A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Scruffy]

Hi fella, I use a 60l Chef Inox pot and gas, for a 20/23l brew (usually high gravity - lots of grain) I'm using around 34/38l of water. I boil the bejesus out of it for 90 minutes (if I've got the gas!) And cause I BIAB I get a lot of fine trub so lose a couple of litres there too, despite my best whirlpooling efforts... there's a bit lost in the fermenter when the yeast drops to the bottom as well. Most however is lost by drinking it! Hope this adds something...

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks I was looking for this kind of answer just a typical amount of starting water needed.So I believe for 10 liter batch 20-25 liters is needed.

no, not that much. Its not as simple as 33L - 19L = 14 ... so for a 10L batch you want 10+14 = 24. Does not work like that. The amount of water is proportional to your grains etc. Here's how I work out water for BIAB.

For a 10L batch of normal beer it would be somewhere near:

12.5 + 1.25 + 2.0 = 15.75L ... when you put your grain into that it will have a volume of around 17.75L so you could make this in a 20L pot.

How did I work it out ..

12.5 = The volume of wort left in your kettle after the boil - you have to have enough left to leave behind break material, hops etc in the kettle and still put as much as you want into your fermenter. So if I want 10L of finished beer, I will lose about 0.5L to yeast at the bottom of the fermenter, I will lose about 1.5L to the trub and hops in the bottom of the kettle, and the hot wort itself will shrink as it cools, costing about 0.5L - this adds up to 2.5L. Therefore 10+2.5=12.5L is how much wort I want to have sitting in my kettle when I turn off the flames.

1.25 = this much beer will use about 2.5kg of grain, you soak it in water, dissolve some stuff out of it, squeeze out you bag... and whats left over in the bag, absorbs some of your original water. In BIAB its about 0.5L for every kg of grain, if you give the bag a good squeeze. so 2.5 x 0.5 = 1.25L that you need to account for.

1.75 - boil off. This is pretty variable and will depend on what pot you use, how hard you boil, how humid and or cold the weather is. BUT ... a reasonable figure to aim for and about what you will get if you use a 20L pot for this brew - is 15% of the starting volume per hour. OR to make it easier around about 2.0L per hour. Remember - thats an estimate based on what I get for boil off in my pot. Yours will be different. You should try a test boil in the pot you plan to use .. and substitute that figure for the one I have used. If you use your big 60L pot for a 10L batch ... you will lose a LOT more than this much, so I wouldn't use it for such a small batch.

So thats what I would start with for a 10L batch of finished beer - about 15.75L of water.

If you follow the logic I use above, you can do the calculations for any beer you brew, of any size. You just need to remember its an estimate, when you brew, try to record what actually happens with the amount of water, the amount you boil off, the volumes you leave behind ... substitute those figures in to the logic for next time... and you estimate will get better. Keep on doing it - and after a few brews, you will be able to start with just the right amount of water every time.

Thirsty

 

[nikgr]

Thanks again the reason for asking is that I might have the opportunity to borrow a immersion heater pot but is only 30 liters .And I was worried about the volume capability using Biab but if I can brew 10 liters is fine...

 

[benrs44]

G'Day,

This is my first post but I have been taking in as much as possible on these forums (particularly this thread) and having just completed my first BIAB I thought I would share my experience with anyone who might find it useful. Having done 1 kit and 2 partials prior to this brew what stood out to me is, bar a couple of small mistakes, how uncomplicated it is to BIAB. (I should make a quick thankyou to all those who have contributed and put up really valuable information for a beginner like myself - cheers!)

Note: Sorry in advance for any lack of photos/information but I am a pretty ordinary note-taker and was by myself so it was hard to take too many photos.

Recipe (Dave from Dave's Homebrew sorted me out with a simple recipe to get me started):

English Pale Bitter

4.5kg Pale Malt
50g Goldings (full boil)
14g Goldings (10mins)
14g Goldings (end of boil)
1tsp Irish Moss (30mins)
Yeast: S-04

90min at 66deg mash (I hit 64deg which ended at 62deg after wrapping the urn in blankets) raising temp to 75deg for the last 10-15mins
70min boil
Equipment: 40L Birko Urn
No chill (cube)

So my first mistake came with the amount of water in at the beginning - I was aiming for 19L of beer in the bottles but considering I have 15.5L into the fermenter it seems something has gone horribly wrong. My water calculations are as follows:
Desired beer 19L
Loss: from yeast 0.5L
Loss: from cube/kettle 1.5L (i think this should be more like 3L)
Loss: from thermal expansion 0.5L (no idea just threw a number out there)
That comes to 21.5L
Loss: from evaporation 3.25L (15%)
Loss: from grain 2.25L

Total Pre Boil water 27L (If anyone has any suggestions as to where I went wrong I'de greatly appreciate any suggestions)

The SG at the end of the mash came to 1.034 (24.5L at the beginning of the boil) and 1.043 OG into the fermenter. Unfortunately I forgot to take a measurement at the end of the boil to figure out how much I wort I had but Ill be sure to do that next time.

In summary, it was a great experience (took around 4hrs with washing up) and I would thoroughly recommend going down the BIAB path to anyone who is thinking of doing it. Next time around I think I will get myself a better thermometer, I'll set up and hook to hoist the bag and maybe look to chill the work straight into the fermenter. Here are a couple of photos from the day.


the urn wrapped up

bringing it to the boil

draining the grain

the urn pre boil

during the boil


my gravity reading tube after i put hot wort in - very dumb mistake

it was so laidback i even managed to get some uni work done during the boil

transfer to cube



in the cube

Cheers and thanks again for all the info that allowed me to give brewing a crack!
Ben

 

[Bizier]

Awesome first post there benrs44.

I did a double batch of mild last Sat... just emptied my bag now...

I have to say that it has started a vigorous exothermic biological degradation, and was pongy in a major way with a spot of treacle-ish mash runoff under it at my communal apartment clothesline. Do not do this people.

I also did my first no chill into 2 BMW cubes, same as pictured above. I filled one to the brim, and did not think about it expanding and taking another few litres of liquid. Anyway, if I get an infection before pitching, the thing will just blow because there is no room for expansion. So I have one fat and one skinny cube.

 

[Bribie G]

Looks textbook to me. The thing about a Birko is that it boils like buggery, and even what looks like a nice rolling boil can reduce the wort to a lot less than you budgeted for.

What I do is a 'sparge in a bucket' to get a bit of extra efficiency: after hoisting and squeezing the bag into the urn, I put it into a nappy bucket and add about an extra six litres of very hot water, stir vigorously and then hoist the bag and drain the spargin's into the bucket. Then i chuck it into the urn with the rest of the wort. However I boil for 90 mins and find that this provides an almost perfect amount of wort at the end of the boil for a 24/25L batch.

I see you have a fairly minimal amount of lagging around the urn, what temerature drop did you get over the mash, or did you raise the bag a tad and apply some extra heat during the mash?

:icon_cheers:

 

[benrs44]

BribieG: I'll have to give that sparging a crack. When you say 'very hot water' are you talking near boiling? For the mash I wrapped the urn up quite considerably (as in the 1st photo - there are quite a few layers under there) and got about a 2-3deg loss ofer the 75mins. I didnt add any heat during the mash at all. I did keep some minimal insulation on during the boil so i think next time i might remove that and see if I get any less evaporation.

On the subject of boil off, can anyone with a 40L Birko urn let me in on their boil off figures? Hopefully that will help me calculate a little more effectively (if only I had actually remembered to take a post boil reading...)

Cheers!
Ben

 

[Power Wolf]

Evening all,
for the BIAB brewers in the know what's a 30l urn like compared to a 40l.... I've been on the hunt for a cheap one being a broke ass student most the time but have seen these 30l ones which are a damn sight cheaper http://cgi.ebay.com.au/30-litre-coffee-urn...id=p3286.c0.m14.

I guess not having done an all grain yet am curious whether I could still get a good batch rocking in a standard fermenter but i guess from what I know it's gonna be harder to make a good sized batch witha small urn, I want to make standard 21l batches if possible.
Is there anything in particular i should be shopping for besides a built in thermostat?? A little help??? Cheers!

 

[LLoyd]

In the end it comes down to knowing your system. YOUR 60L pot may have a different surface area for your wort than MY 60L pot. Boil off is not accurately estimated as a PERCENTAGE of your volume, cos that doesn't allow for the DEPTH of your wort. Surface area, intensity of your boil and specific gravity will affect your boil temp hence your evap rate. Fine tuning is going to be a trial and error thing, so the best thing is to measure and record your volumes and gravities EVERY step of the way, so you can tweak your next brew in the right direction..

 

[Darren]

Still dont understand what is wrong with a piece of drilled copper tubing under the mash.

Perhaps you are all mummy's boys and have yet to realise that "fabric' is inferior and a waste of your time and your mother's effort 8)

cheers

Darren

 

[crundle]

Evening all,
for the BIAB brewers in the know what's a 30l urn like compared to a 40l.... I've been on the hunt for a cheap one being a broke ass student most the time but have seen these 30l ones which are a damn sight cheaper http://cgi.ebay.com.au/30-litre-coffee-urn...id=p3286.c0.m14.

I guess not having done an all grain yet am curious whether I could still get a good batch rocking in a standard fermenter but i guess from what I know it's gonna be harder to make a good sized batch witha small urn, I want to make standard 21l batches if possible.
Is there anything in particular i should be shopping for besides a built in thermostat?? A little help??? Cheers!

For a 21 litre batch of finished beer, you will want to end up with approximately 23-24 litres of wort at the end of the boil allowing for hot break, cold break and fermentation trub. Working backwards you will need about 31 litres preboil to get that, which is going to make it tight in your 30 litre urn, but not impossible.

If you are sticking to fairly average gravity beers of about 1.050 SG, then you could mash a bit thicker than normal for BIAB, say 5kg of grain in 24-25 litres of water (try to get the urn as full as possible while being able to stir the grain in a bit) and do something akin to Bribie's sparge in a bucket to make up the rest of the volume to 31 litres. Of course you can't add all of that to the urn until you have achieved some measure of boil off to make room, but it is not impossible, just a bit of juggling.

You will then be on par for a 21 litre final batch size as a normal BIAB preboil volume is around 31-33 litres in my system (40 litre urn). Your hop utilisation should be close enough to normal to not worry about, and your overall efficiency should be up to comparison with if you used a 40 litre urn.

Having said all this, I have not tried it myself, but I can't see any good reason why it wouldn't work well enough for you, and if the price difference between a 30 and 40 litre urn is enough to make or break getting into AG, then so be it.

As for looking for things in urns, I like the Crown's concealed element now that a hack has been made to get as good a boil as a Birko, but others who have Birko's report no real hassles with the exposed element, just that if you need to add heat you need to be a little more careful about the bag not getting burnt. But most people heat up the water initially and then insulate the urn with blankets etc which wont need to be heated up again till mashout anyway.

cheers,

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

Still dont understand what is wrong with a piece of drilled copper tubing under the mash.

Perhaps you are all mummy's boys and have yet to realise that "fabric' is inferior and a waste of your time and your mother's effort 8)

cheers

Darren

And I still don't understand why the principles of BIAB apparently have gone right over your head, considering that you have obviously been around brewing for several years. However from the somewhat shrill tone of your post you've obviously had a few tonight so you are forgiven

Edit: at the risk of blowing my own trumpet BIAB hasn't been a waste of my time, it won me a kegerator, a table of trophies and a trip to New York which sadly I was unable to take up on this occasion but ask me the same question next year :icon_cheers: So what has your little copper tube done for you, Daz ?

 

[LLoyd]

Still dont understand what is wrong with a piece of drilled copper tubing under the mash.

Perhaps you are all mummy's boys and have yet to realise that "fabric' is inferior and a waste of your time and your mother's effort 8)

cheers

Darren

Nothing at all.... But my F&#$%@' DADDY made my bag so I could control my overall mash temp to .02C without having to build me half a garage worth of frames and such, plus Mumsie wouldn't go BOTH of us for stealing THREE of her stock pots..

 

[reviled]

Did a presentation on BIAB at the Auckland Guild of Wine and beer makers last wednesday, mostly a bunch of older blokes and half of em allready do AG brewing, but they were very receptive to the idea and intrigued... I passed around some bottles of Cream Ale which I have on tap atm and they all agreed that it tastes just as good (if not better ) as any other AG beer!

I basically pointed out the benifits of BIAB brewing, being that its quick, easy, cheap to set up, and doesnt take up much room!

My highlights -

1. A kit brewer keen to give it a go as he was allways put off by all the gear, time, and expense you need to do trad AG brewing.
2. A wine maker who has never bothered with brewing beer because of all the equipment needed is going to give it a go!
3. Several people told me if they knew about this before they built their 'rigs' they probably would have gone down the BIAB route instead :beerbang:

 

[Bribie G]

Reviled, compared to yourself 80 percent of the adult male population would be 'older guys' :lol: :lol: Congratulations on spreading the love.

Here's an example of an AHB member getting off his arse and making a genuine contribution & helping fellow brewers in their quest for better beer. Contrast this with a previous poster who only contributes trolling and whining about a method they don't even use themselves and have no personal experience of. On his visit here earlier in the year Reviled was luggage-challenged and could only bring a limited selection of some 330s of various brews, but based on those, Reviled is surely set to make waves in the NZ brewing community.

:icon_cheers:

 

[buttersd70]

All AHB users, and in particular BIAB brewers and / or no-chillers may well be interested in reading the article that is in my signature.

<_<

 

[manticle]

Still dont understand what is wrong with a piece of drilled copper tubing under the mash.

Perhaps you are all mummy's boys and have yet to realise that "fabric' is inferior and a waste of your time and your mother's effort 8)

cheers

Darren

Hi Darren,

I'm going to waste my time and respond to you.

(By the way - I use a copper manifold).

Any simpleton could understand that the main justification for brewing in a bag is because it provides similar results to other forms of AG brewing but uses less equipment. The reasons for doing it, as opposed to the way you (presumably) and I brew should supposedly be fairly logical to all but the most retarded.

Cheers

Andrew

PS. I suppose you could always get on with your own brewing and leave other people to theirs?

All the best

A

 

[Bribie G]

Manticle, you got it in one

However you could have saved your fingertips and posted a more succinct version:


"Darren, why oh why do you bother?"

B)

 

[Thirsty Boy]

If you keep on clip clop, clip clopping over his bridge .... what do you expect him to do?

 

[katzke]

Will through in my 2 cents American about people that mindlessly criticize BIAB.

It motivates me to brew better BIAB beer then they can with all their equipment. So all you BIAB critics keep it up.

Awards personally won with BIAB, First, First, and Third. I was even thinking of skipping the next competition but now I am committed to entering.