A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[DUANNE]

the gryphon bags are a good buy if you dont want to make one yourself.^matr that sounds good using the ss mesh, good way to get round all the food safe nazis around here at times.

 

[Budron]

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

As I dont really know anyone that sows and would doubt myself as to make a good enough job without it falling apart on me, I may just have to bite the bullet and spend the money on a Gryphon Brewing bag.

Cheers,

Budron.

 

[bkmad]

Hey guys,

I did a quick search but couldn't find anything. I am looking at making the move to BIAB and am in need of a bag. As I am currently unable to get to spotlight for some swiss voille, I was wondering if this stuff thatCraftbrewer sells is the same/similar thing? Has anyone used it for a full 5-6kg grain mash in an urn??

Cheers,

Budron

My biab bag is that exact one. It is a bit small but it does work in my 50L pot. The stitching on mine is starting to look a bit worse for wear though after 7 uses. In answer to your question about if it will work for a 5-6kg grain bill, then yes it will be fine. The largest I went was 9kg, but I did line it with a sheet of voil, to spare the stitching a little. In hindsight though, I don't think its really isn't the right tool for the job. If you can't find any voil you could just buy the one of Gryphon's website. Its a ready made voil bag that looks great. Thats what I'll be doing soon.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Didn't even sew mine up. It just sits in the pot and the weight of the lid and its size holds it in place for me nicely.

Wrap up the ends and into the pasta pot strainer and we are all ready to sparge if wanted.

Goomba

 

[Bribie G]

That's always an option, Scruffy does that with just a square of material and does some amazing grain bills. If you have a skyhook then get some thick awning cord and do yourself a hangman's noose for hoisting after you have gathered all the loose ends together and formed a 'neck' for the noose to hold onto, and that should work.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

That's always an option, Scruffy does that with just a square of material and does some amazing grain bills. If you have a skyhook then get some thick awning cord and do yourself a hangman's noose for hoisting after you have gathered all the loose ends together and formed a 'neck' for the noose to hold onto, and that should work.

I noticed all the people that had those and it seemed good to do, though underneath the house was a hard spot to figure out where to do it. And I rent, so no alterations to anything on the house.

But splitting my grain bill up has been a big plus for me - bags are smaller and therefore easier to obtain/replace and small enough to put into a 9L pasta strainer & pot, and not have to hang. Just let it drain and run some hot water over it and return it to the boiling wort.

Horses, courses - even for BIAB.

Goomba

 

[matr]

matr that sounds good using the ss mesh, good way to get round all the food safe nazis around here at times.

The only problem is bonding it. Have thought of spot welding or using aquarium silicon or a similar non toxic adhesive. Still need to decide.

Pricing is about $57 + GST for 1.2m x 1m so not too bad.

Cheers, Mat.

 

[lespaul]

good read on how to treat melb water here

+1
cheers

 

[The_Duck]

As has often been said in this thread, there is no specific wrong way to make up a bag for BIAB as most people use different gear and need to use what works for them.

Just thought I'd add that I have been using an open weave cotton for my bag and have had no issues with it so far. The bag is double thickness of material with 3 rows of triple stitching on each seam for strength.

Originally the bag was a simple pillow case shape, which I changed after 2 batches that were difficult to drain over my keggle.

I cut the bottom 2 corners off and re-stitched the seams to create a tapered design that seems to have done the trick. Yes... I did the sewing myself and NO I have no clue where the hell I picked up that skill :blink:

Reading this thread, I will also be implementing a new part of my process to dunk sparge at 78. I have been using slightly cooled boiling water to sparge over/thru the bag to increase my boil volume and extract the last sugars from the grains. Once most of the dripping has stopped, I dump the bag into a plastic bucket which periodically gets emptied into the keggle while ramping up for the boil. I might still sparge with clean water, but dunk sparging also seems logically easier.

Next brew might need to be for the club Xmas party in early Dec so I need to get a wriggle on this weekend


Duck

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I bought not only the material for my bag, enough material for another bag and a variety of hopmbags/cheese cloths - but also a little sewing machine from the reject shop to sew it up with. All for a sum of money that would give me change if i handed over enough cash to buy a pre-made one.

My next bag will be free apart from an hours effort to sew it up, and the ones after that might cost me a fiver each if i don't try to make it cheaper.

The bought ones look good,, but unless you are scared of sewing machines, they are a little on the exy side.

 

[mh971]

heres a smaller version of the food thermos

Bud, no not really right place, you've bumped a somewhat old and finished thread that was on a different subject.

Might have been better to ask teh question as a new thread.

I can't really see the practicality of either of the items you show without some difficult modifications.

I can however recommend doing what I do to save further embarrasment, which is read, read, read, search, search, read, then search and read some more and you'll normally find your answer somewhere on here. And only contribute to current threads ( an etiquette I am now breaking to assist you)

 

[Chookers]

thanks anyways

 

[PistolPatch]

...you've bumped a somewhat old and finished thread...

You trying to close our thread Mick . We were just having a little rest .

This thread is always open for BIAB questions or input. We haven't even hit 2,000 posts yet .

Can't see your original post now Chookers but from what I remember it wasn't BIAB-specific so Mick's advice was good. Hope you got your question answered.

Cheers,
Pat

 

[mh971]

You trying to close our thread Mick . We were just having a little rest .

This thread is always open for BIAB questions or input. We haven't even hit 2,000 posts yet .

Can't see your original post now Chookers but from what I remember it wasn't BIAB-specific so Mick's advice was good. Hope you got your question answered.

Cheers,
Pat

You are right Pat, I shouldn't be encouraging others to be long time lurkers like me, otherwise no one would post anything and I wouldn't have anything new to read. I am continually amazed at how much intelligent information is on here if you look and was trying to save old mate Chookers from a potentially embarrasing moment on a serious AG thread with some polite but to the point etiquite advice.

Holy cow now I'm off topic.

So,
I'm thinking of making a bag stand(false bottom), pick up and stainless tap to my BIAB pot and trying to step mash and sparge. Should I persevere with this or start thinking about a seperate lauter tun.

 

[mh971]

only 105 to go now to the 2000 mark

 

[felten]

I can't see any reason why you can't have a false bottom in your kettle and do some standard sparging, but you would need another container to hold it anyway. You don't need to sparge though really, you should be able to get a decent efficiency with just the full volume mashing itself.

Step mashing is a piece of piss, just apply heat and stir until you hit temps, or you can even decoction mash.

 

[PistolPatch]

Holy cow now I'm off topic...

So,
I'm thinking of making a bag stand(false bottom), pick up and stainless tap to my BIAB pot and trying to step mash and sparge. Should I persevere with this or start thinking about a seperate lauter tun.

LOL Mick on the off-topic bit . (Hope chookers got sorted :huh

On the second bit, I have a heap of questions before I can give any answers that may or may not be any more useful than Felten's perfectly correct answer above...

I reckon the first thing we need to know here is why you want to step mash and why you want to sparge.

On the former, I remember reading something that ThirstyBoy wrote within the last week that was a very good read, something about how you should have a reason to step mash. Search his posts for "reason + step" or something.

Step mashing does not require sparging (rinsing). In a traditional system, it requires additons of heated water / liquor. Step mashing with BIAB is actually easier in a way because it doesn't have to include these additions of liquor just application of heat to the full volume. The only question is how fast can you apply the heat? I know very little on this subject but from memory, if you can apply 1 C per minute then that is okay.

And Mick, watch the adding more stuff to your kettle bit.

I seriously regret adding taps to my two BIAB kettles. You can read my reasons (recent rants) on why here, here and here.

I probably said in one of the above links that more equipment does not necessarily mean a time or labour saving. Just make sure you really think this through.

Cheers Mick ,
Pat

 

[mh971]

Thanks guys.

reasons for both are a little bit of personal development and experimentation. I am stoked with the results I have been getting using BIAB but read so much about mashing in different ways. I want to try a step or decoction mash to see if there are any gains to be made in flavour/body/feel of the beers i am making and if there is any if they justfy the additional effort.

Tap was hence to drain off some quasi first runnings, and for ease of transfer to fermenter. no problems with the muscle to lift a pour a 20L pot of liquid into the fermenter, just thinking about safety, aeration and potential for catastrophic loss of wort.

I'll be sure to check out your rants Pat, becuase I do like the simplicity of my current setup( ie a pot, an unsewn square of voil, a hop sock, big spoon, bucket , and nepalese blanket). I'm Just feeling like i might be missing out on something.

cheers Mick

 

[irwazza]

Is there any good guides or tutorials for setting up beersmith for the biab method?

 

[felten]

For water volumes and boil off stuff you're better off using the calculator /spreadsheet, I think it was linked a few pages back. Beersmiths volume calculations don't work too well (imo) as they throw out the ibu numbers.