Increasing BIAB efficiency.

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
As mentioned above, the mash-out is a major factor in improving BIAB efficiency.

My process is always a 90min mash (I usually lose 2 degrees using blanket and sleeping bag).
After the mash, I crank the urn back up and gently stir continuously until the temperature gets to around 75oC.
The stirring is really only to move the grain around a bit and ensure there are no hot-spots.
Then pull the bag and sit it somewhere to drip drain (I use a upside-down colander in a bucket).

A mash-out stops enzyme action, but importantly for BIAB also makes the wort more fluid...this means it drains easier from the bag.

Adding this step improved my efficiency by 5%-10%.

Mash-out! :beerbang:
 
i've tried a few times to mash out and most were unsuccessful.

i didn't stir though and this was probably my error because the wort below the bag almost got to boil, but the wort above was kept insulated by the grains and only got to about 70ish. wasn't until i lifted the bag and checked and almost gave myself a nasty burn! after you've reached 75C, do you let it rest for 10 mins or something?

might try your method jake. maybe it'll help :)
 
jakethesnake559 said:
As mentioned above, the mash-out is a major factor in improving BIAB efficiency.

My process is always a 90min mash (I usually lose 2 degrees using blanket and sleeping bag).
After the mash, I crank the urn back up and gently stir continuously until the temperature gets to around 75oC.
The stirring is really only to move the grain around a bit and ensure there are no hot-spots.
Then pull the bag and sit it somewhere to drip drain (I use a upside-down colander in a bucket).

A mash-out stops enzyme action, but importantly for BIAB also makes the wort more fluid...this means it drains easier from the bag.

Adding this step improved my efficiency by 5%-10%.

Mash-out! :beerbang:
I do pretty much the same thing. I mash out at 78 degrees and squeeze the bag too. Increased my efficiency by almost 10%
 
I stir all the way up to mash out temp. But i have to hold my thermometer anyway. I can't say it increased my efficiency because I have always done this.

Rich
 
Same as above. I pumped the mash with a paint stirrer till I hit 78*c then let it sit for 5-10mins. Always did it this way so can't tell how effective it was but efficiency was usually mid 70s. I did stop squeezing the bag in the end and would just let it drain for 40mins and didnt notice any considerable drop in efficiency.
 
Back to mash PH, you might need to add in some brewing salts to achieve a better mash ph which should improve overall mash efficiency. Everything else looks pretty normal to me after a quick read through of the thread.
 
jakethesnake559, on 02 Jan 2014 - 08:20 AM, said:
jakethesnake559 said:
As mentioned above, the mash-out is a major factor in improving BIAB efficiency.

My process is always a 90min mash (I usually lose 2 degrees using blanket and sleeping bag).
After the mash, I crank the urn back up and gently stir continuously until the temperature gets to around 75oC.
The stirring is really only to move the grain around a bit and ensure there are no hot-spots.
Then pull the bag and sit it somewhere to drip drain (I use a upside-down colander in a bucket).

A mash-out stops enzyme action, but importantly for BIAB also makes the wort more fluid...this means it drains easier from the bag.

Adding this step improved my efficiency by 5%-10%.

Mash-out! :beerbang:
Im similar to this as well.
Ive found a longer mash helps heaps.
Stirring occasionally helps with consistent temps, and making sure all the grain is at the right temp, as Ive found the temp to be higher closer to the element etc.

After lifting the bag I pour over 70* water, then squeeze when it has stopped dripping

I hit 70-75-80% consistently.

Im going to add a pump and recirculate into the bag to help clear the wort and help the temps stay the same. But really im doing it because I love adding/building things to add to the rig...
 
fletcher said:
1. crush your grain to a flour 2. don't stir your mash 3. mashout if you like but i don't bother, or sparge. not needed 4. squeeze your bag until you get the estimated boil volume 5. make sure you boil off the right amount (trial and error) 6. expect efficiency to drop if brewing a big beer like an IPA or similar. i often add DME to the boil if i haven't hit my pre-boil gravity (not sure if that's correct but it always works for me).
I have to ask the question of point 2. Why should you not stir your mash? never heard this one before.
 
i stir it a LOT when i dough in to mix it right up and make sure there are no dough balls or pockets etc if that's what you mean but i don't constantly stir it or stir it heaps of times throughout the mash so i don't lose temp. i probably could have outlined that more.
 
I had good efficiency with crushed grain from the home brew shop ...then got my own monster mill and it went to crap.
I readjusted the rollers and double crushed my grain to get it to almost to flour and all is good again.
Also.. make sure there is no dough balls and clumps during mash in.
 
Flano said:
I had good efficiency with crushed grain from the home brew shop ...then got my own monster mill and it went to crap.
I readjusted the rollers and double crushed my grain to get it to almost to flour and all is good again.
Also.. make sure there is no dough balls and clumps during mash in.
Whats the point of using a bag to contain flour? :p
 
Wilkensone said:
Whats the point of using a bag to contain flour? :p
the bag has nothing to do with it. the bag is there to hold and then dispose of the grain when required, whether it's ground to a flour or not.
 
Fletcher - You might want to listen to this Podcast - http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

Crushing grain to flour is one of the worst things you can do for BIAB or any AG for that matter.

It means the husks which contain tannins impart undesirable flavours into your beer. As I was explained to me - "Grain is like Sugar Cane - the goodness is inside the husk. Like Sugar cane you want to unlock that goodness but you dont want to take the woody cane with the sugar.

Below is the exact quote which I thought is a fantastic analogy.

"Your grain is a vessel of sugar surrounded by wood. Just think about that for a second because I am getting tired of telling people not to crush fine.
Let's say the lignin / wood is crappy stuff full of tannins, which it is. Do you really want to grind that up and put it in your beer?
Imagine your grains as sugar cane. If you know what sugar cane is, you know you just want to bend it to release the sweetness. Break it and you'll get little."


So you may want to reconsider the "Flour" method of milling.

If you are not already doing it a 90 minute Mash (Which is what is recommended) That will help with efficiencies. However there's lots of other variables too that are just as important, such as the quality of your recipe. Your evaporation rate etc etc
 
bundy said:
Fletcher - You might want to listen to this Podcast - http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

Crushing grain to flour is one of the worst things you can do for BIAB or any AG for that matter.

It means the husks which contain tannins impart undesirable flavours into your beer. As I was explained to me - "Grain is like Sugar Cane - the goodness is inside the husk. Like Sugar cane you want to unlock that goodness but you dont want to take the woody cane with the sugar.

Below is the exact quote which I thought is a fantastic analogy.

"Your grain is a vessel of sugar surrounded by wood. Just think about that for a second because I am getting tired of telling people not to crush fine.
Let's say the lignin / wood is crappy stuff full of tannins, which it is. Do you really want to grind that up and put it in your beer?
Imagine your grains as sugar cane. If you know what sugar cane is, you know you just want to bend it to release the sweetness. Break it and you'll get little."


So you may want to reconsider the "Flour" method of milling.

If you are not already doing it a 90 minute Mash (Which is what is recommended) That will help with efficiencies. However there's lots of other variables too that are just as important, such as the quality of your recipe. Your evaporation rate etc etc
that's interesting, because i can't taste these undesirable flavours in my beers when doing this, nor can others.

how are tannins picked up by a discernible tongue? are they noticed immediately? over time? are they a small component of an off-flavour? do they offer their own off-flavour? i've had no one tell me "oh that beer is rife with tannin-ness" or anything along those lines/in that general school of thought, so i think (again, think and not know) that it's a case of personal taste; if a case at all. i do not notice a difference in newer beers i've made without crushing it to flour, and with those that were crushed to flour.

i wouldn't write this if someone had mentioned something to me about any off-flavour. i'm my own worst critic and quite anal with my beers' flavours and want to get to the bottom of ANY off-flavour immediately.
 
fletcher said:
that's interesting, because i can't taste these undesirable flavours in my beers when doing this, nor can others.

how are tannins picked up by a discernible tongue? are they noticed immediately? over time? are they a small component of an off-flavour? do they offer their own off-flavour? i've had no one tell me "oh that beer is rife with tannin-ness" or anything along those lines/in that general school of thought, so i think (again, think and not know) that it's a case of personal taste; if a case at all. i do not notice a difference in newer beers i've made without crushing it to flour, and with those that were crushed to flour.

i wouldn't write this if someone had mentioned something to me about any off-flavour. i'm my own worst critic and quite anal with my beers' flavours and want to get to the bottom of ANY off-flavour immediately.
I haven't tasted or seen the affects of tannins so cant comment personally. A quick Google though gets plenty of hits.
This was one article from beersmith with an associated reply -

"I’d add that even if your temps and pH are in line, grist crush and wort clarity also impact tannin extraction. If you’re getting shredded husk material, you’re more likely to extract excessive tannins. If you get a lot of those grain material into the boil kettle, you can extract excessive tannins that way too. I had a run of about 7 very astringent beers I traced back to shredded husks and poor lautering."


http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/06/19/phenolics-and-tannins-in-home-brewed-beer/

But ultimately its up to you how you mill.

I was just pointing out the fact it is not considered best practice and can cause issues.
 
jakethesnake559 said:
As mentioned above, the mash-out is a major factor in improving BIAB efficiency.

My process is always a 90min mash (I usually lose 2 degrees using blanket and sleeping bag).
After the mash, I crank the urn back up and gently stir continuously until the temperature gets to around 75oC.
The stirring is really only to move the grain around a bit and ensure there are no hot-spots.
Then pull the bag and sit it somewhere to drip drain (I use a upside-down colander in a bucket).

A mash-out stops enzyme action, but importantly for BIAB also makes the wort more fluid...this means it drains easier from the bag.

Adding this step improved my efficiency by 5%-10%.

Mash-out! :beerbang:
Probably a dumb question but what's mashout. Are u saying you mash at 75'c then at 90 Min u warm it back up to 75c while stiring and move the bag for draining
 
mrsupraboy said:
Probably a dumb question but what's mashout. Are u saying you mash at 75'c then at 90 Min u warm it back up to 75c while stiring and move the bag for draining
You pretty much have it. Basically once finished mashing at say 66 degrees for your 90 mins, You then raise the temp to ~ 75 degrees whilst the bag is still immersed. Then you pull the bag and drain as per normal.

Only thing is don't apply heat directly to the bag, That means you need to raise the bag a little from your heat source before adding extra heat for the mash-out. Otherwise you may end up with a scorched bag, or worse hole in your bag and grain everywhere!
 
This is not me just cheating but John Palmer explains it really well and its easily understandable

What is Mashout?
Before the sweet wort is drained from the mash and the grain is rinsed (sparged) of the residual sugars, many brewers perform a mashout. Mashout is the term for raising the temperature of the mash to 170°F prior to lautering. This step stops all of the enzyme action (preserving your fermentable sugar profile) and makes the grainbed and wort more fluid. For most mashes with a ratio of 1.5-2 quarts of water per pound of grain, the mashout is not needed. The grainbed will be loose enough to flow well. For a thicker mash, or a mash composed of more than 25% of wheat or oats, a mashout may be needed to prevent a Set Mash/Stuck Sparge. This is when the grain bed plugs up and no liquid will flow through it. A mashout helps prevent this by making the sugars more fluid; like the difference between warm and cold honey. The mashout step can be done using external heat or by adding hot water according to the multi-rest infusion calculations. (See chapter 16.) A lot of homebrewers tend to skip the mashout step for most mashes with no consequences.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter17.html%C2 is the page it came from its a good read
 
please read the following post by user Thirsty Boy regarding the mashout & BIAB:

Thirsty Boy said:
The purpose of the mashout is to a) Denature the enzymes and lock in the sugar profile & B) make the mash runnier.

point a) would make me think that the 10 minutes is to ensure all the enzymes are killed & to ensure all of it has reached that temp so there aren't any dense colder spots left over.
no its not - not in BIAB anyway.

mashout in BIAB is about 2 things. Efficiency and starch conversion.

Starch Conversion - BIAB is not the ideal mash environment - people can bleat and moan all they like, but it isn't. BIAB also misses the vorlauff step that a normal mash/lauter tun has and finally BIAB radically disturbs the mash bed during the lauter process.

All of which means, that there is a reasonable chance of there being some unconverted starch and that any unconverted starch in the mash (and if you mention an idodine test at this point, you dont actually know how they work) is far more likely to end up in the boil kettle with a BIAB brew than it would be with a mash/lauter tun brew.

So - you intensify your mash and make sure you convert all your starch. The way you do it, is by increasing the temperature of the mash beyond the gelatinisation point of even the really resistant starches, by stirring to access the physically trapped and isolated starches and by doing this gradually over a period of time to give the remaining enzymes (which will be working overtime in the increased temperature environment) time to convert the starches as they are gelatinised.

Take 10 minutes or so to constantly stir your mash as you raise it to a temperature of 76-78� and something along the lines of all your starches will be liberated, just in time for the last gasp of the dying enzymes to convert them to sugars.

This doesn't require any rest period at the "mashout" temperature - there is no point to a rest. There is a point to constant stirring and a gradual raise in temperature. So any mashout you might do that doesn't involve both these things is more or less pointless and I would just skip it.

Efficiency - well, your mash is more intensive, you convert more starch to more sugar, and your lauter is at a "normal" lauter temperature.... it all works just a little better than if you dont do it and I would expect a bump in efficiency (measured in the kettle) of say 3-5% by doing a mash out vs just. pulling the bag at the end of a 60 min mash. Less return for effort if you normally mash for 90min, but still a little.

Do you "need" to do it?? Hell no! But its something that I think constitutes good brewing practise and will make it more likely that you will end up with fault free beer that resembles the beer you were trying to make.

60 min mash
Raise gradually with constant stirring to 76-78�
Pull Bag

Adds maybe 5 mins to your brew day and in return you get a modest efficiency bump and a tick in a box for consistent quality brewing practise.

TB
 

Latest posts

Back
Top