Biab Wort Question

[elduderino]

I just did my second BIAB beer yesterday, a dunkelweizen, and it went amazingly well! I was using a new voile bag I made out of polyester curtain material I found and it worked much better than the canvas version I first tried (Canvas becomes a better bucket than straining bag when submersed in hot water, it seems. I was going for strength...)

I usually do batch sparges with a braided hose in my mash tun and I get pretty clear wort coming out. My impression from yesterday is that the wort in the kettle was cloudier than what has been normal for me. I assume it was mostly fine flower, and it did settle out nicely. I'm not worried about it affecting the beer, as I know whatever made it to the fermenter will settle out during fermentation, too. But I am wondering if this is normal for this method or if I need to tweek something in my setup...

I crushed at .02 inch = .508 mm
I used 60% wheat...

By the way, I am very impressed with BIAB so far! I had a 3.5 hour brew day instead of my normal 6. Adjusting temps was easy by just raising the bag a little and clamping it to the side of my keggle while I fired up the gas burner for a couple minutes. I'm surprised it's not more popular over here...

 

[Bribie G]

What sort of batch size? I find that the BIAB sweet wort in the kettle can be a bit turbid but after the boil, and using whirlfloc or other Irish Moss type kettle finings, and allowing the trub to settle out well before running off for chilling, the wort that comes out is usually crystal clear.

Glass on the left is the first runnings out of the kettle, to 'clear the throat' of the tap. The other glass is the immediate next glass which as you can see is just about clear, and after that it was all bright.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Biab wort will be significantly (read very very) cloudy in your pre-boil kettle, much more so that any wort from any sort of mash or lauter tun.

But, after the boil, it should be as clear as any other. You will almost certainly need to leave behind a little more trub in your kettle than you would if you had used a mash tun.. But given a bit of a whirlpool and 15 or 20 minutes to settle, there is no reason at all why what makes it to your fermenter need be anything less than clean and clear.

 

[katzke]

Aint the internet great! Here I am reading a forum from Australia and a post from a brewer only a few hours drive from me in the USA.

The ad vice you received is best. Dont worry about the wort.

The reason why BIAB is a big secret in the USA is brewers here are stuck in the mud (or mash) and not able to think outside the mash tun. I think the brew shops do not like it because they can not sell a bunch of expensive equipment. Funny thing is most brew shops do not sell much of the parts to make fancy 3 vessel systems.

 

[elduderino]

What sort of batch size?
I did a 21 liter batch

I find that the BIAB sweet wort in the kettle can be a bit turbid but after the boil, and using whirlfloc or other Irish Moss type kettle finings, and allowing the trub to settle out well before running off for chilling, the wort that comes out is usually crystal clear.
Next time I will try some whirlfloc and give the trub a little more time to settle out. Do you recommend ten minutes? I use a pick up tube in the bottom of my kettle; I'll set that so that it is a little higher next time as well.

Thanks for the great responses and good advice!

Aint the internet great! Here I am reading a forum from Australia and a post from a brewer only a few hours drive from me in the USA.
It is amazing to be able to get ideas and advice almost instantaneously without respect to distance. I took up brewing after my son was born. I didn't have much time to do stuff outside of the house so getting involved in brew clubs or meeting up with people to brew wasn't really possible. The only way I could have learned ten or twenty years ago would be in person, but with forums like this I was able to read up and learn from other peoples advice and experience. I've started brewing more with other people recently, but the community I've found online is amazing.

I think the brew shops do not like it because they can not sell a bunch of expensive equipment.
I'm inclined to believe the same... I went in to a little local brew shop a couple days ago and tried to chat them up about BIAB; Their response was disinterested. They do their batches in one kettle so juggle hot liquor, wort and mash grains. It sounds pretty inefficient in terms of time and work involved. They don't have as much brewing experience as other shops (I think their interest was cheese making)so may be for them it has less to do with profit and more to do with feeling challenged by something new, even though it could be a great way to ease people into brewing and thereby sell more yeast/grain/hops/equipment. Most everyone else seem to regard it with a little scorn -- may be people get impressed by shiny knobs, gauges and mash screens and just assume that costlier equipment = better beer or need to defend their prior purchases. I have a mash vessel but am impressed by BIAB for reasons everyone here is familiar with. It is definitely the method I would recommend to friends showing any interest in brewing.

 

[felten]

I've found it can take a while for the heat convection to stop stirring the kettle trub around. I put down a brew on Wednesday where I whirlpooled after the boil as normal, then waited 20m, had a look at the kettle and noticed that the break from the cone was wafting up to the top of the pot, that kinda sucks, so I left it to stand for another 10 mins then whirlpooled and waited 30m before no chilling.

If I had a chiller I would probably chill it down then WP, or just to stop the convection, but as I'm no chilling I don't worry so much about the time in the kettle.

 

[Bribie G]

Provided the kettle (in my case an electric urn with a clean towel over the top because the lid has a few vent holes) is well sealed up I don't see a problem in leaving it for half an hour. I no chill and realise that if the wort isn't at boiling point there's always a very slight chance that the cube / jerrycan won't get 100% scalded. However I keep my cubes with Starsan solution in them when not in use and give them a good shake up every time I pass them by, and just before use I tip out the Starsan (which I use for general bottle washing etc) and freshly Starsan them again before the wort goes in, never had a wild ferm starting in my cube after over 100 brews. Starsan is a trivial cost - bottle lasts for six months hereabouts.

Quick edit; off topic but the cubes also get aggressively treated every few brews with Sodium Percarbonate and raw rice, shaken not stirred - and often left for a couple of days full of perc solution to digest any residues, then starsanned.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

My standard technique is to wait 5 to 10 minutes for convection currents to settle a bit, then spin up a whirlpool and let it slow down and settle for the next 20-30 minutes.

If you are boiling on a chunky gas burner... Giving the burner and stand a bit of a squirt with the hose to cool them down cuts the time till convection currents stop being a PITA, they throw heaps of heat up into the kettle even after the flame is turned off.