I said no such thing - go back and read my post again - I take exception to being misquoted to support anyone's opinion!
"On page 2 of this thread you said that BIAB was essentially derived as a cheap copy of a BM system, and that you considered the BM the pinnacle of home brewing setups, yet today it the prize goes to 3V?."
I said "it was the arrival of the Braumeister on the scene here in Australia that kicked off the whole BIAB thing."
That is a long way from "BIAB was essentially derived as a cheap copy of a BM system" The only commonality is that both are/were single vessel, essentially full volume systems and that the expended malt is lifted out of the wort.
In my post on page 2, I was very careful not to say that the BM was anything other than what I brew on, that I like it is true, but that a 3V + an extra pot would be my ideal system if all constraints were lifted.
Again that is not saying "that you considered the BM the pinnacle of home brewing setups"
I believe I generally respect your posts and pay a lot of attention to your work on yeast; I ask that you do me the courtesy of going back and re-reading my post objectively
In the post above I was trying to stay on topic and answering the question in the OP by directly comparing BIAB and 3V, without adding other systems into the mix
Wouldn't a BIAB setup (with PID and pump, or maybe one of the DIY-BM systems) be a better approximation of a BM than a 3V system?
Doesn't a BM system suffer all the disadvantages that you listed as to why 3V has advantages over BIAB (L:G, sparge, losses, etc), while the BM also misses out on the cost advantage?
If not where and why does the BM fit in, and what about 3.5V brewing (RIMS/HERMS)?
To touch on your other questions, what a Braumeister shares with a 3V system is a permeable bed, the long recirculation of the wort (better compared to a HERMS/RIMS system than conventional 3V) through the full depth of the bed carries fines and very high molecular weight protein gels as they condense until they are trapped in the natural filter bed that forms during recirculation, this eliminates them from being eluted into the kettle.
BIAB being a very fine grist and not building a filter through recirculation lacks this ability and the result is more turbid wort this is one of the widely acknowledged shortcomings of BIAB.
BIAB started as a very simple full volume system, in an attempt to fix some of the shortcomings there are a plethora of spin-off modifications going on, frankly from my observation, when you start adding pumps, recirculating, mix in a PID what have you, you are trying to make a Braumeister because you are too sodding tight to buy one.
The idea that a Braumeister is too expensive is a very subjective one, in any other hobby you could name $3500 isn't exactly big bickeys, I mean you wouldn't want to think of any hobby that included motor sport, sailing (well anything that floats displaces its own volume in $20 notes), flying Christ even a remote control plane can cost more than $3500 and people stack them every day, Golf appears to be a bottomless money pit...
If you have the right skill set and happen to be very handy you can build something like a Braumeister for about half of the cost, but even if you spent $4000 got a 50L BM, Fridge with controller and all the extras brewing is the only hobby where you stand a chance of recouping the total investment in savings and get to drink world class beer.
Do you have any idea how sick of hearing people whinge about the price of Braumeisters I get?
Braumeisters have their limitations (as do all systems) they also have most of the advantages of a 3V, with mash recirculation, stepped temperature control, in a small footprint professionally designed and built in Germany to the standard you expect from German engineering,
Fark now you have dragged me OT I do love my Braumeister and for very good reasons but it's far from the only option.
Mark