Biab - Element

[peted27]

Okay i did my first BIAB AG today, i use a birko 40L urn, went pretty well, didnt have anything to keep the bag off the element so it was a bit hard to stir. Where are people getting cake racks?? i went into every cheap shop, kmart, target etc today looking for something suitable, couldnt find anything. A photo / direction would be very helpfull.

Other problem i had was trying to squeeze 4.8Kg of grain to get as much wort out as possible, what a PITA. ANy tips?? I didnt have anything to suspend the bag from, so i put the bag in a big pot with a strainer in the bottom to keep it off the bottom and tried to squeeze, didnt work to well.

I made Dr Smurtos Golden Ale, it's currently NCing, looking forward to drinking.

Any help / advice appreciated

 

[RdeVjun]

Hey Pete, good on you for having a chop at it, its really not that hard, eh?! A pretty simple process, just takes a while, but you'll get that no matter what your mashing method.
Now, if you can twist the bag it'll probably help. Suspend it off a cupboard/ pantry door handle with a bucket underneath, with one hand hold the top, the other twist the dangling bag round and round until it squeezes some wort out. Squeezing after twisting will get most of it, let it drain overnight for the remaining few cups and use that last bit for starters.
Also, make sure you sparge it/ mashout, you'll find the second runnings will be 1/2- 2/3 of the SG of the first and this can increase your efficiency enormously. (Unless you want to make an additional 'small beer' that is...) I use ~5L of water from the kettle, just off the boil and even do a second sparge if the second runnings are still strong. Obviously you have to have kettle space for it, but the fuller the better in my case as I'm only using a 19L stockpot... (I can still get a 21- 22 L batch BTW)

DSGA is a cracker, excellent choice! TTL is another of his recipes that is just superb.

 

[Bribie G]

Pete with my Birko I don't apply heat or stirring during mashing but wrap in a sleeping bag plus doonah and get generally a 2 degree temp. drop. And it can get chilly up here. If you want to give it a boost during mashing you could remove the insulation, tip in a couple of kettles of boiling water, do a good stir then re-wrap.

The skyhook is invaluable, otherwise the door handle is the only real alternative. I have also used the freezer door of my dead fridge that I swung out and attached bag to that on one occasion.

 

[malbur]

Hi Pete,

I just made up my own rack to keep the bag off the element with a bit of SS mesh.
Than you can heat any time you like as long as you are stirring

 

[peted27]

Hi Pete,

I just made up my own rack to keep the bag off the element with a bit of SS mesh.
Than you can heat any time you like as long as you are stirring
View attachment 29770

yeah something like that would be perfect. will look into making something similar i think. wheres the mesh from??

 

[malbur]

yeah something like that would be perfect. will look into making something similar i think. wheres the mesh from??

Just a local place that does stainless & ali fabrication.
They where making slide out racks with it.
thought it might be ok to make a drip tray out of "when i get my keg setup going"

 

[RdeVjun]

Pete with my Birko I don't apply heat or stirring during mashing but wrap in a sleeping bag plus doonah and get generally a 2 degree temp. drop. And it can get chilly up here. If you want to give it a boost during mashing you could remove the insulation, tip in a couple of kettles of boiling water, do a good stir then re-wrap.

+1: Insulate with anything from a couple of jumpers or your bedding and even in these cooler northern climes (ahem !) it'll still be peachy.
And +1 more for tipping in a kettle- full of boiling water if it does drop too much, I just need to remember on chilly brew nights to leave space for it beforehand!

The skyhook is invaluable, otherwise the door handle is the only real alternative. I have also used the freezer door of my dead fridge that I swung out and attached bag to that on one occasion.

Yep, there will be something, just about any door/fridge/cupboard/patio beam/structure will do, if you live in some kind of house, there will be something appropriate to suspend your bag. One of the S- shaped hooks used to suspend pot plants is very handy for this too, it and a piece of light rope.

yeah something like that would be perfect. will look into making something similar i think. wheres the mesh from??

In all honesty, I don't heat with the bag in- situ any more. I lift it out and drop it into a bucket after a protein rest or only add the bag and grain after heating the water (with no rests). Even with a cooling rack to keep the bag off the direct heat, I found that the heating distribution was just too variable, even with constant stirring, and really couldn't find anywhere to measure it reliably in the end, so now I lift it all the way out and heat the water/ wort in the stockpot up to anywhere between 4 and 6 degrees above the target for the process and then drop it back in, stir well, then measure and adjust if need be. This takes some trial and error to get just right, but after a few batches you'll get a feel for what's right for your setup and can then just hit it spot on most of the time.

 

[RdeVjun]

Where are people getting cake racks?? i went into every cheap shop, kmart, target etc today looking for something suitable, couldnt find anything. A photo / direction would be very helpfull.

Sorry, I meant to say, with the cake racks, the only ones suitable are those that your spouse/ parent/ MIL etc will refuse to give to you for brewing! Its always the way, the ideal piece of kitchen hardware is not permitted anywhere near the brew pot...
The mesh above would be the duck's nuts though, but if you can't get any of that, going back to a cooling rack perhaps low- tech this a bit and head for an Op shop, i.e. Vinnies, Lifeline etc? You'd prolly get some urn insulation cheap too unless you wanted to go the camping mat route. Mind you, I've noted that most Op shops have been putting prices up significantly over the last couple of years, and a few of them look to have had a marketing consultant's makeover, much to my disgust.
Oh, I should've mentioned and its fairly obvious anyway, its not needed unless you're heating with the bag in place- hence I no longer need mine. You can have it if you like!

 

[malbur]

Some people are also using colanders to cover there elements

 

[peted27]

Pete with my Birko I don't apply heat or stirring during mashing but wrap in a sleeping bag plus doonah and get generally a 2 degree temp. drop. And it can get chilly up here. If you want to give it a boost during mashing you could remove the insulation, tip in a couple of kettles of boiling water, do a good stir then re-wrap.

The skyhook is invaluable, otherwise the door handle is the only real alternative. I have also used the freezer door of my dead fridge that I swung out and attached bag to that on one occasion.

Shit, i was just writing a post, almost done and firefox crashed. How annoying. Anyway, this was the gist of it....

Bribie are using the almost boiling water to bring temps up to mashout too?? Or just to keep the temp constant. I think i will just skip the cake rack and not heat with the bag in the urn.

Also, with squeezing the bag... am i just giving it a quick twist and squeeze, or am i there for 20min trying to get the most out i can?? Is it worth it??

This BIAB business isnt so hard, just a matter of getting comfortable with my gear and the process.

Oh and RdeVjun the TTL was the next on the list to try, looks like it will go down very easily


Thanks for the tips guys, should help me with the next crack.

 

[Bribie G]

I don't actually use boiling water during the mash, it was just a suggestion because some people in colder climes (even Perth) have said they are reluctant to try 'passive lagging' of their urn or pot because they think it's going to be too cold this time of year. However a lot do so, for example Pollux in Sydney and I know how cold it can get there.

I do a mashout by running about six litres of wort out of the tap into a clean white nappy bucket, pouring six litres of near boiling water into the urn out of a stockpot then stir like crazy (I use a metal paint stirrer so I can get a good up and down pumping action going) then hoist the bag, drain, then add the nappy bucket contents back into the boil. I boil for 90 minutes so that reduces the wort.

The other slightly different thing you can do is to use the bucket to do a 'sparge in a bucket' and add the contents back into the boil. Either one or the other, I still haven't worked out which is more efficient


Edit: actually if you don't have a skyhook I'd go for the sparge in a bucket and you should end up extracting nearly all the goodness from the grain

 

[Pollux]

As Bribie has said, I passively lag my mash. That said I have a Crown urn and therefore can apply heat if I want to.

My current technique of heating the strike water, dumping in the grains, stirring the bejesus out of them with my paint stirrer and then sealing the urn (which is always wrapped in a yoga mat) inside a sleeping bag sees me only lose 2-3 degree max over 75 mins, I then unwrap the urn, crank the thermostat to 110 and start stirring again, hoisting the bag when I reach 75deg.

Keep in mind all this occurs in my garage, early in the morning, with an ambient temp of 15.5..........

 

[RdeVjun]

Ah, don't ya hate that... a crash after nearly completing a long post. I can relate Pete!

Ok, sorry, my instructions are not based around an urn, so I see now how it gets confusing and ambiguous. If you go for the sparge in a bucket method (which is what I do), there's no need to drain the grain in the bag after the initial lift as much of the remaining sugars will be caught by the sparge water anyway. I just briefly lift the bag up by (a gloved) hand in the stockpot/urn, carefully gather one corner from the bottom, then twist for a minute or so and most of it will drain out back into the pot/urn. In the mean time (or before lifting the bag if you're clever), put a kettle- full of near- boiling water into a second bucket/pot, then drop the bag into it and pour over another kettle- full of hot water and as BribieG says, stir the crap out of it. I leave the sparge for about 15 minutes, stirring a couple of times and then lift the bag again, twist and squeeze to recover the sparge water. Its after this sparge that you'll need to suspend it for longer to get as much of it back as you can, but twist before hanging it to condense it into a more solid mass which should drain the sparge more efficiently. Give it a squeeze and more twists from time to time while your boil proceeds and just keep adding this extra few cups of sweet stuff.
My kettle volume is around 2L, if smaller you just need more of them or use another pot on the stove and get it ready as the end of the mash approaches. My stove is out of action while the mash is on as the insulation will catch fire if I try to use it, so I sometimes use a camping stove to get the sparge water ready. This should be no problem for you though as you're using an urn.

The sparge in a bucket method allows the boil to get cracking while you attend to the sparging, generally by the time to skim some froth off the boil comes around, I'm just finishing the sparging. Interestingly, adding some cooler sparge to the boil will precipitate some more scummy froth and break, because I use a domestic gas stove my pot takes over half an hour to get up to boiling, so I am generally adding sparge water before boiling temperature is hit, so I can usually skim even more muck off it. Obviously once the boil is officially underway, skimming is probably going to be removing hops too, particularly if plugs or whole hops are used, so should be avoided.

Let us know if there's any dramas or other queries!

 

[crundle]

Ikea have stainless steel colanders that can be used on the bottom of the urn, which is handy when raising the temp for mashout, but like many others who BIAB, I get my strike water around 3 degrees higher than my desired mash temp and by the time the grain is mixed in nicely, my temp is right and I wrap it up in a camping mat and doonah for the duration of the mash, with a stir at 30 minutes and some heat added at 60 minutes if needed.

After reaching mashout temp with the bag in the urn, I leave it for 10 minutes and then raise it while I get the urn up to the boil. A fair bit of wort runs out of the bag during this time, but I give it a good squeeze using thick rubber gloves to protect my tender little hands, then pour a litre of boiling water slowly over the bag to help extract some more sugar and leave it hanging over the urn till the boil is about reached, then give it a last good squeeze and get on with the boil.

You will find your own groove that works for you, but a passive mash gives more consistent results in my opinion (and I started out using the element to maintain temps) as if you are adding heat from below, the grain forms a solid blanket over the element and sensor so only that area is kept to temp, the rest gets colder unless it is being constantly stirred while heat is being added.

I guess as something of a maxim, always stir while adding heat, not only to keep the bag from possibly burning, but also to ensure the grain is at a consistent temperature.

cheers,

Crundle