A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[dj1984]

BIAB IMO is the best way too start making AG beer, i started the traditional way with a mash tun and kettle using the kettle at a HLT too .

The last thing i bought was an urn which took longer as i had too get all the bits and Pieces befor i could brew.

Now if i just bought the urn too start with i could have been brewing AG alot longer.

I have had a few BIAB beers from Crundle and i cant find any difference between mine and his.

So for all the new guys wanting too get into all grain i recommend getting yourself some "fabric" and starting BIAB, later on if you want to go three vessle you already have a HLT.

Dont worrie what other people say about BIAB being inferior i have had both and they are the same quality.

Cheers
DJ

 

[Bribie G]

Totally off topic but when I was a lad in the UK after the Second World War in the fading days of the aristocracy, you would occasionally see rich people standing by the side of the road in the countryside, with some luggage, next to a couple of big black Bentleys or Daimlers. The cars hadn't broken down, they were waiting for their other cars to come and fetch them. Heres how it was:

Many wealthy people had a country house and a town house (for example a 500 Acre estate in Oxfordshire and a three storey terrace in Belgravia in London - both residences with a set of servants) and when they went into town for the weekend they would be chauffeured to the meeting place in their country cars. Their town cars, driven by the town chauffeurs, would come out and pick them up. Why didn't they just drive into town in one go? Because it was too far to drive without tiring the horses pulling their coaches, which is how it was always done in the past. When cars were invented it just didn't occur to them to do anything differently. They knew that there was only one way to do things.

Nowadays of course they just hop in the Maybach and cut out all the old fashioned stuff.

I often think about BIAB like that, gets you there quicker with less faffing around and less equipment required

 

[crundle]

Brewed with my largest grain bill yet today, 9kg for a Doppelbock. I kept worrying if the bag would burst or not, but that good old Swiss Voile held together like a trooper. Ended up sparging with about 4 litres of water to help extract the grains that were just not going to be squeezed out since I didn't have gloves to help with the burning, but it worked out a treat and I have ended up with 23 litres of very thick wort indeed in my cube to hopefully pitch tomorrow with the saved yeast cake from a Munich Dunkel. Preboil gravity came to 1.072, but no figures yet on post boil till I crack the cube tomorrow, but was aiming for 1.090 or so.

Now it has me thinking that if my efficiency didn't suffer too badly, I might be able to make double batches of 'normal' gravity beers in my 40 litre urn this way. Any thoughts?

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

Brewed with my largest grain bill yet today, 9kg for a Doppelbock. I kept worrying if the bag would burst or not, but that good old Swiss Voile held together like a trooper. Ended up sparging with about 4 litres of water to help extract the grains that were just not going to be squeezed out since I didn't have gloves to help with the burning, but it worked out a treat and I have ended up with 23 litres of very thick wort indeed in my cube to hopefully pitch tomorrow with the saved yeast cake from a Munich Dunkel. Preboil gravity came to 1.072, but no figures yet on post boil till I crack the cube tomorrow, but was aiming for 1.090 or so.

Now it has me thinking that if my efficiency didn't suffer too badly, I might be able to make double batches of 'normal' gravity beers in my 40 litre urn this way. Any thoughts?

Crundle

Hmm.
What you are saying is the equivalent of doing a normal brew in a 20L urn. I would say yes, but with serious efficiency issues. On the other hand with a 40L urn there are tweaks that you could use such as a really serious sparge in a bucket to bring the pre boil wort in the urn up to about 38 litres and control the boil to avoid frothing. Also depending on the style such as UK Bitters, Milds and Aus Standard lagers you could add 500g of sugar or more (in the fermenter) and remain true to style.

I reckon we could just about do it, but don't aim for more than about a 4% ABV or thereabouts beer.Try it and let us know how you get on (bribie makes bullet and crundle fires it :lol: )

My 2c

 

[katzke]

Now it has me thinking that if my efficiency didn't suffer too badly, I might be able to make double batches of 'normal' gravity beers in my 40 litre urn this way. Any thoughts?

Crundle

You may need to adjust the hops some for normal beers. Seem to recall hops like lower gravity so you may end up with less hop then you wanted in your final lower gravity split batch beer.

 

[RdeVjun]

Now it has me thinking that if my efficiency didn't suffer too badly, I might be able to make double batches of 'normal' gravity beers in my 40 litre urn this way. Any thoughts?

Yep, as Bribie says, this does work, Bjorn also wrote up his experiences recently. I actually do something similar to this most of the time, but just at the standard 20-23 litre scale, while I don't think there's any real problems upscaling to 40 or more.
I know its not really what is being asked, but I'll outline what I do and you could probably just double the numbers. My method: I use 3- 3.5kg of grain and a 19 litre stockpot and always bucket sparge. Start with about 14 litres of water, mash as per usual, lift & twist the bag (no need to drain completely at this stage), then drop it into about 5 litres of hotter sparge, stir and let it sit for 15- 20 minutes, lift & twist then allow it to drain completely. It usually yields about 15 litres of fairly strong wort (1.060+) which I can either boil as is or dilute to about 18 litres (see below about hops though). I'll be diluting it again before pitching, usually target OG is mid- 40s, but also keep in mind its a very full stockpot and has to be watched like a hawk for boilovers.
Because of the pot size limitations, obviously I can't do a standard strength boil for 23 litres, but this method seems to deliver the goods while keeping batch size up around the normal 21-23 litres. It is also a dirt cheap way to start AGing, seriously, all that is needed is a BIAB bag and a 19 litre stockpot. A second smaller pot is handy for heating sparge water, although a kitchen kettle will usually suffice. Sparging in, and draining the bag into a different pot or bucket whilst the big stockpot is heating up for the boil means having another larger vessel on hand, but most domestic kitchens and households have something useable that can be pressed into service.
So for less than $50 anyone with some ingenuity and a bit of determination can have a shot at AG, while BribieG's BIAB with an urn tutorial is an excellent guide, most of the steps I use are described in it, just brilliantly I might add, Bjorn's step by step is terrific for this as well.

You may need to adjust the hops some for normal beers. Seem to recall hops like lower gravity so you may end up with less hop then you wanted in your final lower gravity split batch beer.

Yep, the higher gravity ( >1.050) boil is less efficient at utilising hops, so adjustments are needed to keep the hops strengths right. I posted a chart in Bjorn's thread, here it is.
Hopping levels are one thing that I've not been completely satisfied with and hence I investigated and started doing some adjustments.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Brewed with my largest grain bill yet today, 9kg for a Doppelbock. I kept worrying if the bag would burst or not, but that good old Swiss Voile held together like a trooper. Ended up sparging with about 4 litres of water to help extract the grains that were just not going to be squeezed out since I didn't have gloves to help with the burning, but it worked out a treat and I have ended up with 23 litres of very thick wort indeed in my cube to hopefully pitch tomorrow with the saved yeast cake from a Munich Dunkel. Preboil gravity came to 1.072, but no figures yet on post boil till I crack the cube tomorrow, but was aiming for 1.090 or so.

Now it has me thinking that if my efficiency didn't suffer too badly, I might be able to make double batches of 'normal' gravity beers in my 40 litre urn this way. Any thoughts?

Crundle

It depends on how much trouble you are willing to go to - add a sparge, get a few litres extra, add a bigger sparge - a few more litres - concentrate the boil a bit - drip feed the wort into the boil - all sorts of stuff.

Invest in a few extra buckets, another decent sized pot, an eski to use as a HLT - and of course you can brew more... basically you are moving closer to 3 vessel methods, and they brew larger volumes than the mash tun can hold all the time.

A bit of foam control, a bit of care and a bit of dicking around - and there is no real reason why you cant finish your boil with 38L or so in your 40L urn

BIAB is limited in its volumes - only if you choose to keep your life simple - if you're happy to complicate it you can stretch the process quite a way.

TB

 

[troopa]

BIAB is limited in its volumes - only if you choose to keep your life simple - if you're happy to complicate it you can stretch the process quite a way.

TB

Apart from the word Bag, i recon that is the most important comment related to BIAB

I have a 60L pot and up till recently was happy doing 23-25L brews.. but of course life and need "Made" me want to do doubles
Its certainly easier to do it in a 60L pot then a 40L urn but still requires a sparge of around 10 Liters

With a little forethought and timing i lose nothing except maybe 5-10 mins of my time including cleaning the extra gear
And by my time i dont mean brew time i mean sitting on my but waiting for for FWH addition so nothing really lost

But of course an 80L pot is the goal as funds become available

Tom

 

[crundle]

Due to time restraints caused by having to go to work on my last brewday, I didn't get to sparge as much as I would have liked, nor boiled for as long as I would have liked (around 120 minutes or more to be able to boil off a larger volume of water). Accordingly, my brewhouse efficiency in Beersmith moved from its normal 75% to around 65%, leaving me with a SG of 1.084 when I pitched my yeast slurry today.

Not to worry, will put it down to experience, but I think next time with a large beer like this I will be aiming for a minimum 2 hour boil and more sparging to concentrate the wort more. Thanks for the hop utilisation chart RdeVjun, that is now in the garage to guide me for my next big beer adventure!

FWIW, my Doppelbock is now bubbling away nicely in the fermenting fridge at 9 degrees using a hefty slurry from the previous Munich Dunkel, so I can take a hit on efficiency for this brew.

Crundle

 

[RdeVjun]

Not to worry, will put it down to experience, but I think next time with a large beer like this I will be aiming for a minimum 2 hour boil and more sparging to concentrate the wort more. Thanks for the hop utilisation chart RdeVjun, that is now in the garage to guide me for my next big beer adventure!

FWIW, my Doppelbock is now bubbling away nicely in the fermenting fridge at 9 degrees using a hefty slurry from the previous Munich Dunkel, so I can take a hit on efficiency for this brew.

No sweat Crundle, I forgot to mention one important point, that the chart is designed to be used with post- boil SG, which makes it kinda tricky to use, but if you have a feel for how your setup performs then this should be no problem. It is plenty good enough as a guide and I know now from experience roughly where things will be before and after the boil. So far the changes I've made to my stock/house beer (a Landlord-esque ESB) have supported the chart and the theory behind it as I'm far happier with it now after some hops tweaking.

BTW, why such a long boil Crundle? I actually mash and boil for 90 minutes each and had thought that was probably tearing the fork out of it just slightly, mind you I've not made many of those big beers. Just curious...

Also, just on mash left over, I've yet to partigyle or make up a small beer as I'd say sparging for the primary mash the way I do any subsequent wort would make a pretty puny beer, but will give it a go one day. I find bucket/dunk sparging pretty straightforward and with some preparation doesn't take much if any extra time- I put the sparge water on the heat before the mash is complete so I can do my sparging while the primary pot is coming up to the boil. But if I find myself in the position of being unable to sparge, then I'll do a fair dinkum small beer, otherwise its partigyle for me. If BIABing without any sparge, there's a fair whack of SG points, and other goodies of course, remaining in the mash that can be used constructively, something to keep in mind folks.

FWIW, I've never been overly concerned about efficiency with this method, although initially I was fairly sceptical. My aims have been to knock up low/mid-40s OG ales with 3.5kg of malt and it works most of the time (so around 75%), maybe a litre or two short sometimes. If it comes in a lot lower then I've been known to throw in some sugar or malt extract to top it up (in ESB/SBs sugar is fine), but generally its not necessary.

And +1 for Troopa and Thirsty's sentiments- IMO, if you're prepared to fart about a bit with this BIABing caper, the sky really is the limit! :icon_cheers:

 

[crundle]

The long boil is an attempt to basically boil down more than 40 litres of wort in a 40 litre urn. Since I can't physically fit that in (in space) I can fit it in (in time). So the plan is to start the boil with 30 litres of wort (first runnings by equivalent) and then to add the sparge wort steadily over the first hour or so till I am getting around the gravity I am after for the volume I want.

I could just boil it down for a smaller volume of greater gravity, but to get both the volume and the gravity I am after from it, it seems to me that the longer boil is the go. More stuffing about I accept, but since it is a lager anyway I think that the last of the sparge wort I add should get the benefit of at least an hours good rolling boil to keep the nasty flavours at bay.

I normally just squeeze the bag very well using rubber gloves to keep the pain away, but for a grain bill of 9kg it just doesn't get the same results, so nowdays I follow Bribie (as always it seems - clever bugger he is!) and give it a sparge to help it along a bit. What is a bit of extra boiling really? I now set my hops schedule around the volume in the urn, so I wont risk adding my hops too soon and end up with an understrength wort or an overhopped wort.

When I get to about 30 litres of wort during the boil and the gravity is at my target for my preboil estimate according to beersmith, I know that in one hour I will get my wort volume down to 24 litres, so I start my hops schedule at that point.

I like the idea of making a small beer with the runnings, but then I think of having one less glass of my big beer and chicken out!

I will have a play with this idea again on my next big beer (thinking aging a RIS for next years mid year swap) and see how the prolonged boil goes.

Thanks for the input, it is great to bounce ideas off of others to see that maybe I am not quite as crazy as I sometimes think I might be!

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

I have a feeling that the Czech traditional breweries, while they are still traditional - Heineken have bought Urquell for example - boil for 2 hours, but maybe that's to get rid of DMS. I actually owe the sparge in a bucket idea to a forum member in either Maryborough, Hervey Bay or Bundy .... I completely forget who it was, there are so many brewers up Wide Bay Burnett Way ... until then I was doing a 'mashout' with boiling water and still doing the long boil, but I reckon the sparge is giving better results.

 

[RdeVjun]

I have a feeling that the Czech traditional breweries, while they are still traditional - Heineken have bought Urquell for example - boil for 2 hours, but maybe that's to get rid of DMS. I actually owe the sparge in a bucket idea to a forum member in either Maryborough, Hervey Bay or Bundy .... I completely forget who it was, there are so many brewers up Wide Bay Burnett Way ... until then I was doing a 'mashout' with boiling water and still doing the long boil, but I reckon the sparge is giving better results.

Cheers BribieG, whoever it is, I myself owe them a big thanks! It seems like such a natural continuation of the mash process for me, I found there was such an enormous yield, plus it suited my equipment, I wouldn't even dream of skipping it, if I did it would probably only be to facilitate a small beer along with the first big beer.

Yeah, with longer boils on a few lagers I did recently with polenta, I approached it with 90 minutes and the lid completely off in mind and it seemed to ensure that any potential DMS/ maize thing was taken care of fairly well. FWIW, I only slightly uncover the stockpot lid with ales, but keeping in mind with my particular concentrated wort method I'm not trying to reduce the volume at that stage, more the opposite and keeping the volume up as much as possible to help with hops utilisation. So far I've not encountered any problems with flavour, although I've never entered one in a comp and, certainly haven't scooped the pool like you have!

Being on rec leave for a fortnight (largely a 'staycation' :angry: ) gives me an opportunity to look at BIAB partigyle/ small beers and also reslants (1768, 1469 etc), I'm just clearing the decks presently to do all that. Will post the results! :icon_cheers:

 

[Hashie]

Sorry to be a PITA, but I can't be shagged reading backwards to find how you blokes sparge.

You say you do it in a bucket so I will hypothesize and say you use 1-2 litres less in your mash, raise your bag, drain and squeeze. Then put the grain bag in a seperate bucket and add 1-2 litres of ~80degree water, then add these runnings to your kettle.

Am I close?

 

[Bribie G]

No probs hashie, if you go to the other All Grain forum "beginners" I've put a tute on BIAB with an urn which is at the top in the airlocked section, and there's a picture of my bucket-o-sparge. The idea is to hoist the bag as normal and after draining and squeezing into the pot or urn, dump the bag into a bucket ... nappy buckets are good as they are decent quality plastic and quite big, then put in about six to eight litres of very hot water, over 80, stir around, then hoist the bag a second time, drain and squeeze and tip the runnings into the boiler / urn, which you will have been heating up in the meantime. Now this gives you a bigger volume of wort than you need, but a 90 minute boil will get you back to a good volume. :icon_cheers:

 

[RdeVjun]

Whasamatter hashie, the thread is only 1400- odd posts, where's your sprit of adventure??!! Come on man, get a grip!!

In all seriousness now, I'm doing things just a bit differently from BribieG with a 19L stockpot instead of a 40L urn (link), so what I do is use about 15L in the pot for mashing. After the usual 90 minutes, lift, twist and then drop into the bucket. The bucket has about 5 or 6L in it and has been heating up to >80C while the mash was finishing, but I have a stainless bucket (from my past dairying days) and a handful of other stockpots to choose from so I can heat it directly, with a plastic bucket obviously this won't work and it'll perhaps mean a few domestic kettles- full, but best start this heating before the mash is complete. Leave the bag in the sparge bucket for 15- 20 minutes, give it a few stirs while in there to extract the last few points. While its been sparging I'll have had the 19L stockpot back on the gas and heating up for the boil. Then after sparging, lift the bag, twist and drain completely, add that to the boil, it will usually be about 4L of 1/3 to 1/2 the SG of the primary wort.

As an aside, interestingly, I skim the first lot of scum off the almost- boiling wort and then add the sparge water. This cooling seems to precipitate another large crop of scum which is duly skimmed. Now, I am not sure if the two are linked, but I've found that clarity of the final product is fantastic, even when bottled from primary and with only ~5g gelatine per batch. This could be the less- is- more thing that Butters mentions elsewhere perhaps, but I am mindful of this when I see other folks struggling with clarity as I seem to have no hassles other than a bit more yeast in the bottles.

The volumes aren't critical for me as I'm diluting later anyway, this dilution thing is the trade off I make by doing it on the scab. As far as costs go though, considering that I was brewing extracts at the time, purchasing a whole BIAB AG rig for me left almost enough change out of 50 clams to get my first AG batch on. Like I've said elsewhere, I already have most of the necessary kit for a traditional 3- vessel system but I don't really see the need knock it together now. :icon_cheers:

 

[Bribie G]

Rde sent me a sample of his UK bitter (thanks for that postal tube, I used it to send some of my UK bitter to Tidal Pete :lol: ) and until recently I had no idea that he was brewing in such a small pot. The beer was more than acceptable and was quite a hopburst as well. :icon_cheers: so the method is clearly producing some nice drops.

 

[pdilley]

As another BIAB clarity note, I ran my Amarillo Ale BIAB on a multi-step mash regime similar to my hefeweizen regime and it has come out absolutely beautifully clear as could be. Only additions I do to boil is the whirlfloc and then no-chill cube to fermenter to bottles to serving glass as the path it takes.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[troopa]

BP is there any chance you post your recipe and step times / Process for that unless you already have and i missed it

Thanks Tom

 

[pdilley]

BP is there any chance you post your recipe and step times / Process for that unless you already have and i missed it

Thanks Tom

Here you go Troopa:

Brewer Pete's Amarillo Ale and Hefeweizen BIAB Mash Schedule
43C ferulic acid rest
62C beta amylase rest
72C alpha amylase rest

Originally done with Amarillo Ale to work out bugs in BIAB before Hefeweizen brewing but turned out such a lovely ale (combined with a 2nd pitch from trub of US05 at 21C fermentation temperatures) that I will keep on knocking out standard Ales after the clarity I saw resulting in Amarillo Ale.

Unlike non-BIAB AG brewing, you don't have to worry about dough in temperature losses. My system loses no heat so I dial in exactly 43C.

I achieve dough in temperature in about 50 seconds!

How? Hot Water straight from the tap. The house's biggest gas burner (in the hot water heater) has me over 43C in temperature just by filling the BIAB pot. I have to put a few rounds of 2L countainers of cold water at the end to bring the temp down to an exact 43C.

Mash Step #1 Heat up the primary water (32l) to 43C, BIAB bag in, keep it there for 20min.
Mash Step #2 Heat up the pot until water is up to 61-63C and rest for 30min.
Mash Step #3 Heat up the pot until water is up to 72C and rest for another 30min.
Last Step #5 Heat up the pot to 78C and BIAB bag out.

While the pot is reaching boiling and just slightly after (10 minutes or so) my BIAB bag is draining in a gigantic funnel sitting in a 5L flask on the counter. I pour this liquid (up to sometimes 2L) back into the boiling wort.

Whirfloc in last 10 minutes or so of boil after all the hop additions are done. No aroma hopping I always toss them directly into the No Chill Cube and siphon the wort into that, then outside at night to cool. Wake up and bring No Chill Cube inside. Pitch that day after work. Ferment out at 21C to bring out some fruityness in US05 while still maintaining the clean side of US05.

Hop Schedule was 20/20/20 for the Amarillo I ended up with. (If memory serves right - coming down with something so bit foggy headed)

For hefeweizen besides the grain bill, I can add in organic flours including a pinch of Rye for a slight Rogenbier-isation. Adding pure flours is simply something you can not do in non-BIAB systems as you always are in fear of the "Stuck Sparge".



Cheers,
Brewer Pete