Bag Not Draining

[matt white]

Best BIAB advice I've ever had - grab the bag and shake it above the high water (wort) mark and all the wort will come out within 30 or so seconds.

No sky hook/squeezing required.

That said I only do 20 litre brews so only 5kg of grain = 10 or so kg to lift.

 

[tipsy]

I'm not a BIABer but I know if I open my tun up full bore I'll get a stuck sparge.

I wonder if this could happen with BIAB, a quick hoist as opposed to a slow one that sets the grain bed/ball

 

[Verbyla]

Very nice bag but don't let it burn on the element!!!

 

[milob40]

cold soak in unscented nappy san o/nite works for me, if i do a back to back brew with just a rinse, i notice it blocks up too.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Dr K has a point - One of the reasons people like BIAB is that its a cheap start up option. Which it is if you pay $5-10 for the bag and expect to get years of service out of it.

If people are paying decently high amounts for pre-made bags that are potentially losing their effectiveness in a short time frame and needing to be replaced, thats really false economics.

On the other hand - if you do make a bag and use the polyester voile that is after all the material that is mostly and consistently recommended for bags.... well, they last for years and dont seem to suffer from this issue.

Dr K - just reading your post. I'm not sure that you 100% get the way BIAB is supposed to work. We know how FBs work and that runoff time is an important factor in FB based lautering. In BIAB time is NOT a factor. Remember, this thread is about things not working properly. When they are working properly, there is pretty much no run off time at all in BIAB. You lift out the bag - the vast majority of the wort simply stays in the pot - the grain you lift out is of course holding some liquid, but the vast majority of that should come out in seconds not minutes - at this point you should have already recovered as much or more of your wort than a FB lautering system would get in total. All the talk of draining, squeezing, dripping.... is about a litre or three that you are able to access sensibly, only because the mash is contained in a bag. Thats how its supposed to happen - if its not working that way, you aren't doing it right.

 

[Bribie G]

I squeeze in order to reach the magic mark on the sight tube so that after an hour's boil (or 90 mins if it's at the other mark on the sight tube) I'll get the cube full plus about 3L which I can glean for starter wort etc etc. If I went to no-squeeze then I'd have to reformulate my house recipes.

Thus - or hence?? - the important thing is to do it exactly the same every time, (like scrunchers vs folders B) )

 

[Shifter]

Phew - at least I'm doing something right!

Second BIAB with new bag and volumes have been very consistent, and drainage is very, very good, far better than the bought in bag. No loss, though, I'll use it as a hop bag.

 

[pk.sax]

I don't get where all this hard to clean bias comes from. Half litre jug to scoop out single batch of grain from tun into a bucket takes about 2 minutes, while the kettle boils. Hose, tip, hose, tip. The mt is fairly clean. Throw a bit of nappisan in there and pour a kettle full of hot water and lid to nuke the inside, all clean in barely 5-6 minutes. Final rinse and done.
Takes longer to put the voile on the line and hose it, then worry about having to bring it in and holes clogging. Blah.

Of course, if someone wraps themselves in foil while brewing it's gonna take time...

Ps: don't listen to me, I've been sober today.

 

[Nick JD]

Once I walked into my shed and saw the bag of grain still hanging on the hook 3 days after brewing. Shed smelled a tad sour. Actually - smelled like dousing a thai hooker with balsamic vinegar.

Cleanup was very easy - dump entire thing into wheelie bin. Go to Spotlite for 1.5m of voile.

 

[1974Alby]

My bag wasn't draining well either so I am presently soaking mine in NapiSan and boiling water right now. It's been in there about 20 minutes and I cannot believe the stuff that is coming out................I always keep my stuff clean but I'm a bit embarrassed at the moment. I will report back after my brewday this Saturday to say whether this treatment made any difference.

How did this turn out Rowy?...Im really keen to hear if it made a noticeable difference..hope it did.

I brewed on the weekend and tried the jiggle method...definately drained faster, but still took about 5-10 mins whereas it used to take less than a minute...but without the jiggle it would now take hours!!

Tried poking with a spoon too but wasnt as effective as gently shaking back and forth, plus it was messier with wort running down my spoon and out of the keggle.

 

[Rowy]

Didn't get to brew Al..............got tied up at craft brewer for the day...............then a couple of venues including the scratch. Ross and Still Scottish are pricks! Will definitely be brewing Thursday so I will post during the brew!