A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks Thirsty - yup stuck my bag to the bottom of the kettle - first time ever the wife distracted me with an I just need you for 5mins. Oh well cost her a new bag and managed to rescue the brew.

Thanks for the great advise. I use Beersmith but have promash (somewhere) I will have a play and see if i can do what you suggest in beersmith first.

rgds mike

no worries, dont worry about getting promash, I just got the impression that you didn't have any software to help with the calculations. You will be able to get everything you need from beersmith I'm sure. The software is your friend.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Okay, im trying to get my head around BIAB.. First timer here. I have dumbed it down a bit for myself.

I plan to brew this receipe:

3.5 kg BB Ale Malt
1 kg Weyermann Munich I
0.5 kg BB Wheat Malt
10 g Magnum (Pellets, 11.5 AA%, 60 mins)
15 g Simcoe (Pellets, 11.9 AA%, 10 mins)
15 g Simcoe (Pellets, 11.9 AA%, 0 mins)
12 g DCL Yeast US-05 - American Ale

Single Infusion Mash @ 66*c, Ferment @ 18*c

snipped

ferment at 18Degrees

Pray I did it right.

Nearly but not quite - also, you dont say how much you plan to end up with so I cant really comment on the recipe or amounts too accurately. For this exercise I will assume that you are making an APA (sure looks like one) and you want it at about 5% abv, so are looking for an OG of around 1.050

At 75% efficiency, which is hopefully close to what you will get, that amount of grain will give you a post boil volume of 23.5L @ 1.050, you will lose say 3L of that to trub, giving you about 20.5 into your fermentor. All of which means that your starting volume of water is probably too high.

In a 60L pot I am going to assume you will probably get about 20% boil off so your pre-boil would need to have been about 29.5, your grain will have absorbed around 0.75L per kg, so thats 3.75, call it 3.5. which means that you want to start with 29.5+3.5=33L More water at the start will mean more beer in your fermentor, but lower OG and therefore lower alcohol.

So here goes I will ammend your proposed method where I think it needs it OK

Your Method ----- My Amendment

Add 38litres to my 60litre StockPot Make it 33L
Heat up water to say 2 degrees higher than your desired mash temp.
secure Mash Bag
Add a BB ale MAlt, Weyermann Muchich + Wheat Malt (I think i add them all together?) Yep add em all together
bring If needed adjust with burner while stirring constantly temperature to 66Degrees. I'd go for 67-68 personally
Agitate & maintain at 66degrees (for 90 minutes) 60mins would do, but 90 wont hurt at all.
You could include a mash-out step here, raise the temp of the whole mash to 76C before you remove the bag. It will help you get better efficiency in a BiaB system. Without it, you might fall a bit short of the 75% and there fore your gravity might be a little low. Few percent difference maybe. If you want to try it, simply put on your burner and stir constantly while the temperature raises. When it gets to 75-76ish, then pull your bag.
Remove mash bag
Gravity Check
Raise temperature to rolling boil
Skim scum off Surface Only if you are particularly bored, wont hurt but not needed.
Top up water if required + add 1 table spoon of salt - this should go between the gravity check and raise the temp to boil.
add hop sock with magnum pellets
boil. 50mins
Add hop sock with 15g simcoe pallets you might want to consider some kettle finings at this point. Irish moss or Whirfloc. This will help to coagulate the proteins and give you a clearer more stable beer.
10mins
add 15g simcoe pallets -
flame off
Use siphon/aerate to move Wort to fermenter (no chill method) - no chill is fine, but you definitely don't want to aerate at this point. The hot wort will not absorb any oxygen and the only thing that you will achieve is potential oxidation of the wort. This might well lead to stability problems inthe beer and decrease its shelf life giving aged off flavours to the beer before it should get them. Aerate after the wort has cooled to pitching temperatures
Seal Fermenter
Wait until 23degrees - if you are no-chilling, then there is no rush. Might as well wait till the wort reaches the temperature you plan to ferment at before you pitch. Better chance of a well flavoured beer when you have nice stable temperatures throughout fermentation.
Pitch Yeaste

ferment at 18Degrees


All that red type looks like I picked your method to bits, but I didn't really. You had the vast majority of it right, just a couple of key things that needed to be changed and a few little things. Give it a go and have fun, thats the main thing.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[[email protected]]

For those interested in some impartial BIAB feedback, I entered my first two successfully (my actual second batch got infected due to some poor sanitation) brewed BIAB beers into Pale Ale Mania, which was judged on the weekend here in Melbourne. Both were American Pale Ale's using the Brewing Classic Styles recipes.

The first one scored a 28.2 (14th/23), and the second a 33.5 (5th/23). The first was probably a bit past its best (in terms of hop flavor) being about 5 months old, while the second was just ripening (barely a month bottled).

Note I hadn't done any all-grain before this, with only 4 kit based (& pretty dodgy) beers made before this. So thanks goes out to all the folk who provided the info in this thread (and other threads) to make it possible to begin all-grain the easy way.

 

[katzke]

For those interested in some impartial BIAB feedback, I entered my first two successfully (my actual second batch got infected due to some poor sanitation) brewed BIAB beers into Pale Ale Mania, which was judged on the weekend here in Melbourne. Both were American Pale Ale's using the Brewing Classic Styles recipes.

The first one scored a 28.2 (14th/23), and the second a 33.5 (5th/23). The first was probably a bit past its best (in terms of hop flavor) being about 5 months old, while the second was just ripening (barely a month bottled).

Note I hadn't done any all-grain before this, with only 4 kit based (& pretty dodgy) beers made before this. So thanks goes out to all the folk who provided the info in this thread (and other threads) to make it possible to begin all-grain the easy way.

Way to go. 14th is not bad for a new brewer. 5th is great.

Did they leave any comments.

 

[stowaway]

thanks for ur comments thirsty boy.

i will let u know how it turns out

 

[seemax]

Attempted my first BIAB on the weekend - a Hefeweizen. The grain bill was 65% wheat, 35% pils and a single Perle addition for an IBU of 10.
My bag (muslin) wasn't quite wide enough for the grain so I ended up tying the bag up in the pot with a tether for when I needed to pull the bag out. I had reservations about this as the grains were compacted to some degree. I also had trouble keeping the mash temp at 66C even with the pot covered with towels and the oven on to keep the stove top warm. Had to fire up the gas stove every 15mins to heat it up a few degrees.
End result was a very cloudy wort and an efficiency of 62%. I did attempt a pot sparge by moving the bag into a pot of water ay 76C, but the SG of the resulting wort was so low I didn't bother. I ended up just settling for a smaller batch.
After irish moss, whirlpooling and cooling the wort cleared right up and I managed to only waste about 2L.
Pitched at 20C with Danstar Munich yeast and within 5 hrs it was bubbling like mad and has continued to do so. The krausen was as high as the wort and nearly reached the lid!
Will rack to secondary in a few days and bottle after 7days or when I have the time.

BIAB is certainly easier than my esky lautering system and cleaning up is simple. I'm tempted to try it again once I have a better bag system. I'll wait to see how the Hefe turns out!

Stef

 

[Thirsty Boy]

A better bag will help, and will make your life easier. I'm yet to hear of a consistent good result when people haven't taken the "you must be able to fit your pot inside your bag" advice. I'm also not too keen on the muslin thing ... its probably gonna be fine, but once again, the polyester voil works, works well, is common and is cheap. I'm unsure why people keep using nylons and muslins and old grain bags and whatnot. Sure in the spirit of experimentation, but when you are first trying something out??? So much more likely to get a good result if you actually follow the instructions.

Not sure about your temp loss... Only ever lost a few degrees over the course of the mash on any BiaB I have been a part of. Could just be the cold whether I suppose??

Love to hear how the beer turns out, and if you give it another go with a better suited bag.

Cheers

Thisrty

 

[wambesi]

As Thirsty has said the bag will be the difference I think.
Mine is the swiss voile (after having fabric shops tell me there is no such thing!!??) but I also have muslin and other cloth around for my cheeses, ginger beers and cold brewed coffee's and I must say I don't think I would ever use muslin as it just doesn't seem to be strong enough.

The temp sounds funny too, I've been brewing here in Sydney (and it's been bloody cold too, I thought Melb was cold!) and I have had to turn the burner on once to give it a lift of a few degree's, what type of pot is it?

I wouldn't worry too much about the cloudy wort either, heffe's are supposed to be cloudy and my first brew (an APA) was very cloudy, but has cleared up quite nice now!

Grab yourself a new bag and jump back in!

 

[[email protected]]

Way to go. 14th is not bad for a new brewer. 5th is great.

Did they leave any comments.

Comments for the first (14th) were along the lines of "past it best", "sour", hop flavour "not aggressive", which all ring pretty true. The second (5th) there is mention of "out of style", which may be due to the recipe being "American Pale Ale with Caramel" and I cut back on the hops marginally so the caramel flavour stands out a bit.

So overall pretty happy with the result, and it was enough to win me Best Novice Brewer for that competition.

 

[reviled]

Thought I would post here, did my first BIAB yesterday, am now officially converted :icon_drunk:

 

[I like beer]

Well i finally found this mystical thing called swiss viole today (what colour would you like sir?) after 4 different biabs bags (including daughters old cotton skirt) & will try it next weekend ...... But only if my lovely dearest wife will make me a third bag...shmbo wrote that

 

[wambesi]

Well i finally found this mystical thing called swiss viole today (what colour would you like sir?) after 4 different biabs bags (including daughters old cotton skirt) & will try it next weekend ...... But only if my lovely dearest wife will make me a third bag...shmbo wrote that

Good stuff, let us know how you get along. It should make a big difference. I've only used it myself but others have reported other results.
Hopefully tomorrow I should be putting on my next brew....

 

[Damian44]

Hey guys im finally getting all of my equipment together to make the one big step. I was wondering if i could install a Stub Dial Thermometer in my ally pot? ( http://www.beerbelly.com.au/measuring.html ) Im sure it wouldnt rip the bag. Or would a glass thermometer be OK?
TYVM

 

[Cocko]

I was thinking the exact same thing!!

My kettle is ready, all I have to do is make its jacket, poor little fella needs to be warm, for the mash stage but how do I know whats is happening inside??

I know its a pretty big thermal mass but am anal about temps....

So sorry I don't have your answer but hope someone has a worth while opinion on your question....

Anyone? A BIAB vessel, should it have a thermometer fitted and/or without probe to tear bag???

Thoughts.

 

[PistolPatch]

Hi there Cocko,

As you have said, it is a good question. I have already PM'ed a reply to Damien tonight. Maybe he can distill what I wrote down to a more manageable size???

Hope so! If not, PM me on the weekend.

Spot ya,
Pat

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I suppose if you are sure it wont tear the bag.. why not. But remember, when you gather up that bag and pull it out, you are going to be dragging 10kg plus past the end of that probe. I reckon it is going to tear.

Plus I reckon its not at all necessary - purchase one $10 handheld thermometer, remove lid from pot, stir and take temperature. repeat as desired.

Spillsmostofit takes a temperature after 5 mins, then one at 20mins and maybe one more, after that, the shooting match is more or less over with anyway (or his schedule is something like that anyway)

Spills is fussier than me - Whwn I BiaB I take one after I have mashed in - one at 5 mins because I am sure that things have stabilised by then... then maybe I take one at 30mins, but probably not. I take on eat the end to tell me how much it cooled down. Its usually not that much.

Anyway, its my personal opinion that fancy arsed dial/probe thermometers are rubbish anyway. They measure the bit of the mash that they happen to be located in -- not the average temp of the whole tun. You have to stir it up to get that, and if you are stirring, you might as well be holding a thermometer in the hand that hasn't got a mash-paddle in it.

I suppose that stubby one might be OK - but I wouldn't put one in my BiaB pot.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I've struggled hard to resist the lure of the MashMaster probe (thermometer). But, at the end of the day, Thirsty Boy is right. It is only going to be useful if you can move it around the mash having stirred it up a bit and convince yourself that you have a rough average of the mash temp. The only place I can conceive of where it wouldn't tear the baggie is near the bottom of the kettle underneath some sort of false bottom, where it won't give you a usefully representative mash temperature.

If you're one of those multi-vessel brewers, chances are that you are going to deploy an insulated mash tun in the expectation that the temperature gradient across the tun will be more gentle and a thermometer bolted somewhere in there will give you a reading you can use. In our case, that doesn't apply as much and I reckon you're better off using the most cost-effective avenue open to you.

There is much to be said about a simple brewing setup such as BIAB, but only if it remains simple and I reckon the digital stick thermometers are the go. I got mine from that place in Carbrook. I think Thirsty Boy has dropped it into the mash twice now (I *never* have ), but it keeps on providing sterling service on brew days and elsewhere.

 

[reviled]

I've struggled hard to resist the lure of the MashMaster probe (thermometer). But, at the end of the day, Thirsty Boy is right. It is only going to be useful if you can move it around the mash having stirred it up a bit and convince yourself that you have a rough average of the mash temp. The only place I can conceive of where it wouldn't tear the baggie is near the bottom of the kettle underneath some sort of false bottom, where it won't give you a usefully representative mash temperature.

If you're one of those multi-vessel brewers, chances are that you are going to deploy an insulated mash tun in the expectation that the temperature gradient across the tun will be more gentle and a thermometer bolted somewhere in there will give you a reading you can use. In our case, that doesn't apply as much and I reckon you're better off using the most cost-effective avenue open to you.

There is much to be said about a simple brewing setup such as BIAB, but only if it remains simple and I reckon the digital stick thermometers are the go. I got mine from that place in Carbrook. I think Thirsty Boy has dropped it into the mash twice now (I *never* have ), but it keeps on providing sterling service on brew days and elsewhere.

I thought you could only get those stick on thermometers that go up to 40, can you get one that will go to 100?

 

[Fents]

no he means a stick thermometer, not a stick on one.

this is somthing like what i use :

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Trust the Fents (in this instance).

I specifically meant:

http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=764