Liab - Lauter In A Bag!

[dr K]

Mike's error may have been to suggest that BIAB was not central and essential to the Brewing Universe, though I am sure he did not.
OK my brain may have had some possibly mind altering stuff go through it over the last 40 years, in particular Joyce, Elliot, Thomas and Eco as well as a host of complementary choirs, but Mike's posts made (spelling aside) perfect sense to me, as did his photographs.
I must admit that I was only looking at the broad concept and not trying to pick holes in mesh, which is as we know, a bit pointless.

K

 

[kelbygreen]

maybe if it was cheese cloth I have done some things I thought would make it easier but in fact didnt and I also found out that the way its always been done is the best way so figured to stick with that. One big thing I learnt is if you are going to boil 50lts of wort use a pump or gravity system to transfer liquids dont put the kettle on the ground and drain into it then lift if up onto a burner sitting ontop of a old bbq lol still recovering from that

 

[mikesnothere]

for the trouble why not make a mash tun??

Cause I'm a cheap *******! Like I said, next step after BIAB without spending a cent.

Now I aint one to expect 90% but 77% is good opposed to 65% I was getting with BIAB.

Yep. I'm routinely hitting 80%.

 

[hoppy2B]

And sparge in a bag is of course SIAB? :unsure:

 

[mikesnothere]

Hey Mike, couldn't you go a step further. After you've boiled and cooled the wort, put the (sanitised) bag in your fermenter, pour the wort in, and pull out the the bag taking the break and hop material with it?

Edit: typo

Don't see why not, but I've not had any need to do this, at least while use hop pellets and flocculant. If I ever go back to whole hops (the pain is still to fresh), I'll probably do something like this, although by that stage I may have stopped been so cheap and invested a bit more in my rig.

 

[Cocko]

Sorry, finally got it!

Sorry, OP - Sounds like you are getting good results and sincerely thanks for sharing this.. sounds pretty cool



@ KB -S.U.C.

out.

 

[Rowy]

Brewbrite

 

[Deebo]

I'm probably missing something obvious here.. but couldnt you recirculate in the same way with your mash tun?

I dont see what pouring your grains from the mash tun into another vessel with a bag in it accomplishes except making more to clean up? (I am possibly just confused by the process)

Edit: I think I've got it straight in my head now, mash tun into lauter vessel, back into mash tun/kettle ? (I thought people always complained about channeling down the side of the bag when using methods like this?)

 

[freezkat]

I'm probably missing something obvious here.. but couldnt you recirculate in the same way with your mash tun?

I dont see what pouring your grains from the mash tun into another vessel with a bag in it accomplishes except making more to clean up? (I am possibly just confused by the process)

Edit: I think I've got it straight in my head now, mash tun into lauter vessel, back into mash tun/kettle ? (I thought people always complained about channeling down the side of the bag when using methods like this?)

First off I don't like the BIAB method. At all. When it warms up outside. I will be converting a water cooler or esky as you gents say.

I think we're having a hard time trying wrap our heads around the fact you aren't using a false bottom during your mash. I would imagine you are losing sugars due to grain scorching.

If not spending any more money and ridding your life of cloudy beer is your goal...there are good beer ingredients going down the drain...which, in turn makes you spend more money per beer.

some suggestions... don't hate me... I am trying to be helpful

Get/make a false bottom...(cake rack $10,maybe?) Get another bag do a biab without scorching the grains and lauter to your hearts content. You will have a much easier time lifting the grain over to your "bag sitting in a bucket being used as a filter" pre-boil lauter tun. Don't squeeze it if you don't want to. If that is what you are referring to as "the pain" of BIAB.

Use a clarifier like Whirflock or Irish Moss.

Use a glass carboy for your secondary fermenter and wait till the beer is clear.

Make a MLT

Get a vinamat wine filter if you are in a hurry

Here's a suggestion I know will draw the ire of many. Go back to extract brewing. It isn't that much more expensive with all things considered, faster, cleaner, consistent, clear beer every time.

 

[felten]

If you're direct firing the mash tun, constant stirring will prevent any burning even with a bag inside.

Unless you're using a very high BTU burner or internal elements, in which case you would want a rack to keep the bag off the bottom.

 

[mikesnothere]

I think we're having a hard time trying wrap our heads around the fact you aren't using a false bottom during your mash. I would imagine you are losing sugars due to grain scorching.

Why? The bottom of the mash tun is heated for maybe a total 3 minutes out of the 90 minute mash, (at least until mash out), during which time the mash is stirred, so no issue there.

If not spending any more money and ridding your life of cloudy beer is your goal...there are good beer ingredients going down the drain...which, in turn makes you spend more money per beer.

Like what? I'm getting better efficiency per kg than I was with BIAB, and I understand 80% is pretty respectable, would you tell me otherwise?

Get/make a false bottom...(cake rack $10,maybe?) Get another bag do a biab without scorching the grains and lauter to your hearts content. You will have a much easier time lifting the grain over to your "bag sitting in a bucket being used as a filter" pre-boil lauter tun. Don't squeeze it if you don't want to. If that is what you are referring to as "the pain" of BIAB.

Use a clarifier like Whirflock or Irish Moss.

Use a glass carboy for your secondary fermenter and wait till the beer is clear.

Make a MLT

Get a vinamat wine filter if you are in a hurry

Here's a suggestion I know will draw the ire of many. Go back to extract brewing. It isn't that much more expensive with all things considered, faster, cleaner, consistent, clear beer every time.

I will probably eventually get around to using false bottom, but I'll use a screen fine enough to trap grain, but course enough to allow free movement of liquors. With a tap installed under the screen. This is much more traditional set-up, one that you'll find in the books, but it costs money, and I don't want to spend till I upgrade my entire rig (and output capacity). Simply suspending a bag in the mash tun, during the mash, also means a loss in thermal efficiency of your mash tun, as you have to suspend the bag somehow. This is almost always done outside the mash tun, which means a gap, which allows air (and hence heat) exchange with the outside environment. In my case, doing a 10-15L mash, this is a difference of 2-3 minutes of heat per hour, compared to 10-15 minutes of heat per hour with a bag suspended in the tun. If you're talking about scorched grain being an issue, I know which method I'd prefer.

Flocculant (Irish moss) is already used, but there's only so much it can do.

Secondary fermentation is a bit like the flocculant, there's only so much it can do, and I already do it.

MLT? Got to admit I'm lost here, care to enlighten me?

Why would I use an external filter? I already have a great filter! Much rather use traditional techniques (or variations of), purely for aesthetic reasons.

Extract? HEATHEN! Sorry, couldn't help that. Kind of defeats the purpose though.

Don't worry freezkat, there's no hate, this is the fun bit.

 

[Wolfy]

You'll lose some wort, but that's the price of clear beer. You also need to sparge, this reduces the value of the little bit you do lose.

So you're essentially using a 3V system with your fermentor-with-bag as the lauter filter:
V1: Pot (mash first then to collect filtered wort)
V2: Fermentor-with-bag lauter
V3: HLT (for heating sparge water).
In which case, the gains - clear wort and increased efficiency - come from the independent lauter/sparge and are offset by the fact you're using 3 containers instead of the 1 for BIAB.

Unless you need to step-mash, wouldn't it be easier to insulate the fermentor-with-bag and use it as a Zap-Pap mash tun?
In addition I think your sparge-efficency would increase if you designed the lauter filter with fluid dynamics in mind (use false-bottom type thing and ensure the sparge water is distributed over the grain) rather than simply using the siphon or tap as the drain.

 

[Markbeer]

Mikesnothere,

Are you fxing haze in the beer or the wort to be boiled in the kettle?

You said beer in your first post.

When you say increased efficiency, are you talking less loss to Kettle Trub? So Kettle to fermenter, not mash to kettle efficiency?

My BIAB setup give me incredible efficiency into kettle, then worse efficiency from kettle to fermenter. I end up at 70% overall. My trub losses are 6 litres.

3V brewers tell me of trub losses of under 2 litres from kettle, if I had that I would have 26L of 1055 Wort from 5.5KG of grain into the fermenter.

Although my wort is cloudy, my beer when fined and cold conditioned properly is clear.

Mark

 

[mikesnothere]

Unless you need to step-mash, wouldn't it be easier to insulate the fermentor-with-bag and use it as a Zap-Pap mash tun?

I like to mash out at 76^oC so no. I guess I could, but I'd be adding hot water to raise the temp and it's not really any easier then. Also, with the hanging bag method, the grain has less space to float around in, so you get less contact, and hence less efficiency (in theory at least, I've not put this to the test).

In addition I think your sparge-efficency would increase if you designed the lauter filter with fluid dynamics in mind (use false-bottom type thing and ensure the sparge water is distributed over the grain) rather than simply using the siphon or tap as the drain.

Not sure what you mean here. What else would you use as a drain? You still need to get the wort/sparge from under the grain bed, and you want it as sealed as possible (to allow a slight vacuum to build under the bed). Wort/sparge water IS distributed over the grain, otherwise there is no point in lautering. I'm pretty sure I've missed something here?

 

[mikesnothere]

Are you fxing haze in the beer or the wort to be boiled in the kettle?

You said beer in your first post.

Lautering is done between mash tun & kettle. Clearer wort = clearer beer.

Although my wort is cloudy, my beer when fined and cold conditioned properly is clear.

Lucky You!

When you say increased efficiency, are you talking less loss to Kettle Trub? So Kettle to fermenter, not mash to kettle efficiency?

My BIAB setup give me incredible efficiency into kettle, then worse efficiency from kettle to fermenter. I end up at 70% overall. My trub losses are 6 litres.

3V brewers tell me of trub losses of under 2 litres from kettle, if I had that I would have 26L of 1055 Wort from 5.5KG of grain into the fermenter.

How are you losing 6l in the kettle?!? BIAB can give great conversion efficiency in the mash tun because you can grind up your grain very fine. It also gives you a lot of haze, which is what I object to, and good deal of loss in the grains unless you sparge them, which will end up giving you even more haze, unless you've recirculated on an undisturbed grain bed, it which case you're pretty much doing the same thing as me anyway. I'm not sure where I was referring to increased efficiency, but I don't bother to measure the efficiency of each step, just the final result once it's cooled and in the fermenter. I leave about three and half litres in the lauter tun (including grain absorption and just under litre in the kettle, but I'm only doing 14L batches. The losses in the lauter tun are minimal, as when I stop sparging runnings are ~1.012, so it's bugger all in terms of lost sugar.

 

[Wolfy]

Not sure what you mean here. What else would you use as a drain? You still need to get the wort/sparge from under the grain bed, and you want it as sealed as possible (to allow a slight vacuum to build under the bed). Wort/sparge water IS distributed over the grain, otherwise there is no point in lautering. I'm pretty sure I've missed something here?

From what I can tell, you're using the the siphon hose (or fermentor-tap) to drain the filtered wort, but that gives only a single drain-point.
(First picture here: http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-2.html )
Using multiple drain-points (subsequent pictures in link above) or better yet a raised/false bottom would reduce the chance of channeling down to a single point (or down the bucket walls) and would increase sparge-efficiency.

Something as simple as a cake rack placed in the bottom of the fermentor, would lift the bag from the bottom - while still allowing the grain to be 'free' inside the bag (when lifting the bag from the top would compress the grain) - it would be essentially the same as raising the bag off the exposed element in a traditional BIAB setup.
(The Zap-Pap 'false bottom' is has many holes drilled into a first bucket that drains into the second, and since the 'false bottom' is spread all across the base of the bucket there is no single point channeling.)

 

[Markbeer]

Clear wort does not equal clear beer necessarily.

Cloudy wort does not necessarily mean cloudy beer.

Certain yeasts can produce clearer beer and fall out better.

Are you using whirfloc properly? And letting it sit for long enough after the boil?

Are you using finings once fermentation is complete?

This gives me the clear beer coupled with continual cold conditioning once carbed.

Who says BIAB makes cloudy/hazy beer?

If you measure your efficiencies at each step then you will learn more about your system.

Lautering is done between mash tun & kettle. Clearer wort = clearer beer.



Lucky You!



How are you losing 6l in the kettle?!? BIAB can give great conversion efficiency in the mash tun because you can grind up your grain very fine. It also gives you a lot of haze, which is what I object to, and good deal of loss in the grains unless you sparge them, which will end up giving you even more haze, unless you've recirculated on an undisturbed grain bed, it which case you're pretty much doing the same thing as me anyway. I'm not sure where I was referring to increased efficiency, but I don't bother to measure the efficiency of each step, just the final result once it's cooled and in the fermenter. I leave about three and half litres in the lauter tun (including grain absorption and just under litre in the kettle, but I'm only doing 14L batches. The losses in the lauter tun are minimal, as when I stop sparging runnings are ~1.012, so it's bugger all in terms of lost sugar.

 

[freezkat]

Fosters is really clear :icon_cheers:

 

[Markbeer]

True, I only clear my beer as some look down on a cloudy beer.

I prefer a better taste myself.

Fosters is really clear :icon_cheers:

 

[mikesnothere]

From what I can tell, you're using the the siphon hose (or fermentor-tap) to drain the filtered wort, but that gives only a single drain-point.
(First picture here: http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-2.html )
Using multiple drain-points (subsequent pictures in link above) or better yet a raised/false bottom would reduce the chance of channeling down to a single point (or down the bucket walls) and would increase sparge-efficiency.

Something as simple as a cake rack placed in the bottom of the fermentor, would lift the bag from the bottom - while still allowing the grain to be 'free' inside the bag (when lifting the bag from the top would compress the grain) - it would be essentially the same as raising the bag off the exposed element in a traditional BIAB setup.
(The Zap-Pap 'false bottom' is has many holes drilled into a first bucket that drains into the second, and since the 'false bottom' is spread all across the base of the bucket there is no single point channeling.)

Ok, I get you know. The bag is suspended about halfway down into the bucket, thus creating the effect of a false bottom.