Bag Not Draining

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1974Alby

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I use a craftbrewer BIAB bag which I have done about 15 brews with. The last four brews have been particularly troublesome to drain, with many litres of wort pooling above the grain and taking ages to drain :angry: ...with a bit of twisting and squeezing I can make a lot of mess but get it drained within 5 minutes. If I justs let it hang Im sure it would take an hour or longer just to drain the free liquid.

One onlooker watched my method and raised concerns of hot-side aeration with all my forcing of liquid through the mesh, or the alternative of prolonged slow draining...I dont even know what hot-side aeration is, should I be worried about it? :huh:

I havent experienced this in my first 10 or so brews, its just a recent thing...To my disappointment I have found that the presence or absence of wheat or the finenes of crush makes no noticeable difference as yesterdays brew with no wheat and a coarse mill still failed to drain like it used to...prior to this I had thoroughly cleaned the bag and even put it through the hot cycle in an effort to get any possible clogging out of the material. Its giving me the sh!ts cos it used to drain so well and nothing has changed (that Im aware of).

Any suggestions or similar experiences?

Cheer
 
lots of stuff has been done to try and prove hot side aeration, you should always try and avoid excessive splashing but if it's preboil then you would need paint mixer and a high speed drill to make an impact.

Cheers

BDB
 
First up I don't BIAB* so my advice is based on extrapolation.

How well does the bag drain with just water? If it drains slowly even then, it would suggest to me that the holes are blocked (maybe with grain flour).

Stick the bag in a stockpot, cover with water and add some sodium percarbonate. Bring to the boil, turn off heat then let sit till cool. Rinse well, soak in starsan solutuion (as much to get rid of the sodium perc residue as anything else) then hang to dry. If that doesn't work, buy a new bag.

*Do the occasional minimash in a craftbrewer bag designed for the purpose when I want to add something extra to a brew so not completely unfamiliar with the process or material.
 
This happens to me as well. The holes on a craftbrewer bag are slightly smaller than the spotlight voille. I don't like to squeeze my bag, so i shake the bag from side to side, this gets the fine grain out of the holes and allows it to drain. If you have your bag hanging from something you can grab either side of the bag and pull one side up, then pull the other side up and keep repeating this really quickly. Again it will make the bag drain quickly.

I recently had to bleach one of my grain bags and it has come up completely white. I haven't used it again but it makes me think that it will drain very well again...

As for HSA, i haven't experineced it. I saw some guy on here using a paintmixxer to whilr pool with once.
 
I just use a sheet of voille and haven't had trouble over 20 or so brews.after use I just hang it on the clothes line and hose it off,no trouble.Never heard of that hot side stuff but i have pair of rubber gloves and squeeze the shit out of it to get all the stuff out.
Beer comes out ok.Maybe chuck the bag in the washing machine with the next lot of overalls ,nappies etc and see how it goes and turn it inside out.If it doesn't work better, I would get another bag,or a 1200 mm square of swiss voille from spotlight works well.
Good luck with it,
wombil.
 
I use the same bag and I only really have problems with high gravity brews, the extra grain, takes longer to drain.
I also believe that it could be one of the grains being cracked too small, as with some batches I have no problems at all.
Any way I hang above pot for about 10 Mins while i start boil, then i twist to extract as much as possible. I then hang it above a clean bucket
normally a Green One :). This usually collect another litre, it then gets chucked into the pot for boiling. Mine is stained brown now, so perhaps a bleaching as
suggested above may work as well
 
Craftbrewers bags are a nylon material. They are well built and robust but are a bit closer weave than voile, which is a polyester material. I've found voile to be more free draining and the nylon material can be less free draining with some recipes, especially when using wheat. Nothing wrong with the quality and value of the CB bags but for easier draining I'd go the voile, on balance.
 
I like to drink sweet mother lodes of beer when the bag is draining under gravity. It's the responsible thing to do.

One must drain the bag like watching a woman in labour; it's a fool who squeezes until she's ripe. The placenta is where you may squeeze, for the first parts of BIAB are precious.
 
I like to drink sweet mother lodes of beer when the bag is draining under gravity. It's the responsible thing to do.

One must drain the bag like watching a woman in labour; it's a fool who squeezes until she's ripe. The placenta is where you may squeeze, for the first parts of BIAB are precious.

Agree with you Nick, you only have to look at the wort when you squeeze to realise that maybe you shouldn't, it doesn't take long for most of it to drain via gravity anyway!!

Not sure what i think of the rest of your statement, I'm still trying not to resent my son for having a 95th percentile head......... :ph34r:
 
it doesn't take long for most of it to drain via gravity anyway!!

Oh yes it does!!!!this is my problem...my bag now takes ages to drain and it didnt used to!

Have put it through washing machine, hosed it, sodium perc soaked...coarse milled grain and no wheat...all makes no difference. I dont want to buy another bag cos it used to work fine and if I spend more $$ on another maybe the same problem will arise after a dozen brews...I might try the swiss voile but feel like I shouldnt have to having paid good money for a well constructed purpose built bag.

Will try the shaking thing too...happy if it works but again feel I shouldnt need to...let us know if bleaching improves anything!!!
 
Mine also takes ages to drain, and has done since the first batch.
First batch was an oatmeal stout, so pretty thick, gluggy mash.
Most batches since have had wheat (or more oatmeal) so perhaps it's due for an overnight napisan soak.
If I "shake" the bag to get the wort thats sitting above the grain out then hang to drip it's still dripping (and still holding a fair amount of wort) after an hour boil.
 
Am encountering the same problem.

Have done about 20 brews with the CB BIAB bag and am now getting the wort pooling above the grain.

I think the problem became noticable after I did a few witbiers, prior to that it seemed to drain fairly well without much squeezing.

Will try some of the suggestions like boiling with sodium perc etc and if I have no luck will just grab another bag I guess.
 
buy some actual PBW - not sodium perc. Sodium perc is not as effective a cleaner as pbw. Long soak and scrub in HOT pbw should solve the problem and set the bag to where it was. Caustic will do the trick too but isn't as safe and i wouldn't stick my hands in it to scrub like i would with pbw.

The only reason that the bag isn't draining the way it was in the past, is because the holes are now smaller, which they are because crap builds up on the cross weaves. PBW, heat and scrubbing.will release the organic build up.

When you are draining your bag, a nice way to get it to drain, is to just poke it with a stick. You bag is hanging over your pot, you get a stick and poke it, this makes waves in the liquid in the bag, the waves "wash" the bits of the bag that they hit... liquid goes through, the holes clog up again. So what you do is stand there and poke the bag rhythmically to set up a standing wave. The standing wave constantly rinses the edges and liquid constantly goes through.... your bag will drain reasonably rapidly. No need to whack the thing, just set the liquid inside to jiggling a few cms.
 
buy some actual PBW - not sodium perc. Sodium perc is not as effective a cleaner as pbw.

I haven't used PBW so obviously I can't compare the two products but pure sodium percarbonate and boiling water is an amazing cleaner.

I can (I usually don't but I can and I have) leave a crusty cube right up until I'm about to drain the kettle, tip in a kitchen kettle full of boiling water and a TBSP of pure sodium percarb, shake it about, drain and rinse and she's as good as new. Same with kettle taps right before I drain the tun. I ferment in my cubes so I'm talking encrusted yeast and hop debris.

Like magic - if PBW is better than that, then it's magic x 2.

Pure stuff also leaves less filmy residue than napisan etc (presumably lack of surfactants etc).
 
I haven't used PBW so obviously I can't compare the two products but pure sodium percarbonate and boiling water is an amazing cleaner.

I can (I usually don't but I can and I have) leave a crusty cube right up until I'm about to drain the kettle, tip in a kitchen kettle full of boiling water and a TBSP of pure sodium percarb, shake it about, drain and rinse and she's as good as new. Same with kettle taps right before I drain the tun. I ferment in my cubes so I'm talking encrusted yeast and hop debris.

Like magic - if PBW is better than that, then it's magic x 2.

Pure stuff also leaves less filmy residue than napisan etc (presumably lack of surfactants etc).

Its magic x 2 then.
 
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.
 
I have two of CB's grain bags, both of which have given me problems with draining. I have since had SWMBO make another from some not so fine material purchased from a well know fabric shop. I have tried all sorts of remedies to get my "bag" free flowing, to no avail.

I tend crack my grain quite fine, which may be a problem in it's self? I have experimented with a more course crack but the problem of draining appears to still exist. I squesse hard too to get it to drain. The lifting of the bag to and fro does not seem to work.

Going to try the new bag tomorrow so will see if there is any applicable difference.
 
My first bag was a cracker this one not so good but I'll try this and see how it goes.
 
get a manifold it flows well for me ;) Well untill you knock the end off stiring the mash and have to put on a glove then a leather glove then a chemical glove to try repair it in the mash lol So mines hard fixed in there now and good back flush fixes it clean
 
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