Biab In Fermenter - New Method?

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hopcycle

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I tried this method after several batches of BIAB. I was tired of mucking around with 5kg of hot, wet grain and thus my new process came into being.

I mashed inside the bag, in a standard 30L fermenter. This method alows recirculation of wort and frees up the pot for the production of sparge water, if that's what you are using it for.

Before sparging I just connected a short length of food grade flexible, clear hose to the end of a bottling tube connected to the tap.

I did not produce any HSA and as mentioned recirculated the wort to clear it a little.

This method made my brew day nice and easy.

Hope this makes a making beer a bit easier for some of you
;)
 
Very interesting!. Did you boil with an element?. Taking a simple process, and making it even more simple, great work.
 
What did you do with the hot break?
 
As I've been doing dumped most into the fermenter :(

This is an issue I've yet to deal with. I suppose I couls upscale the batch and be content with a few litres loss
 
Very interesting!. Did you boil with an element?.
no, he set up a nasa burner with a high pressure reg underneath his plastic fermenter.

so you ferment on the hot/cold break and hop trub? how do you aerate or if not have you had any issues with fermentation byproducts/slow ferments etc?
 
Got to say nice to see you thinking outside the bag / circle. Hot break, well the jury will be out on that till the pudding is eaten. Worth a try and good to see some one doing it. ;)
GB
 
Jeez imagine if you used an insulated fermenter, (or an esky), then if you got another pot to hold the hot water (HLT) so you can run off into your original pot, you could sparge better......
Oops this isnt BIAB, but then again its fun to experiment and when you get right down to it theres a lot to be said for a 3V system.
MHB
 
Jeez imagine if you used an insulated fermenter, (or an esky), then if you got another pot to hold the hot water (HLT) so you can run off into your original pot, you could sparge better......
Oops this isnt BIAB, but then again its fun to experiment and when you get right down to it theres a lot to be said for a 3V system.
MHB
3V is that the new thing ? Got to say my 3V system involves about 5 items and lots of cleaning. I like to see others looking for easy answers, keeps it interesting.
GB
 
I tried this method after several batches of BIAB. I was tired of mucking around with 5kg of hot, wet grain and thus my new process came into being.

I mashed inside the bag, in a standard 30L fermenter. This method alows recirculation of wort and frees up the pot for the production of sparge water, if that's what you are using it for.

Before sparging I just connected a short length of food grade flexible, clear hose to the end of a bottling tube connected to the tap.

I did not produce any HSA and as mentioned recirculated the wort to clear it a little.

This method made my brew day nice and easy.

Hope this makes a making beer a bit easier for some of you
;)

Just to understand a bit better your method is as follows?

1. Mash in grain bag in fermenter.

2. Recirc and sparge grain inside same.

3. Boil resulting wort using immersion element

4. Slow chill inside fermenter (or immersion chill or something else?)

5. Add yeast

Interested in the chilling aspect. Also my understanding is that BIAB in its purest form is no sparge which would make things even simpler.

Also interested in the idea that all hot break is in your brew and whether you notice any issues, particularly in brews stored/aged for a bit.
 
easy answers

Easy answers can be good but if BIAB was the new ultimate solution...... why arnt all the big boys doing it.

Why do all the great german beers we love claim to use multi step mashes.......

Oh shit........ im stopping now. I said long ago i wouldnt get dragged into this argument.

BIAB to me is like making coffee in a plunger. Yes it works and makes coffee, that can be quite nice, but its going to make it dificult to really fine tune the process and make supurb coffee.
 
Good to see most being positive about it. Except for those that want to become big boys :p

Just to be clear the fermenter is used only to produce the wort. A pot is used to boil. I pop the pot into a big sink and change the water a few times to get it down to pitching temp (with the aid of a bit of ice).

I cannot say if I have had any issues with hot break etc as I have not done a side by side test.

The method just made things easier and that's exactly what I wanted out of it.

Just to pander to the dedicated 3V pursits; I still don't think that my wort recirculation produced particularly clear wort
but it was clearer than my previous method

Seeing the wort run through the clear tubing is seeing a beer coming to fruition..satisfying

Cheers

p.s I am skepticle about no sparging as I would think that mash enzyme concentration would not be high enough for complete conversion but then again I have hear that BIAB results in typically high efficiency rates
 
Good to see most being positive about it. Except for those that want to become big boys :p

Just to be clear the fermenter is used only to produce the wort. A pot is used to boil. I pop the pot into a big sink and change the water a few times to get it down to pitching temp (with the aid of a bit of ice).

In that case I'm not sure of the advantage. If you have a pot already then BIAB at its simplest is a one vessel method. You could mash and boil in the pot rather than mash in the fermenter then boil in the pot, then transfer to the fermenter.

Sorry if I've missed something. Not trying to criticise others' brewing methods but curious about what you are doing and why.

Obviously the hot break can be left behind unless your pot has no tap but I'm not sure of the difference between plastic mash vessel and metal mash vessel if you are still transferring to boil.

If it's simply that you don't have a tap, all you need is about 20 dollars and access to a drill and step bit. Alternatively you could siphon the wort when cool (for even less money).
 
so are you vorlaufing in the fermenter via the tap, using the bag as a false bottom, or are you recircing with a pump the whole time?

[edit] I assume you're just using it to vorlauf since it has a tap, you can tap a kettle as per manticle but I'm not sure if the flow path in the fermenter will be any good with just a tap on the side. I guess it doesn't matter if you're batch sparging?
 
I really like this idea, im also thinking it could be good to use a fermenter as a mash tun and still boil in a pot, even easier then putting an element into a fermenter. Im thinking a SS braid and ball valve in the bottom of a camping mat insulated bunnings fermenter... hmmmmm
 
Many of the big boys actually do approach BIAB in the sense that after mashing they run the grist into a big fabric and membrane setup which is really like me squeezing my BIAB bag except on a massive scale - Coopers even have one apparently. I bet if they could also find a way of mashing the grain there in situ they would be onto it in a flash. 3V developed over the centuries because it was really the only way of handling a few hundred litres of wort at a time. However as a loose analogy, we go to the shop in Mazda 3, not in an exquisitely downsized third scale models of a Mack Truck Double B. Horses for courses.

And BIAB is extremely fine tuneable. I always to a mashout and can do brews with stepped mashes, Hochkurz, protein rests yada yada yada with no problem whatsoever and probably much more conveniently than many 3V systems. Have you actually been to any BIAB brew days Tony?
 
So you heat the water in a pot, use a plastic fermenter (with bag) as a mash tun, run the wort off into a pot & boil it.

Sounds like 3V brewing but you've used a BIAB bag for the false bottom instead of using steel/copper/braid etc. No reason it shouldn't work.
 
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