A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Thirsty Boy]

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!

Excellent news Pat - I know that this has been giving you a real PITA - glad you managed to finally find someone to help make it easier for you. Look forward to seeing the new and improved site... I will refrain from offering to help test/critique it, I think I don't quite fit the bill.

TB

 

[PistolPatch]

I'll be sending you the link next weekend Thirsty to play with - you'll see bits and pieces of your gold in there

Have wanted to make it US-friendly so have been writing in imperial measurements everywhere - a tad laborious . When will they go metric!

Dunno why I wrote in my last post about asking for this thread to be closed??? Just reading back over the last few pages and it still gets some good questions and answers. Also still gets read a bit - had several offers from new or budding all-grainers today - thanks guys!

Cheers mate,
Pat

 

[katzke]

When will they go metric!
Pat

When you stop drinking pints at the pub and the polar ice cap melts.

You should do all amounts in the inferior metric system and the superior way to measure things like we do in the USA. That is what BYO has been doing in their magazine for most if not all of the recipes.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

When you stop drinking pints at the pub and the polar ice cap melts.

You should do all amounts in the inferior metric system and the superior way to measure things like we do in the USA. That is what BYO has been doing in their magazine for most if not all of the recipes.

hah - we mostly drink pots (285ml) and Schooners (425ml) and I think if you check the whole climate change thingy that seems so popular nowadays.. the polar ice caps are melting right now (I notice that in a typically insular Americocentric fashion.. you spoke of polar ice cap - in the singular - as though the one near you was the only one... never mind that the other one is craploads bigger and has a continent underneath it)

so - will you be drinking pots or schooners sir?



TB

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

The USA's official system of measurement is metric. It's just all the Americans that insist on continuing to use their old, almost-but-not-quite-imperial system.

Muffin, biscuit, crumpet or cake?

 

[katzke]

hah - we mostly drink pots (285ml) and Schooners (425ml)

so - will you be drinking pots or schooners sir?



TB

Well I guess we drink Schooners as a normal pub pint glass does not hold 16 ounces.

The rest is not beer related so no more comment other then if the CO2 regulators get there way hold on to your yeast cultures as you will need them.

 

[Macca17]

Well opened up the first bottle of my first BIAB, an accidental Eisbock Not sure what went wrong, besides the iceblock B) Doesn't taste much like a Bock, or any I've tasted anyway, but does look and taste like a very nice stout

 

[Bribie G]

The USA's official system of measurement is metric. It's just all the Americans that insist on continuing to use their old, almost-but-not-quite-imperial system.

Muffin, biscuit, crumpet or cake?

I'll go a pint of Yorkshire Bitter, thanks, while I settle down in front of my new 42 inch HD television - we were going for a 37 inch originally but decided to go the extra mile. It only cost a few quid more anyway so in for a penny, in for a pound I say :icon_cheers:

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I'll go a pint of Yorkshire Bitter, thanks, while I settle down in front of my new 42 inch HD television - we were going for a 37 inch originally but decided to go the extra mile. It only cost a few quid more anyway so in for a penny, in for a pound I say :icon_cheers:

I've got a hogshead of cider about to come ready and ...


Oh, what's the point...

 

[Bribie G]

I admire you cider makers, you guys really do the hard yards - anyway all this is way off topic but we need something to talk about while Pat is fine tuning his new BIAB site, he's inching towards launching it soon.

 

[katzke]

So you want something to talk about that is BIAB related?

How about odd things like mash type hop additions. Mash hopping and first wort hopping.

Or doing odd things with grains like adding dark grains just before a traditional sparge. Working towards a black IPA and that is one way to get the color with out the intense flavor.

That brings a different thought. If they put the dark grains in after the mash and at the beginning of the sparge, does that say we are leaving some flavor out? Or does the flavor come from the mash process more then the sparge process?

How would you do a conversion of such things to a normal (put bag in, add grain, mash, heat to mashout, and pull bag) BIAB.

OK lots of combined subjects but you wanted to talk BIAB.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes Katzke always room for experimenting. Here's what I'm doing for a big dark chocolate hazelnut beer, during the coming week:

Do a BIAB steep at mash temperature with about 10L of liquor and a heap of dark grains (choc, crystal, caraaroma, caramalt, cararedetc) - up to 2 k of spec grains. drain then sparge in a bucket and boil it like buggery for around an hour until reduced. Add 700g moist brown sugar and a bar of dark chocolate to the end of the boil and pour the resulting 'syrup' into the sanitised no chill cube.

Clean everything up then do a standard BIAB brew with the base malt (Maris Otter) and boil with the hop addition ... probably just one addition of Northern Brewer.

Give that a 2 hour boil and pour wort into no chill cube to blend in with the syrup. I know Guinness do a two part process using a dark 'syrup' that is added to the end of the boil, so this could be a good way of getting a bigger beer out of BIAB in a 40L urn.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

do Guinness do that syrup thing at St James Gate?? I thought it was just for BUL versions. The BUL brewery brews a "base" beer and adds all teh Guinness flavour in the form of a syrup that they actually import from Ireland. Kind of like beer cordial.

One of the reasons I always assumed that Guinness just isn't the "same" unless you drink it in Ireland.

Katzke - FWH is nice and easy with BIAB. You just toss your hops in as soon as you pull the bag - then they are in there during the whole heat up time to boiling point. Spillsmostofit does this every time.

You can add grains just before the sparge in BIAB... just stir them in moments before you pull the bag. Personally I think that the whole adding dark grains late thing is pointless from a flavour perspective - the dark colour and the roastiness are both going to be there no matter how short a time they are in the mash/sparge or whatever. It might however change the beer because it would alter the pH of the mash vs what it would be if the grains were in there from the start.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

...

FWH is nice and easy with BIAB. You just toss your hops in as soon as you pull the bag - then they are in there during the whole heat up time to boiling point. Spillsmostofit does this every time.

...

Almost every time. Does several things:

1) gets maybe a little more out of my bittering addition;
2) gives me a great swathe of time between first and second kettle addition, during which I clean, browse pern or read AHB;
3) lends a slightly different flavour which I enjoy; and
4) provides Thirsty Boy another opportunity to tell me I'm living in the 15th century and should brew like a real man.

It's all good.

 

[Bribie G]

I'm halfway through a mash of some sort of UK Quaffing bitter and have 60g of Admiral Pellets waiting, I'll try the FWH in a wee while.

 

[PistolPatch]

we need something to talk about while Pat is fine tuning his new BIAB site

LOL! Have just sent you and others an email asking them to have a look at the site. Let me know if anyone hasn't received the email who should have.

As for FWH, I did this about 12 months ago on NRB's All Amarillo APA. Worked quite well - very easy. I really must do a side by side on it though.

Spot ya ron,
Pat

 

[black_labb]

what do you guys think of using a blender to crush grains for biab? i tried it with some grains crushed at the hbs to see if it caused any issues which it didnt seem to, but i was only mashing 2.9kg as opposed to ~5kg as i was doing a partial (had an unneeded kit can that i used as hopped lme). didnt seem to have any issues just would like to check what others thought about it before i get a 25kg bag and realise i cant crush it properly.

i understand it may take a bit extra time, but by holding the blender sideways and shaking it seems to cycle the unblended grains into the blades pretty well.

 

[felten]

what do you guys think of using a blender to crush grains for biab? i tried it with some grains crushed at the hbs to see if it caused any issues which it didnt seem to, but i was only mashing 2.9kg as opposed to ~5kg as i was doing a partial (had an unneeded kit can that i used as hopped lme). didnt seem to have any issues just would like to check what others thought about it before i get a 25kg bag and realise i cant crush it properly.

i understand it may take a bit extra time, but by holding the blender sideways and shaking it seems to cycle the unblended grains into the blades pretty well.

I was wondering about this as well, I ordered some grain a while ago and thought I had asked for it to be cracked, but apparently I didn't because it came uncracked. The husk integrity and amount of flour present isn't a big a deal with BIAB, as with a traditional system right? as long as the enzymes can access all/most of the starch.

 

[RdeVjun]

Yep, many brewers have used blenders and coffee grinders for smashing grain, getting them out of a bind. The latter I'd be cautious about as I don't think a cheap domestic grinder's motor will last with the sort of use it may get, a blender would have a far better chance, so you should be fine. However, if you happen to wreck SWMBO's blender, you may find the <$140 for a simple grain roller mill was pretty cheap after all...

Yep, with BIAB, the grain crush isn't important, the process is self- lautering and doesn't need that 'free draining' structure created from a bed of coarse particles and largely- intact husks. :icon_cheers:

 

[Thirsty Boy]

to a point - you make it all flour and it will still take a hell of a long time for your bag to drain + you will lose more wort to grain absorption. You can crush really fine with BIAB... but thats really fine by brewing grist standards, you could go to far in a blender if you were determined enough.

That said - I agree with the guys above, you will be fine to crush in a blender with BIAB - just don't get all OcD on it's ass and crush it to talcum powder.