A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Screwtop]

If you leave the bag in whilst raising to boiling, the temp will slowly rise and therefore release the whatever it is, (enzymes or something!) .

After you get to 74, all enzyme activity ceases so there is no danger of releasing unwanted thingos(!)

Yep,

 

[Morrie0069]

My 2nd AG is in the fermenter! The gravity was a bit lower than I wanted at 1034, but I suspect that's because I had to do a shorter boil with the 2nd pot, 60 min instead of 90, so I finished with about 26 litres of wort instead of the 23 I wanted. Oh well, we'll see where it finishes at, but I am stoked to have another AG brew on the go! The yeast was pitched at 23:00 last night and has started doing its thing this morning.

Lessons learned from this brew -

1. My boiling pot is a 20L aliminium one with a nice shiny (slippery) lid. During the boil I had it sitting slightly ajar on top of the pot to help maintain a nice rolling boil. When I turned my back on it I heard the sound of liquid on hot plate, and quickly turned to find the lid had slid across to cover the whole pot and wort was pouring over the sides. I found placing a piece of wet cloth over the edge of the pot to stop the lid from sliding worked great!

2. Another reason for using the lid, was to stop the drips that I found condensing on the extraction filter on the stove above the pot. I remebered reading about this happening to someone else a while ago, but forgot about it, that is until I saw it happening to me. Also a good reason to move the brewery outdoors, which my wife has agreed to, especially since she hates the smell of the whole process. Hey, it works out great for me, as she's offered to buy me a burner for Christmas, as well as a few other bits and pieces - Ross, expect an email from her in the coming weeks!

Cheers Morrie

:beer:

 

[Ross]

Morrie,

congrats on your 2nd AG, & great news that the minister of finances is happy for you to build your system - amazing how women (in general) don't like the smell of brewing.
If your beer is short of it's OG target, just simply add some DME to the fermenter - I always have some on hand for such occaisions.

cheers Ross

 

[Morrie0069]

Thanks Ross, I'll go and pour some into the fermenter now. Just took a reading and it was up to 1042 - added 500g of DME.

 

[Linz]

Just a quick note PP that Ive taken on board the BIAB and made up a 'liner' for the HERMS mash tun and it's flowing well with 55% raw wheat and oats!!.
Only difference is that the wife stiched in Tule in the bottom of the bag...

 

[PistolPatch]

[Edit: Just saw Linz's post - I'm amazed! See below.]

A little bit of news for you but firstly...

Morrie - Thanks for taking the time to post the details of your brewing. The more detail for newer brewers, the better. I've written a bit already tonight on volumes and efficiency so I better not re-write it. Check out the posts I've done tonight though as these will answer quite a few of your questions. Some not answered are...

With Ross's vac-packs I have found that they either hold their vaccuum or they suddenly do not. I haven't found any gradual collapse. I think that what can happen is that the sharp end of a grain pierces the plastic on occassion. I've had 2 do this out of about 12 packs. I order 2 or more brews at a time so this has never been an issue - I just brew that one first. Even if they do collapse, you still have a heap of time up your sleeve so no worries.

The Lid: Covering your boil with a lid worries me a bit. One post I wrote tonight mentioned it but only in one sentence and in a different context. Although it doesn't matter that much when we're starting out, the goal should be to be able to boil with no lid - evaporating off stuff is what the boil is about, not containing the evaporatives. Does that make sense? With you boiling under the extraction filter, you are obviously compromising the correct way. So often brewing is about compromise! (When you move outside you'll be dealing with other issues!)

Definitely go the larger pot too. There are SO many advantages.

Screwtop Just saw your post whilst scrolling up to look at Morrie's comments - as always, you crack me up!

Linz My God, Linz, you are AHB Member No 74 and have been here forever! Your posting here makes us newbee AG'ers not feel so crazy with our experiments. Thanks a heap mate! Would you possibly have any pics of what you have done? I'm sure that in 4 years time I would have been totally set in my ways and lack any ability to try something new. I think your post above may prevent this!

News After writing the above and seeing Linz had posted, I nearly forgot my news! Brad (vjval1974) and I did a side by side brew today - batch versus BIAB. We did intend to do two brews but we ran out of gas, it was windy, we had a beer at 9am etc, etc. Anyway we brewed Batz's Kin Kin Ale which we called 'Far kin Ale' as it was brewed far away from Kin Kin. We are going to do one more Batch vs BIAB brew before the QLD swap where we'll have the two beers on display. We thought we better do 2 brews because it is very hard to brew the same beer twice from identical equipment let alone the same. Should be interesting to see if one method gives a more preferable beer or not. We'll send some off to some judges as well.

Brad brews very good beer so blame him for my long posts tonight. Crikey! After talking about Linz I just checked. This is my 997th post and too many of them are about an A4 long!

It's all good fun!
Pat

 

[Morrie0069]

Hey Pat,

Not sure I have enough time tonight to get through your lengthy posts! :lol: Might save them for when I'm at work tomorrow!

Yeah, the compromise was between letting the brew evaporate as it should versus letting a rain of greasy stuff fall into the brew :unsure: I'm definitely looking forward to getting outside, and with the wife's go ahead to buy the burner, etc. for xmas, I'm not too far away.

Thought you'd been quiet this weekend - thought you may have bribed one of AHB member's sisters to go out on a date! Gopod to hear the time had been spent more wisely :chug:

Cheers,

Morrie

 

[PistolPatch]

Thought you'd been quiet this weekend - thought you may have bribed one of AHB member's sisters to go out on a date! Good to hear the time had been spent more wisely :chug:

I did write a reply to that comment last night but thought I better delete it as it was way off topic and way too long - lol. The only on-topic thing I had to say was the following...

Get an adjustable regulator if you can. This makes the burner throw a better and more consistent flame.

Have fun reading AHB today at work!


Pat

 

[matti]

Wow that is a long thread and i've attempted to read all of it, but I have surely missed some or forgot half of it in three days of sittings. :blink:
B.I.A.B. Sound like dunking a large tea bag full of grain in hot water.
After an hour or so, drain and rinse the grain in the bag and off to kettle for an hour.
Well not quite, but in principal, making tea leaving the tea bag in hot water but in this case beer.
No not a case of beer... anyway,,,

When Brewing ag:
One is meant to dough in the brew liqour/water at certain temperatures.
This is to ensure that the grain get fully saturated and disolve the sugar in it so that you get a full conversion.
This way you release the "godis" in the grain and avoid dough balls, especially when you cannot always achieve perfectly milled grain all the time.

Obviously there are different methods and temperatures for different recipes and so on.

The biggest drawback I find in this method is, that you don't really do these things properly.

It appears more like in BIAB you compromise this.

I am not knocking BIAB because it is a great way to build up for the real thing, and I hope I haven't started an argument like chill vs no chill
matti

 

[PistolPatch]

A great post Matti,

I have a few probs with the BIAB Guide. I want to resolve them before I re-write it though as it takes a fair whack of time. Basically, I'd like to make it simpler and pass on some 'tested' results which a few of us are currently working on. This will give more confidence in the method which is by no means a short-cut.

You mentioned that BIAB may not be doing things properly which is a very valid question. I don't want to answer that in full now as it's getting late and I'd prefer to be able to give you some unbiassed results which you will get soon and more so as more people brew with BIAB.

All I'll say for now is I am starting to suspect that BIAB is a better way of brewing. As you learn different methods of brewing you realise they are basically all based on compromise and then you start to think that, logically, why wouldn't BIAB actually be a better way?

The job of the masher is to rinse sugars from the grain at a certain temp or varying temps. BIAB can do this and unlike any other method, it can do it evenly.

The problem with BIAB is that, at present, it can only handle doing a 23 litre batch. Lifting a heavier bag from a ketle would be a challenge and one that I'm sure either we or our 'brewing in a bucket' friends will solve
in the near future.

I certainly hate not doing things properly. Ask people who know me! Personally I'm sure that BIAB is not a compromise method but maybe could even prove to be a better method. There's no reason that I can see as to why not.

A little more time and tasting will tell and we're working on it!

Oh! And doughballs are not a problem. I'm starting to think they are a myth as I have never seen one when either batching or BIABing. Go figure!

Would love to write more on this Matti but for now I hope that is enough to quell some fears.

Spot ya,
Pat

 

[Linz]

Heres the pics of my 'version' of the bag.......

Its more of a filtration enhancement more than the "Traditional" bag

 

[PistolPatch]

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics Linz. The tule at the bottom is a coarser material than the voille isn't it? Finally, has it made things better for you in the HERMS?

BIAB versus Batch Test

vjval1974 (Brad) and I have just done two identical recipes, two batched and 2 in the bag. Brad will post up what we did sometime in the next week. We'll be sending off several bottles for some detailed opinion and, if the QLD Swap guys don't mind, asking them to taste the four resulting beers and seeing if they're are any differences and what they might be. So, it should only be a few weeks before we hear some sort of more controlled feedback.

Just one further clarification to my ramble on Monday to Matti. At this stage I can't see any logical reason why BIAB won't prove to be just as good as batching. Already we know that the efficiency is higher and the simplicity level easier. The main limitation I can see at this stage, as already mentioned, is the weight of the bag if you did a double-batch. Too heavy!

I'll now keep my mouth shut until we get the feedback. Mind you, for me to do this would probably mean not having a beer for two weeks - lol!

Pat

 

[Morrie0069]

Just a thought - and so early in the morning! If doing a double batch, would it be simple enough to use 2 bags? That way they are no heavier, so lifting isn't an issue. I guess it would come down to the size of your pot and if you have enough room to fit 2 bags - maybe use velcro to join the 2 bags together on the top seam (where the draw strings are) so the bags sit nicely in the pot. Not sure if it's feasible, but just an idea.

Cheers,

Morrie

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

good thinking 99..... oh 0069.. lol

just need to "find" that bigger pot...

:beer:

 

[Morrie0069]

Thanks Bunyip - unfortunately "Morrie" was already in use when I joined, although I have never seen them on here :blink:

 

[Ross]

Pat,

If you want to do a true BIAB comparison on my system you are more than welcome. We'll do a double brew day with everything identical, using the same equipment, but doing one in the bag. With the hoist on my brew stand, we can tie up the bag & simply lower the kettle to drain. I'll then ferment them both side by side in the same brew fridge & give them the exact same treatment. I'd be keen to try a true comparison, as this potentially could make my brew day far easier...

cheers Ross...

 

[Brad_G]

Ross,

Thats exactly what pat and I have done on sunday. Everything was exact. All results were recorded. The fermenters are at the same temp in the same place.

Although, repeating the procedure many times will produce more consistant results. I think it would be a great idea to do the same at your place. Maybe I could throw another hat in the ring by bringing my gear up and brewing batch sparge style also. We can then see if there is differences between my equipment and yours.

I like it. I like it alot. Bring on the testing.

Brad

 

[Adamt]

Such a lovely and scientifically practical excuse to make and drink more beer. I think some of us Adelaide guys should test the effects of low humidity on the results between batch sparging and BIABing!

 

[Phrak]

Wow, there's been a heap happening on this thread since I last posted. I feel out of touch

Pat, (as you know) my first AG BIAB brew went reasonably well. I didn't save the PM I sent you, so perhaps you could post the (edited!) version here please?

Oh, and something else I just remembered - I took some nice high-res photos for the BIAB manual. I'll crop & email them through to Pat for updating.

Tim.

 

[Ross]

Ross,

Thats exactly what pat and I have done on sunday. Everything was exact. All results were recorded. The fermenters are at the same temp in the same place.

Although, repeating the procedure many times will produce more consistant results. I think it would be a great idea to do the same at your place. Maybe I could throw another hat in the ring by bringing my gear up and brewing batch sparge style also. We can then see if there is differences between my equipment and yours.

I like it. I like it alot. Bring on the testing.

Brad

Brad,

Sorry, I thought you brewed side by side on your respective set up's, I didn't realise you did it all on the same setup - cool

Still, as you say another excuse for a beer :beer:

cheers Ross