A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[SpillsMostOfIt]

... Isn't a side effect of sparging diluting the wort in the dead space to almost a zero sugar level?

If you're fly-sparging, you stop sparging when you reach some target volume or some target gravity coming out of the tun. I don't think people sparge until they get zero. (Happy to be corrected.)

If you're batch-sparging, there will be an amount of sugar left in there, which is what I understand to be (kind of) the basis of partigyle brewing.

I partly recall an educational story about a soldier (or a tortoise or a one-armed paper-hanger or something) that would take a step towards his goal, then take a step that was only half that one, then another that was only half that one (ie: a quarter of the original), then another that was only half that one (ie: an eighth of the original) and so on. He would get very close, but never actually reach his goal. I see batch sparging in that light.

There is a school of thought that says if you sparge too far, you can extract things you *do not* want in your beer. I've never had the opportunity to prove/disprove this because I've not sparged that far... Happily, if you're full-volume mashing, it is not relevant.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'm almost sure enough to say it as though its just the truth.....

BIAB gets comparable efficiency result to a batch sparging because of the lesser amounts of wort lost to absorption by the grain and dead space.

Think about the numbers a little - in a batch sparge with two equal drainings ... the second draining will contain roughly 33% of the sugars you recover.
Now say you are doing a single batch and you are shooting for a pre-boil of 30L... 15L will come from your second draining of the tun. Now if you have 5kg of grain and 1L of deadspace - you will loose around 5+1=6L of wort that is at the same strength as your second runnings or 6/21x100= 28% of the sugar thats available to you in the mash tun at the time. Now thats going to be (very roughly) 28% of 45-50% of the total sugars you created or about 14% - straight onto the garden.

Now in BIAB you are looking at losing only 0.5 or less l/kg of grain and no deadspace - so you only lose 2.5L - rather than 7 which is 2.5/30x100 = 8.3% ... which means that right off the bat, BIAB claws back 5 and half % of the efficiency you lose through not sparging.

And thats about right I reckon... I was getting around 78-80% efficiency doing a double drain batch sparge - and most people say that you are looking at a 65% ish efficiency for a "no sparge" beer (not in a bag version) - add the 5.5% we talked about and you are up to 71.5.

And with margins for error etc etc... thats pretty damn comparable. I get about 75% efficiency on BIAB brews and thats close enough to my current efficiency on my main system ... that I dont feel the need to make adjustments to efficiency calculations when I transfer recipes from my "pilot" BIAB set-up to my main brewery.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[dmcke109]

To anyone out there that may be able to help,

I'm just about to attempt my first BIAB and have been doing some research on the net. I have read the BIAB handbook and have researched some other sites online. I found this info on one site, and I quote, "After your mash. you need to give things a good stir, and keep on stirring while you add heat and bring the whole mash up to mash out temp. In traditional brewing mash out isn't really necessary, but in BIAB its really quite important for efficiency. You can skip it, but you will probably lose close to 5 points of efficiency" (http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4650&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0/fa). My question - should I follow this step as I don't recall the BIAB tutorial saying to perform a mash out? If mash out is required, what temp should I aim for?

Cheers

 

[Adamt]

A mash out is usually around 76C, at higher temperatures more sugars are able to dissolve in the wort. At temperatures higher than 78, tannins may be extracted from the grain (not good). A mash out is definitely worth it. One easy way to do it is to add a couple of litres of boiling water to your mash, making sure you stir WELL.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Hop_alot,

The reason why the BiaB handbook doesn't have a mashout and the guide you quote does is simple - Pistol Patch wrote the BiaB handbook and I wrote the other one... PP doesn't think a mahout is a particular benefit - and I do.

For your first batches - just skip it - it will make your brewday easier, simpler and quicker - then after a couple of brews, try the mashout and see if it makes a difference.

Then you can decide for yourself which of PP and myself were right. But if you come down on PP's side... don't tell me because I will feel inadequate and I might cry...

Thirsty

 

[dmcke109]

Hi Thirsty Boy,

Thanks for the reply!

I am thinking at this stage that I will give the mash out a go. After some research, I believe there appears to be some value in it. Although I must admit, I am looking forward to Pistol Pete's reply (Pistol Pete - thanks for the PM).

Cheers,
Hop_alot

PS - I won't be bagging either of you, I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that we value your advice.
PPS - big boys don't cry (except when your missus throws out your homebrew equipment)

Hop_alot,

The reason why the BiaB handbook doesn't have a mashout and the guide you quote does is simple - Pistol Patch wrote the BiaB handbook and I wrote the other one... PP doesn't think a mahout is a particular benefit - and I do.

For your first batches - just skip it - it will make your brewday easier, simpler and quicker - then after a couple of brews, try the mashout and see if it makes a difference.

Then you can decide for yourself which of PP and myself were right. But if you come down on PP's side... don't tell me because I will feel inadequate and I might cry...

Thirsty

 

[Thirsty Boy]

No probs hop_alot,

The redoubtable PP has PM'd me and asked me to reply on his behalf (he is voluntarily under a pre-moderation order for his posts and they take a couple of days to win approval )

He says -

"The reason there is no mashout in the BIAB guide is because it was written before I even knew what a mashout was! My thinking on it now is that it increases efficiency by maybe two points plus stabilises the beer.

. . . . .

What I do now for a mashout is string my bag up with the mash paddle in it, suspend it so as it is not sitting on the bottom of the kettle (to save constant agitation) and raise it to 78 degrees. At 78, I dump the bag back in and give the paddle a jkiggle up and down and then leave the ******* for ten minutes. Having the paddle in the bag works well."

Which is of course complete BS ... he has just finally worked out that I was right and he was wrong and cant bring himself to admit it... big nancy boy.

I'll stick to what I said last time... don't fret about the mashout for the first couple of brews - make your life as easy as you can rather than worrying about a couple of efficiency points. Once you have a bit of a feel for the process... then play around a little.

Cheers

Thirsty (and of course PP)

 

[dmcke109]

Thanks again Thirsty! Really appreciate your advice. Will give BIAB a go this weekend and let you know how I go.

Also, thanks to Adamt for his earlier reply to my post : )

Cheers,
Hop

 

[katzke]

Hello from the USA.

Finally found the fabric for the bag and a rack to put in the bottom of my converted keg.

Now it is time to brew and I need a fast beer as I am out. I am thinking of an Ordinary bitter. Low gravity and designed to be drunk early. Last extract version was a bit different but drinkable.

Here is a go at a recipe.

7 gallon finished volume (26.5L).

7 pounds Maris Otter (3.18kg)
.5 pound Honey Malt (.23kkg)
.5 pound Victory Malt (.23kg)
.5 pound Biscuit Malt (.23kg)
2 ounces Goldings at boil (56.7g)
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

I think I need to start with about 9 gallons or 34L of water but am not sure. Final volume is not critical as I am splitting it into a 5-gallon carboy and a smaller one for experimenting further. This should start at 1.035 and finish around 1.010

This is my own recipe following some others for inspiration. Fell free to tear it apart or make suggestions for changes. I am not sure at all if it will work, as I have never done AG before. I am not sure of a mash temp and plan on following the guide. Not in a hurry and plan on starting in 5 or 6 days. Still need to get ingredients.

Thanks,

 

[Thirsty Boy]

WARNING - Multiple paragraph post ahead - Look away now..... Look away NOW


katzke,

Mate, most of your assumptions are pretty good. I shoved your recipe into pro-mash to see what would come out, and its not too bad at all.

Your numbers are pretty close; assuming that you get an efficiency of 77% and that your boil off rate (for a 60min boil) is 15% or 4.7 litres per hour. (Your boil off might not be that - so if you know what yours is, then you will need to adjust accordingly)

77% is a reasonable efficiency to expect for a BiaB brew where the expected OG is this low. For a more normal gravity, you can probably expect a bit lower mash efficiency, maybe 74 or 75 and even less as you get up into higher gravity brews.

You can work out your required water fairly easily. You work backwards from your post boil volume.

Post boil + Boil off = pre-boil. Pre-boil + grain absorption = water needed. Grain absorption = 0.5L per kg of grain

so for your brew - 26.5 + 4.7 + (3.87x0.5) = 33.14

Now.... I squeeze my BiaB bag fairly thoroughly and if you don't want to do that - then you might want to sub a grain absorption of 0.75 rather than 0.5L/kg

I'd mash at around 68C - fairly high so that the beer ends up with some body. Shooting for an FG of maybe 1.011 or 1.012. In my experience, BiaB brews end up a bit drier/thinner than normal brews, so I sometimes mash them about 1 degree C higher than I would on a normal mashing system.

Pro-mash says that if your grain temp is 19-30C then your strike water (31.2L) will need to be at 70C to get a mash in temp of 68 - add 0.6C if you grain temp is lower than that.

Two things I'd like to say about your recipe:

First - If you haven't brewed an all grain beer before, you are going to be surprised by the amount of stuff that settles to the bottom of your kettle. There is a LOT more break material than when you do an extract brew. And to stack on that, BiaB give a much more cloudy wort than other brewing methods, so there is a bit more stuff in the kettle to start with. I'd say you need to allow at least 2 or 3 litres lost in your kettle to trub. Allow a gallon to avoid surprises. So you are likely to end up with closer to 6 gallons into fermentors than you are to 7. If you really want 7G finished, you are going to need to up your quantities a bit.

Second - You are using several malts (Honey, Victory, Biscuit) that aren't available to me in Australia, so I don't know their particular properties, but, I believe that none of them is a caramel/crystal style malt? And I would include a crystal malt of some sort in this sort of beer. To give it a bit more sweetness and body. The issue with a beer like this is to compensate for the overall lack of malt in the recipe with "tricks" I'd be going for 7-8% of a darker crystal like a C120 or maybe a special B so that it gives a lot of body and flavour, but not so much out and out sweetness.

The other thing is - Your converted kettle. Converted kettles don't make the best BiaB pots. When you have to pull the bag out it gets squeezed through the opening and wort tends to go all over the place a bit. So be prepared for that. You could maybe try to drill a couple of drain holes so that wort that gets onto the top rim of you kettle drains back in rather than running down the sides, or just try to do it "fast" to minimize the spillage. A straight sided pot or a converted keg with the top cut completely off rather than with a hole cut out - is the best option for BiaB.

Thats almost certainly more from me than you wanted or needed to hear, so I'll quit now.

Good luck with your brew.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[katzke]

WARNING - Multiple paragraph post ahead - Look away now..... Look away NOW


katzke,

Mate, most of your assumptions are pretty good. I shoved your recipe into pro-mash to see what would come out, and its not too bad at all.



Second - You are using several malts (Honey, Victory, Biscuit) that aren't available to me in Australia, so I don't know their particular properties, but, I believe that none of them is a caramel/crystal style malt? And I would include a crystal malt of some sort in this sort of beer. To give it a bit more sweetness and body. The issue with a beer like this is to compensate for the overall lack of malt in the recipe with "tricks" I'd be going for 7-8% of a darker crystal like a C120 or maybe a special B so that it gives a lot of body and flavour, but not so much out and out sweetness.

The other thing is - Your converted kettle. Converted kettles don't make the best BiaB pots. When you have to pull the bag out it gets squeezed through the opening and wort tends to go all over the place a bit. So be prepared for that. You could maybe try to drill a couple of drain holes so that wort that gets onto the top rim of you kettle drains back in rather than running down the sides, or just try to do it "fast" to minimize the spillage. A straight sided pot or a converted keg with the top cut completely off rather than with a hole cut out - is the best option for BiaB.

Thats almost certainly more from me than you wanted or needed to hear, so I'll quit now.

Good luck with your brew.

Cheers

Thirsty

Thanks a bunch for the advice.

Will have to put some thought into it when I have more time. Some things like the efficiency are different then what I got with BeerSmith. Could be the software or the fact I have no idea what I was doing.

The recipe is loosely based on a partial I did already. It was a 5-gallon batch and I used a pound of Biscuit and that was too much when drinking it green. With a little time it mellowed. I did like the biscuity bready taste so think I will stick with it for this try. I did some sampling at the store and Victory has a different lighter taste then the Biscuit. The Honey Malt was not like honey, like I have read, but from taste it should add some sweetness. I think I know what to expect when it is done.

As to the converted keg. I have a very small lip as I cut the top as large as I could. So hope to have only a small spill. I have only used it twice and have not figured evaporation rates. I was thinking of asking others in the area what to expect. I am sure humidity has as much to do with it as burners.

That brings up a related question. Is it bad to us a lid when boiling? Do not need to use one to get a boil. Just the thought of stuff flying into the open pot while setting outside kind of bothers me.

If I have any other questions after reflecting on all the info I will let you know. If not the next time you see a post will be after the brew is in the fermenter.

 

[katzke]

Thanks a bunch for the advice.

If I have any other questions after reflecting on all the info I will let you know. If not the next time you see a post will be after the brew is in the fermenter.

OK I have more questions about my recipe. Time to shop.

I found out I mixed recipes (bad notes and confused receipts) and used some incorrect ingredients.

The correct recipe is as follows.

7 pounds Maris Otter (3.18kg)
.5 pound Honey Malt (.23kkg)
.5 pound Victory Malt (.23kg)
.5 pound Biscuit Malt (.23kg)
1 ounces Fuggles at boil (28.3g)
.75 ounces Goldings at boil (21.3g)
1 ounces Fuggles at 15 minutes (28.3g)
Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

This gives me about 31 IBUs. I can only get hops in 2-ounce packages. Have the ounces left over from a different brew. I used the Fuggles last time so thought the Goldings would be better used for the bittering hops. Last time was a 5-gallon batch and used 1.5 ounces at boil and .5 ounces at 15 minutes. Thought this would be close for a 7-gallon batch.

Will post this again as a general recipe to catch the ones that do not like Biab. Hope I do not get in to much trouble for cross posting.

 

[katzke]

OK I have more questions about my recipe. Time to shop.

I found out I mixed recipes (bad notes and confused receipts) and used some incorrect ingredients.

The correct recipe is as follows.

7 pounds Maris Otter (3.18kg)
.5 pound Honey Malt (.23kkg)
.5 pound Victory Malt (.23kg)
.5 pound Biscuit Malt (.23kg)
1 ounces Fuggles at boil (28.3g)
.75 ounces Goldings at boil (21.3g)
1 ounces Fuggles at 15 minutes (28.3g)
Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

This gives me about 31 IBU's. I can only get hops in 2-ounce packages. Have the ounces left over from a different brew. I used the Fuggles last time so thought the Goldings would be better used for the bittering hops. Last time was a 5-gallon batch and used 1.5 ounces at boil and .5 ounces at 15 minutes. Thought this would be close for a 7-gallon batch.

Will post this again as a general recipe to catch the ones that do not like Biab. Hope I do not get in to much trouble for cross posting.

Edit.

Well I did it I am a Biaby or what ever you call it. My first All Grain Batch and first Biab.

Planned on brewing Saturday but complications postponed it until Sunday evening. I know plan ahead and make sure you have plenty of time. Well I started at 6:15 and put it all to bend at 11:30. I found out I need a better burner.

The time went like this. Start 6:15, hit mash temp at 7:15, mash till 8:15, hit mash out at 8:30, pull bag at 9:00, hit boil at 9:20, shut down at 10:20, forgot to keep track of time from here but put the wraps on the fermenters at 11:30. Yes at night.

I missed my target gravity by about .002 because of less boil off then expected. So I added pound LDME per BeerSmith to hit my target of 1.035. Would not have bothered but it is a thin beer and 1.032 or so bothered me.

Had to split the pack of yeast between my bucket and a 3 gallon carboy. Did not think this would be to big an issue as it is a low gravity beer. Last time I made a similar one it finished fast with a full packet in 5 gallons.

So I am sure some will say I did not get my All Grain feet totally wet because of the DME. I did learn a lot and know what better to expect and do next time. This is twice I did a night brew and both times I over shot my volume. Note to self to not brew in the dark.

On the positive side it did save me some $. Even with the price of hopes going up $2 this batch was less then the extract with grain batch of about the same beer. If I keep brewing this way I will have the extra equipment paid for in 2 or 3 more batches.

 

[pbrosnan]

gday

im only fairly new to extract brewing but after reading this thread which is awsome thank you thank you, im very keen to get into all grain asap. ive found a bit of kit
that i like, aTobin 40 Litre Urn, Thermostat Control. i was hoping to get some opinions on using this bit of kit for Biab brewing if possible. Seems like it would work
great for diffrent temps etc, save some sanitising, gas bottles etc.

Cheers for any help guy's.

Spec's
Item No: T40-T

[size=-1]
[/size][size=-1]Representative image only.[/size]​

Tobin 40 Litre Urn, Thermostat Control

Trade Price: A$339.00 Each
(Price includes 10% GST)

Features
* Polished Stainless Steel, all welded construction.
* All edges are rolled for extra strength.
* Thermostatically controlled for adjustment through to boiling point.
* Protection against boiling dry.
* Non drip tap and insulated handles.
* Indicator light.
* Water Gauge glass
* Element wattage 3000W
* Made in Australia

Approximately 175 to 200 cups
Size: 550mm high x 360mm diameter
Weight: 7.0Kg.

Go the urn, use it as a kettle and get a mash tun. I'm thinking I might have to get one of those 40L babies.

 

[katzke]

Well we did our second Biab. That should make us Biabers and not Biabys.

The brew went well just like last time. If we went No Chill we may have set a record. With both of us keeping time we still have a few guesses. We started about 1 PM and pitched at about 5:50. We shut down the boil at 4:15 so that puts it at 3 and a quarter hours if we No Chilled. I followed Thirty’s advice and just left the bag in until we hit Mashout and then pulled it. That saved a bunch of time over the last brew. It helped that it was at or above 90 today with little wind. One reason why cooling took longer as well as we let it settle longer. Advantage this time is less break in the fermentor.

Only bummer is we blew our efficiency and boil off again. We ended up with just less then 5 gallons and OG was 1.062 instead of 1.067 as calculated by BeerSmith (must be the program and not us).

Do not want to insult any Kiwi’s but the recipe is called Riwaka IPA. It is a typical American IPA no British sailor would have tolerated or brewery would have created. Here is the break down (sorry you will have to convert it yourself to metric).

5 Gallon batch
7 gallon boil
60 min boil
Est OG 1.067 OG 1.062
Est bitterness 91.4

6.5 pounds Meris Otter
3 pounds 2 Row
1 pound Crystal 10L
1 pound Munich
.5 pound Cara-Pils
1 ounce Columbus 14% 60 min
1 ounce Columbus 14% 30 min
1 ounce Riwaka 6.5% 15 min
Wyeast London Ale 1028

1 ounce Riwaka Dry Hop in secondary.

8 Gallon Baib Mash at 155 for 60 min.
Raise to Mashout of 170 and pull bag and continue to boil heat.

Taste into fermentor, sweet, bitter, fruity. The sweet is first, followed by the fruity on the tip of the tong and the bitter hits the middle of the tong.

I do not like IPA’s but it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Katzke - you are doing something wrong when you calculate your efficiency I think.

I put your ingredients into pro-mash and to get your expected gravity you would have needed to get above 90% efficiency.

Here's how I worked it so you know the assumptions I have made.

You started with a 7G boil yes? You ended up with a "little" less than 5G in your fermentor, so you probably ended up with a post boil volume of around 5.5G and left close to a gallon of trub and goo in the kettle.

So that makes your batch size 5.5G - And to get 5.5G of 1.067 wort from the ingredients you listed you would have had to get 91% efficiency. Which is a hell of a long way from what you are likely to get with BiaB and would be damn fine going for even a well set up fly sparge system.

Even if I have misread your results and you actually ended up with a little less than 5G at the end of the boil - and even less in the fermentor. To get 5G of 1.067 wort would be an efficiency of 82% - also a fair bit too ambitious. 4.5G @ 1.067 = 74% (more realistic) .... 4.5G @ 1.062 = 69% which is about what I would expect for a BiaB brew at that gravity.

BiaB should give you a fairly regular "mid seventies" efficiency (into the boiler) for a wort of "normal" strength ie: somewhere around 1.048-1.050. As you go up from there I would be factoring in a drop in efficiency of (very roughly...) 5% for every 0.01 point of gravity. So if you were getting 75% on a 1.050 beer - then 70% for a 1.06, 65% for a 1.07 etc etc. It goes the other way too - you will pick up some efficiency when you drop the gravity. On a small beer you might get it up over 80%

It will vary for you particular system and only experience will tell you exactly how much you need to adjust. This drop off in efficiency is common to all forms of sparging except continuous/fly sparging. It happens to batch spargers, and even more severely to No-Spargers, and BiaB is a No-Sparge technique.

You also need to account for you losses to kettle trub - if you lose a Gallon to hops and break etc in the kettle - then that has to be added to your post boil batch size. It hurts, but all that goo you are throwing out is just as strong and sweet as the good stuff you are keeping and takes its share of the ingredients. A gallon of wort/trub/gunge to the drain is 17% of the sugar you went to all that trouble to make. If you want 5G of 1.05 wort in the fermentor, you will need to make 6G of 1.050 wort to get it. And its this greater volume that you use in your efficiency calculations.

Now - I don't have any idea if the assumptions I made about your brew are correct or not. But hopefully in my rambling somewhere there will be something that helps you get a bit closer to your numbers next time. Anyway, its only your second try at it - if you were hitting your numbers it would be a mighty effort. Keep it up. If things are still out of whack in ten brews time .... then you might have an issue.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[katzke]

Katzke - you are doing something wrong when you calculate your efficiency I think.

I put your ingredients into pro-mash and to get your expected gravity you would have needed to get above 90% efficiency.

Cheers

Thirsty

Sorry to have put you to so much work. I did learn from your post if it helps any.

The trouble in your calculations was entirely mine (I hope). The recipe should be 3 pounds of 2 row and not 2. That should help out the efficiency a bit.

And just to be clear my comment on missing the gravity was a bit of sarcasm. We have never hit a gravity in any of our brews. I always just consider it a goal. The last brew was so light, in style, that I added extract to get it back up to the goal. This time we put the top on the bucket and were happy.

 

[captaincleanoff]

Hi all

I've done about a 20 BIAB batches now, and am really happy with the result.

However, I am having problems achieving the correct batch sizes, and am not sure why.

When I follow a recipe that is 52-54L, I usually end up with about 40L..

I always check the boil size using beer smith, which always comes out the same as the boil size stated in the recipe. I suspend the bags above the pot for a good while with a pulley system, so I'm getting as much of the liquid out of the grain as possible. Im doing 60 or 90 min mashs and 90m boils

So that makes me think it must come down to evaporation... I take into account evaporation when calculating boil size.. I nearly always achieve correct %, colour, taste etc..

Where is this 12-14L going to?!

 

[MVZOOM]

Hi all

Where is this 12-14L going to?!

I reckon you're on the money. Up your evap calc and check out dead space calcs. What grain/water obsorbtion ratio are you looking at?

Cheers Mike

 

[captaincleanoff]

I've been using 9% an hour and 3L loss. Think it should be higher? Im using the 100L aluminium pot as seen on beerbelly.com.au