.044) so I added some DME to achieve my target. So there you have it - still have not done my first AG.

I was not going to all that effort to do a low alcohol beer. Took me less time to cool 23 litres with a cooler than 15 in the tub which is how I did my last extract. I'm not going to fluff about with trying to extract more sugar with sparging (is that what you call it?) I'll just add another kg of grain. Thanks all, esp Pistol and Ross who even helped tailor my recepie

By the way Fingerlickin I had a bag the same size as my 50L boiler and still didn't get an OG much different to yours. Think the sugar was just removed with the bag...

 

[PostModern]

The only purpose of mashing and sparging grain is to extract sugars. End of story.

That is a bit of an oversimplification.

For starters, malted grain has no sugars to extract.
Mashing utilises the enzymes in the grain to covert the starches into sugars. That is the purest and plainest purpose of mashing.

Lautering and sparging extract these sugars from the mash. There is much more going on than a simple rehydration and extraction. The liquor:grist ratio has a large impact on the quality of the wort. There are lots of sugars, dextrins, proteins, lipids, etc created and changed in the process. Sure the composition and relative quanities of these compounds may not matter too much to the homebrewer who just wants beer out of the other end, but there are measurable differences in the beer just by changing your l:g ratio by .5

I'm not saying that BIAB doesn't work, the evidence here is absolutely in favour of the fact that it does, but to dismiss the traditional 3 vessel homebrew rig as completely unnecessary is pretty dismissive of valid and well established techniques. Obviously for those hoping to take a shortcut into "from scratch" homebrew, BIAB is a valid technique, but please PP, get your facts straight. You have probably read more on mashing than me by now, so take into account the reasons so many of us still do things the hard way.

 

[Doogiechap]

10359.IPB[/ATTACH]
and


Just a $16 glass frypan lid from Kmart.
Just a thought if you head in that direction in the future
Cheers
Doug

 

[PistolPatch]

PoMo I was being a naughty AHB poster last night - lol. Too many hours working in the QLD sun yesterday. The fact that it took me about 80 paragraphs to answer Paleman's question is a dead give-away. I'd be interested to try some different water to grist ratios to see the differences. I know AndrewQLD did a full volume brew and didn't notice any negative results so I'm assuming it is irrelevant to beginners or intermediate AG'ers. I didn't quite put it like that last night though - lol. Thanks for your correction. Saved me editing my long ramble!

Finger One thing you can do if you have the esky is muck around with the liquor to grist ratios mentioned by PoMo. Another advantage I suppose is you could be mashing one brew while boiling the other if you did 2 brews in one day. As for the heat loss with BIAB, I don't have a problem with it maybe becasue my pot has a thick base. Also giving a quick burst of heat is no trouble for me. Knew you'd miss us and come back to post here!

deaves Can't quite picture what you mean by the drum with mesh. I might need a bit more detail before I can offer any thoughts eg Are you boiling in the drum etc? Alternatively just wait until next time I have too many beers - lol.

Just saw your second post. Congrats mate! Glad to hear all was easy. If you're using Beersmith try and download the correct grain databases so the program will more accurately predict your efficiency. By the way, did you have extra left over above the 23 litres by the way? Inother words, how much was left in your kettle? And looks as though you forked out for the copper eh? Good stuff. Look forward to hearing your first taste test deaves. Also, when did you actually start brewing? Just wondering how quickly you got to do your first AG. Well done mate!

Doug Very nice and simple idea!

Spot ya,
Pat (Sober tonight!)

 

[Thirsty Boy]

That is a bit of an oversimplification.

For starters, malted grain has no sugars to extract.
Mashing utilises the enzymes in the grain to covert the starches into sugars. That is the purest and plainest purpose of mashing.

Lautering and sparging extract these sugars from the mash. There is much more going on than a simple rehydration and extraction. The liquor:grist ratio has a large impact on the quality of the wort. There are lots of sugars, dextrins, proteins, lipids, etc created and changed in the process. Sure the composition and relative quanities of these compounds may not matter too much to the homebrewer who just wants beer out of the other end, but there are measurable differences in the beer just by changing your l:g ratio by .5

I'm not saying that BIAB doesn't work, the evidence here is absolutely in favour of the fact that it does, but to dismiss the traditional 3 vessel homebrew rig as completely unnecessary is pretty dismissive of valid and well established techniques. Obviously for those hoping to take a shortcut into "from scratch" homebrew, BIAB is a valid technique, but please PP, get your facts straight. You have probably read more on mashing than me by now, so take into account the reasons so many of us still do things the hard way.

I both agree and maybe a little disagree with you Post Modern. I'm not really sure which yet. Maybe neither?

Some musings on mash thickness and brewing processes.

Mash thickness mainly ( I know not only) effects the stability of Beta Amalayse at higher temps. A thicker mash helps the Betas to function at higher temps because they work more effectively when they are close to their substrate. In a thin mash they are more vunerable to higher temperatures. The effect of this on BIAB might mean that your worts will have different levels of fermentability than they would have at thicker L:G ratios given the same mash temps... so for BIAB you wouldn't use the same mash temps, no more than you would if you were changing your L:G from 2 to 3.5 in a "standard" 2, 3, 4 or 5 vessle system. You would need to compensate in both cases.

This would leave BIAB vunerable to producing less fermentable worts if brewers aren't careful with thier mash temps. On the other hand; getting accurate strike temps is pretty damn easy with BIAB. You dont have to worry about MT thermal mass, and so much of the whole system's thermal mass is in the full volume of water that you really only heat strike water up a couple of degrees higher than desired mash temp. The thermal mass and latent temp of the grain is pretty much overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hot liquor. If you were doing a step mash, thinner L:G means less buffering (for want of a better word) against heat changes. Less chance of overshooting when you have a nice thin, easy to stir mash that doesn't really have hot or cold spots (assuming that you are stirring of course)

Thin mashes also tend to lessen the effect of starch degredation by-products on enzyme activity, so both alpha and beta perform a little better than they might in a thicker mash. This could help to explain why many of the BIAB efforts so far are yielding efficiencies comparable to batch sparging. Lose a bit because of no lautering, gain a bit because of increased enzyme activity. The experience so far also seems to suggest that a significantly finer crush can be used for BIAB, and crush is probably the MOST important factor for efficiency in a batch or no-sparge brew. You could probably hammer mill the grain into mostly powder if you were using a fine enough bag. Then you would pretty much have just created a home version of a Mash Filter lautering system.

Of course, thats by no means the whole thin vs thick mash story. I think it does however cover some significant plot points.

I think that Pat raises some very real points about the reasons people use "traditional" systems. We (myself included) emulate the methods of the Pro-brewers who's beer we admire and want to make for ourselves. We also follow "traditional" methods. Beer has been brewed in several vessels for "hundreds of years" so it must be the right way to do it. Of course the farmers in Flanders and the Pub breweries in England didn't have any really fine, super strong, heat proof, flexible and cheap material lying around the place to play with. If they did, I wonder if traditions today would be the same? Equally valid is the point that many of the methods used by the pros are dictated by matters of scale and economics. When you are brewing 600HL at a time, things get awfully big and heavy. The ony possible solution is to move the liquids around. 20litres at a time, you can leave the liquid where it is and move everything else. The scale thing is pretty drastiacally illustrated by one of the limits that BIAB has already encountered. Just attempting to do a Double Batch BIAB style has resulted in problems with weight, material strength, muscle power (and no doubt some back injuries if people aren't careful) The oppostie direction to BIAB is demonstrated in modern high gravity production breweries who deliberately brew with thick mashes to produce high gravity worts. They reduce required vessle size, energy costs turnaround times etc. Not traditional at all. But practical. Hell, modern breweries (well outside of Germany anyway) don't feel constrained in the least by tradition. The seperate Lauter Tun is a straight out consession to turn around time and capacity, at the expense of a little wort quality. A thin bed mash filter would have the trappist monks of a couple of centuries ago looking for a tree to nail you too. I doubt seriously that the three vessel system favoured by home brewers is actually used by any brewery of size in this day and age. More likely to be 5 than anything.

BIAB is a pretty new method that is just beginning to prove itself. Some of the things it has proved so far are its limitations. Size matters, much above 20 litres and BIAB probably isn't for you. Enzymes matter, BIAB isn't all that Beta friendly and if you are planning a mash at the extremes of the amalayse ranges, or you have a grist composition with a really low diastatic power, maybe BIAB isn't for you. Its not the same... your old brewing experience might not serve you too well, you will need to experiment with temps and grain bills to get similar beers from BIAB. Old dog who doesn't want to learn new tricks; BIABs not for you then.

In its place though... Sub 25litre batches, beers that don't push the boundaries too hard, especialy for new AG brewers. It might just turn out to be the right way to go. So many people are scared by all the gear, the cost, the effort. If (and its still definately a BIG if..) BIAB can do it simpler, cheaper, easier and still make quality beer; then maybe those of us who choose to still do it "the hard way" aren't really doing anything other than stubbornly punishing ourselves for our inflexibility. I'm not throwing away my Mash Tun and HLT just yet, but if I peer a little into the future, I'm not so sure that I dont see the gentle wafting of a thin white veil of curtain material; slowly coming down around them.

Thirsty

 

[jimmysuperlative]

I both agree and maybe a little disagree with you Post Modern. I'm not really sure which yet. Maybe neither?

Some musings on mash thickness and brewing processes...

Thirsty

Fabulous post, Thirsty Boy! I was fortunate enough to look to make the jump to AG at the right time ...James Squire, mimerbryg, and of course PistolPatch had just begun discussing the All In One vessel idea.
BIAB developed as a method, and because it was doable with the limited equipment I had, I jumped on board ...largely because the initial results looked positive ...and the thinking (to my mind, at least0 was that this will have to produce a better beer than I was currently brewing with kits.

I have six BIAB's to my credit now ...I'm using the recipes of "experienced" brewers, and although I don't have the luxury of other AG brewers to compare my beers with, I know that my beers are comparable with the ones I occasionally buy from my local bottleshop, and the people who drink my beers seem genuinely surprised that they're drinking "homebrew".
As a homebrewer, I think that's more than ever hoped I would achieve!

If I was in a position to advise anyone looking to get into brewing, BIAB is where I'd point them to first ...for the cost of a pot, heat source, fermenter and a piece of cloth it's an inexpensive way to start brewing great tasting beer. Although, I do admit that kit beers provide a good apprenticeship.

So, now that I can produce tasty beers from real AG recipes, and feel confident that my mates are impressed by my brewing prowess, I ask the obvious question:

How can I increase my output withnout increasing my effort? I'm talking double batch sizes ...That's the next logical step for me ...if I'm spending this much time producing 22 litres of beer, how can I increase my product output?

I'd rather not change my technique (BIAB) because it's what I know ...I'd like to think that this discussion thread will produce the answer. In the end, I know my batch size will increase. I know the beer will still taste great. I know that the people who write the books will begin referring to BIAB or Full Volume Mashing or All In One methods as valid and dependable ways to brew.