A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[crundle]

I hope so!

You should be right, as it was only a couple of hours after you opened it that you pitched, but if you had left it for a few days, the story might be very different. Bacteria multiply much more rapidly than yeast, and will easily out populate yeast given half a chance.

cheers,

Crundle

 

[under]

Got a question.

Doing this tomorrow (23L Batch)-

2kg JW Trad Ale
2kg JW Export Pilsner
1kg Flaked Maize

My question is to do with absorbtion of the flaked maize. Do I include it in the grain bill total in the BIAB Equipment Setup Volumes.xls or not.

At the moment I have it included and it says I need 32.5L. Without the maize is 31.9L. Im unsure if it absorbs less than grain or more??

 

[Bribie G]

Nearly all the maize will be digested by the enzymes in the mash and turned into sugars, so in a sense it doesn't really absorb any liquid. However as it's contributing fermentables to the brew then some water should be added to bring the wort to the right gravity before boiling. I don't use software, I've done so many brews that after hoisting and squeezing the bag I 'know' if the level of wort is right. If it's a fairly light grain bill such as 4kg then it's usually spot on after hoisting. If its a biggie like 6kg then after hoisting, the wort level in the kettle is a lot lower so I often do a sparge in a bucket and end up with the 'right' level again. It's an art that you'll get the hang of pretty quickly.

Tricky one this, but I would go for the 32.5 to be on the safe side.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

as Bribie says - go for the higher volume. Then if your volume is a little high after you pull out the bag and drain/squeeze or whatever you do ... you just boil it for a while till it comes down to the pre-boil volume you wanted in the first place. Then from that point, take your pre-boi OG and start your timer, do your hop additions etc.

Couldn't be easier, shoot high, boil till you hit your target.

TB

 

[under]

Well pre boil gravity was 1040. FInal out of the kettle was 1052. It was supposed to be 1050. But I have the right amout of wort though.

 

[mrcmatt]

We've been experimenting with a modified BIAB parti-gyle; not a real parti-gyle, but inspired by. The beers we are making are a belgian tripel and a belgian pale ale, starting with the tripel as first mash and the pale with the seconds.

We put the grains (22 pounds) for the tripel in a bag and mashed with 7 gallons water, pulled the bag and drained a bit, put the bag with grains in a picnic cooler mash tun, batch sparged 6 gallons for the pale, then sparged a few more gallons to get the tripel up to volume.

We ended up with very good efficiency and got 2 full batched brewed with a minimum of fuss and mess. After adding sugar per recipe, our OGs were 1.097 and 1.062.

The combination of BIAB and batch sparging made for a very simple brew day, good efficiency and 2 great beers to drink in a few weeks or months.

more info at http://brewlogblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/1...i-batch-madness/

 

[argon]

BIAB #2

Second batch wasn't all too successful. Did a double batch (40L) of Ross's Summer Ale. Only ended up with 37L at the correct OG. Was just too hard getting all that grain out. I have a "Replica" 50L Keg I converted, and getting the grain out is a little awkward, using this much grain, with the lid cutout being smaller diameter than the internals of the kettle. Squeezed the bag, but not as much as I should have. Didn't do any dunk sparging, etc. to up the efficiency points.

I had some people around for BBQ, cause they were interested in the process. One of the guys, fellow brewer (Bristow), was helpful. But mostly I got distracted doing other stuff, being the host and what not. So it felt all like a bit of a rush.
Made the note to self, "brewers or helping hands only on the next session". I did however have my bag properly sewn. The thing is bullet proof hoist tags, French seams, elasticised draw sting loop. That thing's not popping anytime soon. A proper bag cam in very handy when stirring hoisting etc. No more BIAS (brew in a sheet) for me. Anyway ended up with 3 separate batches of 12.33L with 3 separate yeasts. Let's hope they all turns out well. Due for bottling this week.
BIAB #3

Third batch was a success!!! Last Saturday night. (Had to do it straight way after seeing Ross's new brew rig and sharing a couple of beers drooling over the monster. Thanks again Ross, Dave, Chappo nice to meet you guys and share a beer or 2. That chocolate stout was special. :icon_drool2: )

Setup the rig during the day bit by bit. Had the strike water sitting in the kettle ready to go before dinner. 9pm and SWMBO and the little one are in bed. Got 35L to strike temp in about 15mins with the new Rambo. Doughed in and hit mash temp 66C spot on. Gave it a good stir for about 5mins. Went back inside to the AC. Stirred at 15min intervals for the next 60min. Raised temp to 78C and did a mashout for 10min. Hoisted bag, with a rope over a roof purlin. Hung it over the 19L stockpot to drain. Turned the Rambo on again. Twirled and squeezed the bejesus out of the bag (squeezed out about 6L worth). Dumped the grain. Added the liquor to the kettle and 10 mins later a nice rolling boil had started. 5 mins later hot break dissipated and started the hop schedule on a nice rolling boil.

Doing version 2 of my LFPA linky. Hit targets and volumes absolutely spot-on. (used Beersmith for the first time very, very handy). 24L of OG 1056 into the cube. Happy days. :icon_cheers:

Moral of the story plan it all out, don't get distracted, take your time and relax. Now onto the next one, a 34L batch of DSGA.

 

[Elbow]

Did my third BIAB last night:

Pretty happy with it, I did Fenton and Troy's Cream Ale and all went (mostly!) to plan.

I used:

2 kg JW Trad Ale
2kg JW Pils
1kg of Dried "1 minute" Polenta
42g Northern Brewer Hops 60 min
10g Hallertau (ran out of Northern) 10 mins

The mash in was good, took a lot of stirring to get all the polenta dough balls out, but they disappeared pretty quickly. Mashed in at 66 for one hour, then raised to 78 and held for 10 mins.

Boiled for 75 minutes, whirlpooled and siphoned to cube for no chill. Small accident when the tap on the cube come loose, spilling boiling wort on the floor....got the tap back on within seconds and expelled all the air. I figure I should be ok?

My water in was 32 litres, ended with around 23 litres into the cube and left around 3 litres of trub and hop gunk in the kettle. Pre boil reading was 1040 and post was 1052, so I'm happy with that. How do you work out efficiency?

Swiss voil is as strong as hell!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Boiled for 75 minutes, whirlpooled and siphoned to cube for no chill. Small accident when the tap on the cube come loose, spilling boiling wort on the floor....got the tap back on within seconds and expelled all the air. I figure I should be ok?

My water in was 32 litres, ended with around 23 litres into the cube and left around 3 litres of trub and hop gunk in the kettle. Pre boil reading was 1040 and post was 1052, so I'm happy with that. How do you work out efficiency?

Swiss voil is as strong as hell!

Thats one of the reason "most" people who no-chill dont put a tap into their cube. Things go all a bit soggy at 100C and the taps tend to get knocked out really easily. Plus sanitation, people tend to be extra extra careful with no-chill and that tap is a prime place for bugs to hide.

If it were me, I'd retire the cube with the tap to a Cold Conditioning cube or to hold sanitiser or something, and go with cube that hasn't had the tap hole drilled out for no-chill.

Efficiency is usually measured as the gravity of the wort (for a given volume) expressed as a percentage of the maximum theoretical gravity you could have gotten in a perfect system.

There are calculations you can do - but the easiest way is to get yourself one of the brewing software programs. I use pro-mash and the free trial is fully functional, just with recipe saving disabled. It will still do all your calculations for you.

Plugging your grains and volumes into pro-mash...

you had 23 into your cube and 3 left in the kettle - that's a post boil volume of 26L
Your gravity was 1.052
2kg JW pale, 2kg JW pils, 1 kg corn

Promash says that to get 26L of 1.052 wort from those grains you would have had to get a mash efficiency of 86% -- which is great. So great in fact I suspect its a little high to be realistic.

But, lets assume a bit of measurement error - say 1L in the kettle and 1L in the cube. Thats 24L @ 1.052 which is still an efficiency of 79-80%.

So, either you measured well and got phenomenal efficiency, or you got a little error and just got really good efficiency instead. Nicely done.

A few more brews and you will start to settle into predictable patterns and you can think about aiming for particular numbers and designing your brews to get them. If thats how you want to brew anyway.

I have been talking about "Mash Efficiency" which is probably the most common way people think about efficiency. If you read a recipe in a brewing magazine, or you read a book like Brewing Classic Styles - then when they refer to efficiency, this is what they most probably mean.

Another way to look at it is total brewhouse efficiency - which includes your losses from the kettle to trub and things like that. It is a lower figure and might not look so good, but more accurately relates the amount of grain to the amount of beer. You can go a step further and include losses in your fermenter etc. So you relate the amount of grain directly to the amount of packaged product and a lot of people think that this is the only truly "useful" way to look at efficiency.

I use mash efficiency. Thats also the figure you are talking about when you use the efficiency button in the recipe design part of pro-mash... which is primarily why its the figure I choose to use.

TB

 

[joshuahardie]

Guys, I have a BIAB issue that related to efficiency.

I have been BIAB-ing for a few years and my old stovetop system was with 2x20l pots.
I would basically mash in with my 4kg or so of grain in one pot full with hot water.
I would mash for about 60 mins then drain from the first bag getting all the wort out that I can.
I would then do a 'sparge' by then putting my bag in the second pot and adding much hotter water, attempting to get all of the sugar out of the grain as possible.
I then boil both pots of wort on the stove as normal, cool, add to the fermenter, and I would normally come away with a 70% efficiency. Not great, but on such a crude system I was satisfied.

Recently I have upgraded to a 40l pot, and as such I don't need to do any of the pot swapping drama anymore.
I still use the same bag that I used for the 20l pot that is undersized for the pot but not by too much.

My problem is now my efficiency is down in the 48-52% range, which is just abysmal.

Could my undersized bag be causing the efficiency issues, or is it likely a case of that I am not 'sparging' any more so that could be the cause. I don't really feel that I have changed my system that much to cause a huge issue like this.

Any ideas to this would be greatly appreciated.

Josh

 

[bcp]

I just completed my first all-grain - BIAB in an urn - and i'm also interested in how to improve efficiency. My temperature was good for the mash. So I was thinking along these lines:
1. Crush - we can crush it more finely for the bag. That would increase it.
2. I didn't stir the grain towards the end of the mash. I agitated the bag a bit, but i think stirring the grain could help.
3. I did raise the temp before removing the bag, but wonder if i could have held it longer at the higher temperature before removing the bag?
4. Squeezing the bag - there must be a better system. I was using the fermenter because i didn't have a plastic bucket, and it was really difficult to squeeze the hot bag. Any better system?
5. I did 'bucket sparge' about two litres, but not sure my technique was really great.

So interested to hear from those who get good efficiency.

 

[PistolPatch]

Have been enjoying reading the above posts. Great to see so many new guys having a crack and doing well.

In regards to the last 2 posts, Josh, definitely get yourself a bigger bag. Having a small bag is a known cause of low efficiency with BIAB so once you have a new bag you should be right.

bcp, all those things you mention will make a bit of a difference. A pair of industrial gloves will really help with the squeezing. It will also take a few brews before you get any real idea of your efficiency. One reading on one brew can be quite inaccurate for various reasons. You don't need to go overboard in squeezing etc to get good efficiency. When you raise your mash at the end to 78 degrees, lower the bag and give it a bit of a stir. After a few minutes, gradually raise it. Once above the wort level, give it a bit if a twist and squeeze, and then suspend it over a food-grade bucket. By the time your wort starts to boil, you'll probably have another litre or so in the bucket that you can throw in the boil.

Cheers and thanks for all the good reads above,
Pat

 

[Dunno]

Hi All

I have been hampered as regards to my AHB access lately (about 12 months due to nagging - then pregnant wife - to having a 2 month old) so havent posted much. I have increased my avg efficiency from 70% to around 90% with BIAB. The first figure was taken over about 10 brews. The 2nd over about 8 now. The main change in my process is a sparging process. I bought a large collander that I sit over my brew pot. I mash with a lower amount of water similar to traditional 3 vessel brewers but using my bag in my brew pot. After mashout of 78d I twist and drain the bag, then dump it in my oversize collander, open the bag up and slowly pour hot water over the grain. I can see the colour slowly fade from the water as it comes out of the grain and have played with differing amounts of sparge water vs mash water. Best so far is 91% with this method but average is around 89%. Still dont need any extra equipment but I do use a 15lt pot that I bought with the intention to do mini mashes with before I thought bugger it and went full volume double batch BIAB. Beers are tasting fantastic too.
Will post some more precise figs and maybe some pics when I get the chance.
Cheers Dunno

 

[nikgr]

Hi folks did you check the new Basic's brewing video http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing...-10cornpils.mp4 they are brewing a "Homegrown Organic Corn Pilsner" using BIAB method.

 

[matthendry]

Hi folks did you check the new Basic's brewing video http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing...-10cornpils.mp4 they are brewing a "Homegrown Organic Corn Pilsner" using BIAB method.

Im a Aussie that lives in the US and it seems the American homebrewers are reluctant to use new techniques like BIAB and No Chill and the All grain brewers here seem more interested in replicating a small brewery than making it simpler ,so its great that James and Steve are showing how easy it is .

The use of adjunts like Corn and rice is also frowned upon in homebrewing and craft brewing because they are used by Budwiser and Coors .

 

[Thirsty Boy]

excellent, I didn't know they made a video. Glad they did.

 

[nick_wilko]

Hi all,
I've been doing AG (2vessel system) for a few years now, and on the past batch decided to give the old BIAB a go.

I'm converted.... Really enjoyed the process, It sped up the brew day, meant less cleaning and based on early samples has turned out a top beer.

I did have a couple of quick questions/thoughts:

(1) water calcs - for anyone out there who uses BeerAlchemy, can you adjust the grain absorption rates and loss to break material so that it reflects BIAB. I've had a look, and I suspect not, but thought I'd ask the crowd

(2) one thing I did notice is that I was losing temp a lot quicker in the mash compared to using an esky. Has anyone tried using a new belt wrapped around the pot during the mash to try and maintain temp maybe hooked up to a tempmate? This might be a stupid question on a number of fronts - eg brew belt doesn't have the guts to heat at 60-70 deg, or the plastic on the brew belt might not be rated to handle those temps etc

I'd be interested to hear everyones thoughts on these.

Cheers
Wilko

 

[PistolPatch]

nikgr: Thanks a heap for the video link above. I have been meaning to find time to watch it but BIABrewer.info and some other things have taken up a lot more time than I thought. I am about to do watch the vid after this post - looking forward to it!

wilko: Great to hear you enjoyed it. Please PM me re the BeerAlchemy part of your post. I use the program so might be able to help out if you can provide a bit more detail to your question.

As for losing heat, my thoughts on this are that BIAB provides you with a better alternative in controlling mash temp than an esky does. All you have to do is check the temp a few times during the mash and apply heat if necessary whilst agitating the mash. For me, this is easier and less time-consuming than wrapping the kettle in any sort of insulation. I think this way has to also give you better efficiency though that should not be a big consideration.

In a very cold climate, then I think insulation might need to become a consideration but if BIABing in ambient temps above 15-20 degrees celsius then I think the occassional turning on of your burner/heat source and giving the mash a stir can do no harm.

If the time that you had to actually apply heat and stir exceeded 20 minutes in a 90 minute mash to ensure the temp didn't drop by more than two degrees during that mash, then I would consider alternatives. At 20 degrees ambient though, I would not have to stir for more than 10 minutes to keep within 2 degrees.

And remember, BIAB has a tremendous advantage over an esky. Your mash temperature is more even, can more easily be kept constant and will not have the wild "pocket" variations of an esky. You'll still get these advantages with BIAB if you do nothing during the mash at ambient temps of above 20 or so but isn't it worth checking the mash 2 or 3 times to get the same advantages as high tech recirculating 3 vessel systems?

Going to watch that video now. Hope it's good!
Pat

 

[cliffyj]

Hi,
Just brewed another batch of this.
Mash temp 65c-66c, checked temp twice and stirred, temp held throughout mash, so didnt add flame.
I did a mash out, plus i gave the grain a good squeeze when lifting bag out.
5 galls into fermenter, gravity 1050.
I must admit,if i hadn't discovered biab, i would not have done an all grain brew,so thumbs up to everybody on here who have tried and tested and sorted the problems.
I didn't get round to making a bag from the voile,but i think it would make things easier if i did.
Thanks ,Clifford

 

[PistolPatch]

Hi,
Just brewed another batch of this.
Mash temp 65c-66c, checked temp twice and stirred, temp held throughout mash, so didnt add flame.
I did a mash out, plus i gave the grain a good squeeze when lifting bag out.
5 galls into fermenter, gravity 1050.
I must admit,if i hadn't discovered biab, i would not have done an all grain brew,so thumbs up to everybody on here who have tried and tested and sorted the problems.
I didn't get round to making a bag from the voile,but i think it would make things easier if i did.
Thanks ,Clifford

Howdy Clifford!

I know that we have been swapping emails but I hate letting posts in this thread lie latent or unacknowledged for so long.

I think that a heap of brewers seem to somehow be able to find their way with BIAB now. My original intention was just to have two threads but editing the original posts of this thread is now impossible and our our original BIABrewer Register thread is now split in two! This is a good sign and now that BIAB has become established, I should probably ask this thread now be closed but still remain air-locked. I would need to do a few edits to the original post first though.

I also have good reason for not responding . After spending the last two years or so trying to create an information site for BIABrewer.info and, at every turn finding this harder and harder, just last week everything became simple. I went around to NME's last weekend and all is brilliant now. It is so easy!

So, at the moment I am transferring a lot of stuff to the dummy site which is a tad laborious. Once that is done, a few of us will beta test (critique) it* and then all will actually be a lot better than I originally hoped!

Finally, finally, finally it has all come together! (Can't even begin to tell you what a process this has been!)

Phew!
Pat

* If you'd like to help do this BIAB beta testing then please send an email to [email protected] Please include your AHB name so as I know who you are. For the beta testing I now mainly need brewers that are either just contemplating BIAB/All-Grain or have just done a few brews. This is the stage in our brewing life that is most bewildering and where quality information is so important.