A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[jimmysuperlative]

That's a top looking website pistolpatch, top work.

Second that! :icon_drool2: :beerbang:

 

[felten]

I finally got around to doing my first AG BIAB earlier today and I'm bloody knackered. It was the good doctors landlord recipe. Only lost 1 degree over the hour, volumes were pretty much spot on with what the setup spreadsheet said they would be. Preboil 32.1L @ 1.042, postboil 25.8L @ 1.047. I'm sure i screwed up the hydrometer readings somehow, but I'll take another one pre-fermentation. Ended up with 21L into the cube.

When I first tried to hoist the bag, I thought to myself 'oh crap, I have one of those bags that is water tight'; but after a bit of heaving I managed to get it above the water line, and proceeded to squeeze the life out of it. All in all it was a fun, if exhausting day.

 

[Bribie G]

Earlier today? What did you start at Midnight??



No wonder you are knackered. Are you using a Gryphon bag? They seem to be more 'watertight' than the Swiss Voile you get from Spotlight but I like them because they seem to give a clearer wort, being finer, but definitely need a skyhook - and I reckon they are probably longer lasting than a home job.
Well done, it will soon seem like second nature. Often when I brew now, and reaching the end and putting in the whirlfloc I think "surely I've forgotten something, it can't be that simple", but it is.

:icon_cheers:

 

[felten]

The burner went on at 1pm and I siphoned into the cube at 6:30pm, most of that time was spent pacing around my pot like an expectant father. The bag I have is a similar design to the gryphon bag but it's home made.

 

[bradk]

Evening everyone,

Well, 87 pages in this thread! Good work!

I have almost got my kit together(only the burner is required) and will produce my first BIAB in about a week or two. Am looking forward to the experience! So far, I have only done K&k or fresh worts so lack any experience in AG, or even partial for that matter. Is there a dedicated BIAB recipe section?

I know I could look through all 87 pages, but does anyone have a recipe or can point me to a list of recipes for a European style beer? I am looking to replicate a Peroni, or Stella style at this stage? I need to get the grain bill to my old man who will be bringing it pre crushed to me in the next week

Cheers,

Brad

 

[wizard78]

Evening everyone,

Well, 87 pages in this thread! Good work!

I have almost got my kit together(only the burner is required) and will produce my first BIAB in about a week or two. Am looking forward to the experience! So far, I have only done K&k or fresh worts so lack any experience in AG, or even partial for that matter. Is there a dedicated BIAB recipe section?

I know I could look through all 87 pages, but does anyone have a recipe or can point me to a list of recipes for a European style beer? I am looking to replicate a Peroni, or Stella style at this stage? I need to get the grain bill to my old man who will be bringing it pre crushed to me in the next week

Cheers,

Brad

G'day Brad,
Check this thread Link.
Thistyboy actually brews it for a brewery, or he is a very thirsty boy :chug:
Also if you want some more info on Biab PistolPatch has noted on his thread in the previous page that he has opened the biabrewer.info website. (It is very time consuming to read through 87 pages. I've tried :blink: )
Cheers :beer:

 

[nikgr]

Dear friends finaly I managed to make my first biab this Monday.I brew an APA aiming for 10 liters of 1.054 S.G .Everything was calculated with the provided excel file and I was astonished with the result due to some minor problem (an unwanted boilover ) which led to 9.5 liters in my fermentor of 1.064 SG instead of 11.30 liters calculated.
So the first measured numbers until the boilover where exact as calculated.So I beleive my efficiency was over 80% .So I am very happy and I am looking forward the next brewday.The beer now ferments happily and I cant wait until the first taste.Here are some photos from my brew day.

I forgot to mention that I mashed at 68C for 90min and mashout at 75C for 10 min.

 

[Hashie]

Well done nikgr, welcome to the world of all grain BIAB brewing.

Top work on getting the kids to mill the grain for you

 

[nikgr]

Thank you for your comments . Kids love assigments like this as there is enough dirt and adventure also they are participating to the whole procces (mashing ,cleaning bottles ) on the safe side of course (away from boiling detergents chemicals) and now they like it more because they are more steps than just pouring some extract in a kettle .Also my wife liked a lot because I move the "brewery" to balcony so there is no mess in the kitchen.

 

[Hashie]

You've certainly got it worked out nikgr, keep the wife and the kids happy and you can brew forever.

Well done.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

100% Wheat Beer with BIAB ...I just cut and pasted my post from biabrewer.info

Steve and James from Basic Brewing use the BIAB method to brew a 100% wheat beer (with decoction) and generally espouse the benefits of using BIAB for wheat beers...


Basic Brewing page linky


Look for April 15, 2010 - All-Wheat Beer edition

I think I'll give it a bash myself!

 

[katzke]

100% Wheat Beer with BIAB ...I just cut and pasted my post from biabrewer.info

Steve and James from Basic Brewing use the BIAB method to brew a 100% wheat beer (with decoction) and generally espouse the benefits of using BIAB for wheat beers...


Basic Brewing page linky


Look for April 15, 2010 - All-Wheat Beer edition

I think I'll give it a bash myself!

Old news. Did that last year and posted it on this site.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

Please re-post the link to your video!!!!?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'm glad we showed James how to BIAB - he obviously likes the technique and is giving it a good run. Handy that he does video too which is really useful for newbies.

 

[peterhop]

I've been brewing AGs for the last 5 years. Went onto the internet to try to raise my game.

I found Napisan, starsan, SMaSH, BIAB, no-chill, no-secondary. Wow. A revolution. Particularly BIAB.

Thanks to all who developed BIAB, who raised it from a gleam in the eye to suds at the bottom of a glass.

 

[Bribie G]

Hi Peter
One of the guys who really got stuck into BIAB when it was still in the wilderness, and who has contributed heaps of experience and knowledge is (username reviled who is also resident in AUK
You might want to PM him as he might be near where you are?

:icon_cheers:

 

[marksy]

After spending months reading these forums and espically this 87page post I finally went down the AG path. Just to make sure I got my technique down I made 2 brews using the BIAB way (over 2 days). Both are appear to be chugging along to the point I have had to fill both air locks up with water this morning.

So thankyou very much for all of you who have contributed to this post and the many others.

 

[Hashie]

Well done on your first 2 AG brews Marksy.

Welcome to the wonderful world of BIAB.

 

[barneyb]

I knocked out my first AG (and BIAB) the other day and am trying to crunch the numbers but am a little confused.

My recipe was:
2kg Joe White Export Pilsner
200g Carapils
10g Amarillo @ 60 min
10g Cascade @ 20 min
With a goal of 10L in the fermenter.

I put the malt in 10L of water with a strike temp of 70C, after an hour I mashed out at 66C. After a bunch of squeezing I dunked the bag in 1L of 70C water and squeezed some more.

My BG was 1038 @ 58C = 1052 @ room temp. According to this I multiply the malt extract rate (.77) x 384 = 295.68, so therefore (2.2kg x 295.68) / 10L = 65.
52/65 = 80%. Not bad for a first go? Did I calculate it right (if I do it in the American way I get 78%)? I think I am supposed to divide by 11L but that makes my efficiency 87% which I can't believe.

Anyway I boiled for an hour and no chilled feeling pretty good about myself. The next day I chuck the wort into the fermenter and to my horror it only went up to 5.5L with an OG of 1064. I expected some boil off but not that much! By this rate if I diluted to 10L my OG would be 1035, not quite the 1051 beer smith predicted. I got around this by adding 2L to the fermenter and boiling 2.5L water with 330g LDME which gave me a loverly OG of 1050, but my question is where did I go wrong? Why did my OG suffer so much after the boil? Or are my maths totally wrong?

PS I never thought I'd ever go to all grain but BIAB makes it so easy. Why do I have to wait so long to drink it? :icon_cheers:

 

[Thirsty Boy]

1st - the conversion tables work like absolute crap at high temperatures. They are fine for adjusting between 25 and the calibration temp of your hydrometer... but all the ones I have used are ****** when trying to convert from mash temp.

2nd - after you pulled teh bag out.. there wasn't 10L in there anymore. More like between 8 and 9 L with the balance absorbed in the spent grain. Then you added back 1 L. You cant work out your efficiency into the boil, because you had no way of knowing the actual volume.

3rd - boiling that much off when you start with that sort of a volume is certainly not abnormal

4th - there isn't a great deal of chance that your fermenter is accurately calibrated

Throwing your numbers into pro-mash... (lets assume your fermenter is right)

You had 5.5L of 1.064 wort from 2.2kg of grain. Thats an efficiency of about 55% ... which is pretty bad for BIAB. So I suspect that your mash didn't go so well, and also that you have made a few measurement errors.

I can see no particular reason why... your mash temp would have been 65-66 which is a little on the low side but perfectly OK, you said you mashed out (actually you said 66 but I assume a typo and you meant 76) - you even sparged a little. Nothing wrong there at all.

For next time -

*Remember to calibrate your fermenter so you know its accurate, do the same thing with your boil pot. 1L increments scratched into a stick or something.

*Did you stir well?? Both when you first put in the grain, while you were raising to mash out and before you pulled out the bag?? If not, you should.

*Do a test boil of about 10L of water for 1 hour.. now that you know how much is in your pot at the start and finish, you can work out how much you boil off.

*No need to really squeeze the hell out of the bag - a thorough but gentle squeeze is all thats needed and there is a possibility that squeezing too hard might make bad things come out of the spent grain. Probably not, but better safe than sorry when you dont need to squeeze hard anyway.

*If you are going to sparge... then 1L is a silly amount. If you are gonna do it, do it with a decent amount. I suggest at least twice as much water as grain, so 2.2kg of grain... 4.4L of sparge water and I would see no problem at all with sparging with up to 1/2 your total water quotient

*You need more water. Assuming it will fit in your pot, you are going to need more if you expect more in your fermenter. Say you want 10L in your fermenter... well you know you lose about 3L(ish) per hour to the boil (you will know exactly for next time because of the test boil you're going to do) so you need to start your boil with 13L - you will lose about 0.65L of water to spent grain for every kg of grain you start with. So if you use the same amount of grain next time - you need to add 0.65x2.2= 1.43 lets call it 1.5L to make up for that - a total of 14.5L of water. That doesn't include leaving behind any trub in the kettle, but lets not worry about that for now.

So if you want 10L at the end of your boil... you are going to need about 14.5L of water altogether. I would mash with 8-9 and sparge with 5.5-6.5 .. but that will depend heavily on what size pot you have to heat your sparge water and other things like that.

That seems like a long list of things you did "wrong" but not really, you got it almost completely right - aside from a few minor things, your process was just fine. Tweak a few of the little things I have pointed out, have another crack - and things will get more predictable and easier within a few brews.

Well done on the first brew - You wont even notice the little bit of extract. I'm sure it will turn out well. Hope I have been a little helpful.

TB