A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Bribie G]

I noticed that there appeared to be no mash-out step. I have included this as part of my process due to published wisdom on this forum but might try the next couple without to see if it has any negative impact. Would love to drop this step as standing at the urn with an over-the-side element, plunging the paint stirrer like a tosser for 15 mins is a pain (and looks pretty suss from behind).

Cheers,

Soz

Yes I've also been following wisdom on the forum and went for 'full volume' mashing, but my electic urn is only 40L and most of the AGers I've spoken to reckon on using at least 40 L of water in the whole process including mash out, to end up with a 'standard' 23 L brew. To accommodate the grain bill I started off with only about 35 L in the urn and was pushing it to get enough wort. As it is I'll be lucky to end up with 20L bottled whereas I'd like to go for 24L.
I reckon I ended up with about a 28L boil but would like to go say 33 to 35. So I've decided next time to mash, drain about 8L into a stockpot which is no hassle as the urn has a tap, and top up urn with 8L of say 75 degree water, raise bag and drop it for a double dunker, raise and drain bag and add the 8L back in.

Thirsty boy had a bit to say on trying to mash out a BIAB, suggesting that if you are going to digress too far from BIAB you really should consider going for a three vessel system. Agree if it involves a lot of syphoning etc, However in my case it's only a case of opening a tap and pulling a couple of extra times on a pulley so I'll give it a go next time and report.

Had a great day BribieG. Thanks for the invite and the great hospitality...

Can't wait for my first brew, thanks again BribieG

A pleasure to meet fellow craft brewers, we're a bit thin on the ground around here - all the best for the BIAB and we'll keep in touch re Feb if we are heading down Tugun Way'


Cheers
Michael

 

[Thirsty Boy]

On the contrary actually -

I think that sparging a BIAB is more or less a waste of time and effort - the step referred to as mashing out however, I think is really quite important.

In BIAB you are not adding water or anything else when you lauter - you are just pulling the bag out - if you dont raise the temperature to wha woudl traditionally be a mash-out/sparge temperature, then you are trying to extract sugars from grain at a temperature that is probably about 10 degrees lower than any other brewing method.

It works, but it will knock a big hole in your efficiency, I would guess from 5 to 10 %

So its a missable step, if you dont mind the lower extraction rates you save yourself a bit of effort.

Same argument in reverse for sparging (dunk sparging if you must please) you will get 5 or so % extra efficiency, but at the cost of more mucking about and equipment etc etc.

Bribie - how hard are you boiling? I start my boils with 29L for a post boil of 23.2 and after losses to trub, ending up with 21 in a cube. The object being to fill a 19L keg. BUT.... I boil for 90 minutes!! If you are only boiling for 60 minutes you should be looking at getting a post boil of around 24L from your 28L starting point.

Its my opinion that if you are boiling off more than 15% of your pre-boil volume, then you are most probably boiling too vigarously and should tone the heat down a little if possible. Although that might not be an option in your urn.

Mind you, your double dunk method sounds most workable and I cant see any reason not to do it that way if it isn't too much trouble for you.

Congrats on the first brew. I', glad it all went so smoothly for you.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks Thirsty, the urn has a temperature dial which goes up to 110 degrees. It was boiling like buggery on that setting so I turned it down to 100 but was still quite vigorous. I'm not sure what a rolling boil should look like - and that was my first thought about turning it down for the next boil to a sort of rolling simmer as opposed to boil if you get my drift. I'll see if that does the trick before going for double hoists etc.

Edit: for mash out I can just raise the bag half way out of the urn to get the bag off the element, switch element on to heat up the existing wort then lower bag back in and give it a stir - BIAB mashes are quite 'mobile' . That's no problem in itself.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Boils are kind of hard to work out till you see one thats just right... then you know what to aim for. You want more than a simmer, but you don't need the wort to be jumping about the place either.

There needs to be physical agitation and and exchange of liquid from top to bottom - hence the "rolling" boil description you hear so often, and there need to be bubbles. But as long as there are those tow things - some bubbles and physical agitation, then the boil is vigorous enough to do what it needs to do.

More than a simmer - less than a hard boil

Thats why I like the % boil-off figure. If you have the bubbles and the agitation, then if you are also boiling off between 8 and 15% of your starting volume, the boil is hard enough. More than 15%... probably too hard.

I am fairly certain you should be able to get your 23-24L batch out of that urn without resorting to "extras" - but you're gonna have to fill it up.

You way of raising to mash-out/lauter temperatures is very like PP's recommended method. He shoves his mash paddle in the bag, closes it up with the paddle sticking out the top and pulls it mostly out of the kettle... then raises the temp and drops it back in - the mash paddle in the bag allows him to give it a good jiggle around without having to go to the trouble of re-attaching his bag.

You sound like you have it all fairly well sorted out. If you want to, post up your volumes and gravities etc and we can work out what your efficiency was - or maybe for a future brew.

Welcome to AG - you're hooked now you know, its a downwards spiral of more beer and more gear from here on in.

Cheers

TB

 

[ikern]

Bribie,

I use a 40lt urn as well and on my last brew I started with 34.4 lts. After I pulled the bag (5.3kg of grain and I did raise to 76deg for mashout)and squeezed I was left with 32.2 lts and SG 1040 (my software works this out as 77%, dunno how close this is). After my boil I was left with 27.7 lts @ 1047. This was probably one of my gentler boils as I usually have slightly higher rate but the losses described here are pretty reflective of what I normally get off my system.

Cheers,

Soz

 

[Stuffa]

I did my third BIAB the other day, the first two were spot on as far as anticipated efficiencies go (70%). The last one was way down 60% the only thing I did different was with the crush. I have a Marga Mill and the first two took about half an hour to crush 5kg of grain, so on the last one I tried Tony's trick of adding a little water to soften the grains before the crush. This seemed to work fine as the crush only took a little over 5 Min's, but I think the crush may have been a bit to course. I'll make the gap on the bottom roller a little smaller to see if it helps.

I was thinking of trying a step mash and maybe adding some 5.2 to my tank water (some say it will help others say you don't need it with soft water). I guess if I get back to 70% I would be happy.

One thing I was very happy about with my last brew was I got an immersion chiller, ran my bore water thru it which is very cold and in 20 Min's the wort went from boiling to 20C.

I cracked a bottle of my first BIAB last night (Kabooby's Mocha Porter), bloody beautiful.

Cheers and a Merry Christmas to all,
Chris

 

[Bribie G]

Bribie,

I use a 40lt urn as well and on my last brew I started with 34.4 lts. After I pulled the bag (5.3kg of grain and I did raise to 76deg for mashout)and squeezed I was left with 32.2 lts and SG 1040 (my software works this out as 77%, dunno how close this is). After my boil I was left with 27.7 lts @ 1047. This was probably one of my gentler boils as I usually have slightly higher rate but the losses described here are pretty reflective of what I normally get off my system.

Cheers,

Soz

Sounds we are fellow Astral travellers or something... my first brew started with 34 lts and 5.3kg of grain.. :huh: - The only thing different was that I ended up with only about 22 L after the boil, if that. So I'm maybe boiling too hard. I'll copy your method for next brew, this is exactly what I am aiming for even the noice OG which should give me those Abbott Ale / Brains SA Gold strengths I am looking to develop.

Stuffa: I won't be able to get a Marga till Feb when they come in. However buying 30kg crushed from CraftBrewer and doing my own pickup it doesn't break the bank (fortunately I can do a half hour loop to Underwood on the way to work in Fortitude Valley) and might hold off on the mill thing until I have my system bedded down.

Thanks for tips guys.

 

[matho]

i havn't read this thread for a while but i found something interesting on the net about mash separtion

View attachment 12___Mash_separation_systems.pdf

on page 2 (58) it talks about the Meura 2001, if that's not squeezing the mash i don't know what is.
i think inbev uses it, anyway i just thought it was interesting bit of information for the to squeeze or not to squeeze debate.
Also the IBD has some good info on their website.
cheers
matho

 

[Bribie G]

A-squeezing I will go :lol:

Actually on brew day two of us had a squeeze. After boiling and using whirlfloc the final wort was crystal clear, discounting the crumbs of hot break of course.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

i havn't read this thread for a while but i found something interesting on the net about mash separtion

View attachment 23329

on page 2 (58) it talks about the Meura 2001, if that's not squeezing the mash i don't know what is.
i think inbev uses it, anyway i just thought it was interesting bit of information for the to squeeze or not to squeeze debate.
Also the IBD has some good info on their website.
cheers
matho

Nice link - I've pointed out the similarities between mash filters and BIAB a few times - especially the bit about squeezing!! But I couldn't post that document... I'm a member of the IBD and don't want to get in trouble for naughty copyright stuff. Glad you posted it though The IBD site: http://www.ibd.org.uk/ has some great stuff in their learning section. Lots of short sharp targeted documents like the one that matho posted

The other thing to notice about mash filters apart from the squeezing and the lack of tannins - is the fact that for mash filters the grist is crushed to powder in a hammer mill and very high efficiency is the result - so grinding your grain very finely in BIAB is the similarity here - and that the wort from mash filters is usually really turbid as compared to the wort from mash tuns and lauter tuns, so perhaps that makes you feel a little better about the cloudiness of BIAB wort.

Closer to home than inbev - Coopers uses a mash filter at its brewery. So you can taste a beer made this way by going to your nearest bottle'o

TB

 

[katzke]

Nice link - I've pointed out the similarities between mash filters and BIAB a few times - especially the bit about squeezing!! But i cant post that thing... I'm a member of the IBD and don't want to get in trouble for naughty copyright stuff. Glad you posted it though

The other thing to notice about mash filters apart from the squeezing and the lack of tannins - is the fact that for mash filters the grist is crushed to powder in a hammer mill and very high efficiency is the result - so grinding your grain very finely in BIAB is the similarity here - and that the wort from mash filters is usually really turbid as compared to the wort from mash tuns and lauter tuns, so perhaps that makes you feel a little better about the cloudiness of BIAB wort.

Closer to home than inbev - Coopers uses a mash filter at its brewery. So you can taste a beer made this way by going to your nearest bottle'o

TB

I read the article on the mash filter. It got me thinking on the fine crush and efficiency. I have not tried to go as fine as flour for assorted reasons. But the mash filter got me to think of using 2 bags, or a bag in a bag. Not sure how well it would work or any potential problems.

The reason I was thinking about it was Thirstys post about the filter and trying to get the last of the wort out of the kettle. I figure the less grain material pre-boil the lest gunk post boil.

When BIAB hit the USA finding the bag material was a bit hard. Some tried very fine material. The result was a very slow drain and I recall some gave up because it was like a stuck sparge.

By using a traditional BIAB bag and putting that in a bag of extra fine material would it work like a filter? One would pull the first bag and remove most of the grain. What fine particles are left behind would be removed by pulling the second bag.

Anyone done anything like this?

Think it would be worth a try?

 

[katzke]

Need a bit of recipe help. Have been asked for the recipe of the beer I took to the brew club Christmas party.

Do I need to give them the mash temp? If so how do I convert a BIAB mash temp to a conventional mash temp?

 

[wambesi]

Yeah mash temp should be provided as it can make a difference in the final product.

Essentially an AG recipe should be able to be followed with whatever method you choose to brew with, so the temp won't change.
The only thing that might be a little harder are decoction mashes with extra rests.

So mash temp is mash temp no matter what AG method you use....unless I am reading your post wrong.

 

[katzke]

Yeah mash temp should be provided as it can make a difference in the final product.

Essentially an AG recipe should be able to be followed with whatever method you choose to brew with, so the temp won't change.
The only thing that might be a little harder are decoction mashes with extra rests.

So mash temp is mash temp no matter what AG method you use....unless I am reading your post wrong.

In BIAB you mash higher to keep from getting too dry of a beer.

 

[wambesi]

In BIAB you mash higher to keep from getting too dry of a beer.

I never have with any of mine. I have heard of some doing that but never needed to myself.

 

[katzke]

I never have with any of mine. I have heard of some doing that but never needed to myself.

I have been searching for where I got the info that I needed to mash at a higher temperature and cannot find it.

Am I confused with the conversions between F and C or did I read it someplace?

 

[reviled]

I have been searching for where I got the info that I needed to mash at a higher temperature and cannot find it.

Am I confused with the conversions between F and C or did I read it someplace?

You may have been reading that the dough in temp is supposed to be higher than strike temp, for example, if I want to mash at 66, ill add grain at 68 and hit 66 perfectly... But I dont mash higher either, and dont get dry beer... Depends on how well insulated your kettle is and how much heat you lose during the mash...

 

[katzke]

I have been searching for where I got the info that I needed to mash at a higher temperature and cannot find it.

Am I confused with the conversions between F and C or did I read it someplace?

Well I found it. Had to read through about a dozen pages from Thurstys post to a US forum.

He said it was thinner and he was adding 1C to his mash temperatures. Here is the link to the page. http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/vie...3&start=165

Now I can get some work done.

 

[wambesi]

There you go, I thought I had heard something about it too, you know how much to adjust it now.
Thirsty is full of good info so if anyone is going to know it'll be him.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thats on my system though - Actually in that single thread I have suggest both higher and lower. In the first post I seem to recall saying it might be a good idea to mash perhaps a single degree lower to be nicer to your B amalayse enzymes - then after a few more BIABs under my belt I found that my beer was too dry and I went the other way.

Probably now I would say..... just mash at the temperature you would mash at in any system, and tweak it later on. Katzke - just tell em the temp that you actually used, the variations between peoples systems and thermometers is wide enough so that thats going to be a bigger factor than any conversion of BAIB to non-BIAB would be anyway.

TB

and dont listen to the things I say to closely... I am notoriously unreliable