BIAB techniques - some vary - which is best..?

[trustyrusty]

Hi I am thinking about BIAB, I have watched 3 videos, and all three different.

One guy took the bag out into a 2nd bucket in hot water (whatever the temp was) to 'sparge' the bag and use that water as part of volume.
The other held the bag over the boiler and drained hot water over, and the third did not do anything but drain the bag...
I think if I watched a fourth it would be different too... How do most people do it.... I would assume getting all the extra sugars from the bag would be the best, but you would not want to dilute too much?

Thanks

 

[mstrelan]

As you've seen many people do it differently and it comes down to personal preference. If the reason you are doing BIAB is to keep it simple then just do a full volume mash with no sparge. After the mash is complete just suspend the bag over the mash tun with a rope and pulley and let it drain or give it a good squeeze with some heat proof gloves. If you want to improve your efficiency you can try the dunk sparging method you saw, but then you need another vessel.

 

[manticle]

All will work and all will work fine. The dunking/rinsing techniques are known as sparging and you just account for the extra liquor in your intitial volume so as not to dilute the end result.

I don't biab regularly but when I have done it I just sat the bag to drain in a large steel colander above the pot. Do whatever is easiest/makes most sense in your brain.

 

[SBOB]

Hi I am thinking about BIAB, I have watched 3 videos, and all three different.

One guy took the bag out into a 2nd bucket in hot water (whatever the temp was) to 'sparge' the bag and use that water as part of volume.
The other held the bag over the boiler and drained hot water over, and the third did not do anything but drain the bag...
I think if I watched a fourth it would be different too... How do most people do it.... I would assume getting all the extra sugars from the bag would be the best, but you would not want to dilute too much?

Thanks

and all 3 are valid techniques

Starting from 3 -> 1
- Raise the bag and just let it drain/squeeze it - this is the basis of full volume brewing. It's no sparge, and you mash with the full volume. Definitely the easiest, but you may sacrifice a few points of efficiency in exchange for simplicity
- Raise the bag, let it drain but also 'sparge' by pouring water over/in the bag - this to me seems like too much effort as you are unlikely to sparge properly with the bag suspended, but its a step into the BIAB + sparge
- Raise the bag, let it drain/squeeze it, then take this and dunk sparge in another bucket..Wil gain you a few points of efficiency if you want to go through the extra steps


All will work, all will make wort.. Personally, start with full volume/no sparge BIAB and see if you 'need' to add extra steps after a few attempts and you have the process nailed

 

[Lecterfan]

I did a bucket sparge thing when I was doing 22L(into fermenter) batches. Works fine. Bit of faffing about, but that's part of the ...ahem ...rustic charm of BIAB. I now do 40L (into fermenter) BIAB batches. I lose gravity points with such a large pile of grain.

My current technique that I find gives me the beers I like at an overall efficiency I am happy with (generally %64, and after much reading and experimentation I actually dropped my eff intentionally as I think it makes a positive difference to my beers on my system for my taste buds - or at least I have unconciously convinced myself of this haha) is a full volume mash, no sparge, but with a stirring/ramp up to mash out (up to 77c) over about 10 mins, hoist the bag using an "Aussie Jackstrap" (no affiliation but brilliant device), squeeze the bag, off you go. A similar method on single batches used to yield a higher eff due to less grain mass, but an extra 500gms of grain here or there for the sake of ease and beer quality is no loss.

BIAB and the many derivatives have demonstrated that the system/technique is ultimately less important than understanding the process, understanding the various "whys" of brewing. After that, how you mash, seperate grain from wort, and so on, is up to you.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Just to check it out re: hoisting, how do people go with winching/hoisting when in a rental home, where anchoring or throwing it over a beam on the patio isn't an option.

 

[contrarian]

This really comes down to what works for your setup. If you need the extra volume from a sparge then it won't hurt.

I have a skyhook at home so just hang he bag while I heat up for the boil but if I brew at someone else's place I lift the bag into a bucket and tip whatever drains out into the boil.

It just depends on what works for you.

 

[Dozer71]

Just to chuck it out re:hoisting, how do people go with winching/hoisting when in a rental home, where anchoring or throwing it over a beam on the patio isn't an option.

I use a ladder

 

[Bribie G]

Just to check it out re: hoisting, how do people go with winching/hoisting when in a rental home, where anchoring or throwing it over a beam on the patio isn't an option.

That ladder trick looks pretty good.

As a tenant myself, if moving to a new place the first thing I look for is where is the ceiling hatch
Fortunately in most modern houses there's one in the garage.

 

[RdeVjun]

As per other posters, all of them are perfectly valid techniques and IMO it comes down to personal preference and circumstances.
What I would add is that if your BIAB kettle volume is limited with respect to the the desired final volume then the sparge step can make up some or all of the difference, similarly post- boil dilution can also increase that volume while a combination of those two can yield even more, without compromising quality. These two techniques are commonly used in stovetop BIAB to eke just a few extra litres out of a 19L kettle, which is where many novices very cheaply launch their all grain career. I do suggest though that they should resist the ambitious temptation to add these few additional steps until they're first familiar with full- volume BIAB, albeit with the lower yield.

 

[yankinoz]

I'd second what RdeVjun says and add that I sparge after mashing in a 24 L kettle. Just be careful to keep pH down when you sparge. I use the same treated water for sparging as for mashing and for good measure add a couple of drops of 85% lactic acid to the sparge water; you could sub citric acid.

A favorite piece of equipment is a cardboard box lined with earthwool. Mash and kettle go in there to maintain temp. If you heat kettle and bag do it slowly and make sure you have a colander ring or something similar between bottom and bag, to prevent scorching.

A winch? Might be nice. I just lift and squeeze.

Minimashes have been around for years, longer than the full-boil volume BIAB method. So it's always been a pretty open technology.

 

[Bribie G]

If you are doing a full volume mash, say in a 40 litre urn, the "traditionalist BIAB" school of thought is that the sparge water is actually present all along, so sparging is superfluous.

For example if you are doing just a "regular" 5% beer and feel the weight and volume of the spent grain in the bag, especially after a good squeeze, it's clear the small recoverable amount of wort still in the bag is hardly worth chasing, plus you would end up with extra water in the kettle that requires additional boiling to get the gravity back up to where it should be. Not to mention totally complicating an otherwise simple process and "over working" it for little benefit.

I tend to go along with that, the only exception I'd make is if I'm doing something like a Russian Imperial Stout with a huge grain bill where the amount of recoverable wort is, in such a case, worth chasing and I don't mind doing a longer boil.
I wouldn't say that's a BIAB specific issue, 3v brewers always encounter this sort of decision when they sparge, with various strategies such as Parti gyle brewing that has been going on for centuries and still used by some breweries such as Fullers.

WRT a box for insulation, top idea.
I was at a BIAB brew day a couple of years ago and was looking around for the guy's doonah for insulation. Instead he simply popped over the Crown urn the box it had come in, and lost 2 degrees over the whole mash time. He said that's all he's ever done, was surprised that I was surprised
Sometimes the most obvious solutions aren't so bloody obvious.

Of course I threw my Crown box out years ago. Bugger.
Hey Y in O, where do you get rockwool from, and in what form does it come? Wouldn't need ten metres or whatever...

 

[Bribie G]

To the OP and also Lord Rajah Goombah, behold the mighty Bribie Pressinator®

B)

PS I tried putting the fridge shelves directly over the urn but was getting too much "dribbling" happening.

 

[Sippa]

I keep it simple with small batches, brew with less total water so you end up with less than target volume in the fermentor, kind of like always doing a Maxi BIAB, this allows an easy adjustment based on what efficiency you achieve. I use a a second fermentor and a robust mesh sieve to let the bag of grain drain into, I also sparge with a few litres.