Who invented BIAB?

[Bizier]

Cheers Pat, you are always welcome. Post was a little short though.

 

[S.E]

Hey there fellas :icon_cheers: ,

Received a heads up on this thread yesterday and have enjoyed the read. Thanks very much for remembering me. I do really appreciate it and wish that teleporting was the go so as I could drop in and have a beer with a few of you that have posted here but I haven't seen for ages since moving states etc. Still looking forward to another QLD Swap and, hopefully one day, the Sydney Pub Crawl.

Regarding the question asked in this thread, I think a few of the original 'BIAB' threads/posts have already been posted. This one was meant to be continually updated to give the right people the right credit but around that time, the ability to edit posts was discontinued. Many people helped or contributed to BIAB. James Squire asked the right question for a start. Ross told me the material to get. AndrewQLD did a full volume mash on his traditional equipment. This encouraged me to do a few single vessel tests. hashie and jimmysuperlative read and advised me on a lot of material I initially wrote and they still help me now. mimeryberg was another really helpful brewer and he's from Germany if I remember rightly. Screwtop did come up with the BIAB name and many others were super helpful or valuable.

There's probably a few myths that need dispelling in this "history" thread. The first myth is that everyone was against BIAB, especially three-vessel brewers. That isn't true at all. Almost all of the original encouragement and investigation of BIAB came from existing three-vessel brewers. In those days the culture here was open-minded and investigative which was great. A year or so later the culture changed a bit and went through some quite wild stages but very few members here with any credibility made any attempts to discourage BIAB. Some of those people though did cost the whole site a lot of time and trouble, so much so, that I think quite a few people gave up on the site. I personally haven't even read here for a very long time. I am really pleased to see that this thread has 79 posts all of which are constructive, positive or humourous. I honestly thought those days were over. Very nice to see :icon_cheers:.

The next problem in this thread probably is a terminology one. As alluded to here already, BIAB, to us here on AHB at least, was more about single vessel, full-volume mashing than brewing in a bag. Was David Line's stuff focused on that? I'd love to know more on this - seriously. From the posts above, it sounds like, some of it at least, was.

What I've been working on...

I know some of you guys wanted an old-style PP essay. Who am I not to oblige?

Pretty much all of the the work I have been doing over the last few years on BIABrewer.info has been spent on the most basic building blocks of brewing. I never envisioned how hard this would be or how long it would take.

...

Apologies. I did actually have a whole essay written just above on terminology, software, formulas and people and just lost the whole lot. You might be able to imagine how I'm feeling about losing that. (Sorry stux, you had a mention there.)

...

Anyway, thanks once again for the thinking of me,
Pat

Hi Pat

Thanks for dropping in and clearing up those points. Regarding your question on Dave Line’s method he illustrates 3 methods of mashing. 1 “using a boiling pan or Dixie”. 2 “using brewing boiler” (the purpose built single vessel Bruheat or Thorn Electrim Bin). 3 “Floating Mash Tun”.

In C.J.J Berry’s Home Brewed Beers & Stouts one of the methods described and illustrated is using the Bruheat single vessel. The main difference with your method seems to be the no sparge.

Line and Berry both sparged. Berry sparged by supporting the grain bag on a rod between the sink and a chair then sprayed with hot water from a watering can, he showed an alternative way of sparging using a sieve and jug.

Cheers Sean

 

[S.E]

Here are some pics of UK brewing equipment I picked up from car boot sales before I left. The Electrim Bin is a single vessel Kettle/Mash tun with a thermostat.

 

[mash head]

Who invented it? Who cares and who will ever really know But Pat and others here definitely brought the technique to the masses and for that they deserve credit. I am sure the LHBS wouldn't be doing half the business if it weren't for BIABers.
Either way I would like to thank Pat and others for promoting the technique. If I hadn't found this forum years ago I would still be trying to refine a complicated 3v system and not concentrating on the important issues of getting my recipe right. It showed me a very cheep entry level into all grain brewing that I was looking for at the time and I havnt looked back (except for the odd experiment with a kit).

 

[Yob]

Hey there fellas :icon_cheers: ,

....


Anyway, thanks once again for the thinking of me,
Pat

Ive got the Big Book of Brewing at home, I'll grab it tonight and scan a couple of the relevant pages. From memory it like a Birko setup or some such...

regardless, cudos on all the experimentation and refinement is certainly due to yourself and those you also mention..

:icon_cheers:

 

[S.E]

Ive got the Big Book of Brewing at home, I'll grab it tonight and scan a couple of the relevant pages. From memory it like a Birko setup or some such...

regardless, cudos on all the experimentation and refinement is certainly due to yourself and those you also mention..

:icon_cheers:

The Dave line book I have is “Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy” not The Big Book Of Brewing that he wrote earlier so I don’t know what he used in Big Book Of Brewing.

Unless I have missed something else the only refinement is skipping the step of raising the grain bag above the brew pot and sparging with a few litres of water.

The main contribution I think Pat has made is writing a lot of information on this old home brew method and spreading the word on the internet making it easily available.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Mmmmmm..Bucket of Death

 

[S.E]

Brewing Bruheat bitter, C.J.J Berry.

View attachment scan0001.pdf

 

[S.E]

Mmmmmm..Bucket of Death

Yep. I was going to post a pic of this years ago when I read a Bucket o Death thread but decided it wasn’t worth the headache of replying to all that were so against the idea. It’s just like a large electric kettle with a tap instead of a pouring spout (and an adjustable thermostat).

 

[Howlingdog]

Both "The Big Book of Brewing" and "Brewing Beers Like You Buy" are available from the BABB's library for members. However, as they are over 10 years old they are not brought to meetings unless requested. If BABB's members want these books please email the librarian before the meeting.

HD

 

[PistolPatch]

Cheers Pat, you are always welcome. Post was a little short though.

Lol! Thanks Biz. I should have left that post for Monday I think. Had already written a lot on Sunday and by the time I got to here had rewarded myself with a few beers. Lucky I lost half the post - interesting stuff for me but probably would have bored the hell out of everyone else :blink:.

Thanks for the other posts too and for the further info on the UK methods - much appreciated. Some great pics and posts there Sean. Is it correct to say that all these methods recommended some sort of 'active' sparge?

:icon_cheers:
Pat

 

[S.E]

Yes Pat that is correct, some sort of sparge was always recommended. I either pulled the bag out of the Electrim Bin hung it over my fermenter and drained the wort through the grain, set the thermostat and heated the sparge water in the Electrim. Or Just lifted the grain bag above the Electrim and sparged with water heated in a saucepan. So technically I suppose it wasn’t a single vessel system as a separate fermenter or saucepane was needed.

With your system did you mash at full volume then remove the grain bag and proceed to boil without sparging or recirculating?

Cheers Sean

 

[AndrewQLD]

Yes Pat that is correct, some sort of sparge was always recommended. I either pulled the bag out of the Electrim Bin hung it over my fermenter and drained the wort through the grain, set the thermostat and heated the sparge water in the Electrim. Or Just lifted the grain bag above the Electrim and sparged with water heated in a saucepan. So technically I suppose it wasn’t a single vessel system as a separate fermenter or saucepane was needed.

With your system did you mash at full volume then remove the grain bag and proceed to boil without sparging or recirculating?

Cheers Sean

I think your getting bogged down with the "who invented BIAB" question, it's been agreed by just about everyone posting here that Australia didn't invent mashing using a bag.
I am pretty sure this post here answered your question above.

A fair bit of testing went into looking at efficiencies with the method including the effects of full volume mashing on final wort as opposed to sparging, mash ph at full volume, crush size and efficiency ect.
From memory Dave Line used the bag more as a straining device and sparged as well.
The BIAB method that Pistol Patch and many others worked on was for a full volume mash with no sparging required and the main idea was to be able to use only one vessel for the whole process rather than having multiple vessels to do the job.

 

[S.E]

I think your getting bogged down with the "who invented BIAB" question, it's been agreed by just about everyone posting here that Australia didn't invent mashing using a bag.
I am pretty sure this post here answered your question above.

I’m not getting bogged down with the "who invented BIAB" question at all though it hasn’t been established that Australia didn't invent mashing using a bag, no one posting so far knows where it was first used. It may well have been Australia.

I was answering Pats Question regarding sparging, and also pointing out that the UK method was not actually single vessel as a separate fermenter or saucepan was required.

As far as I can see the only difference is the no sparge. I am having trouble getting my head around what the advantage of not sparging is though.

Cheers Sean

 

[mje1980]

I've read elsewhere that BIAB was invented in Australia. Does anyone know its origins? How long ago did you first hear about it? I'm thinking it probably developed out of the Bew-In-A-Dustbin method, but wondering if any old-timers out there have any info on this.

I don't think S.E is getting bogged down. More like contributing some pretty useful info relating to this thread.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I am having trouble getting my head around what the advantage of not sparging is though.

Cheers Sean

Simplicity I think. And I think that's where Pat's contribution is being lauded in this instance - because he bothered to do the prototyping and research to convert an older English method into a newer, more measurable method, that fits the 'single vessel' mould. The no-sparge thing is (and I'm not a no-sparger) is designed to minimise time and effort and the bottleneck where a stuff up could occur.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Possibly I am misunderstanding the several last posts that you have made S.E, it just seems that you continually reference books that you have referenced 4 pages ago and I took that as you trying to "prove" that BIAB was invented in England, and as I said above we all pretty much agree with that.
Apologies for misunderstanding.

 

[PistolPatch]

Yes Pat that is correct, some sort of sparge was always recommended.

Thanks for your reply Sean. I think this is the real key and is the point that Andrew was hoping to highlight.

Like so much of brewing terminology, the term, 'brew in a bag,' in hindsight, is quite ambiguous. While BIAB has a nice ring to it, a far better description would be something ridiculously long like, "Full volume mashing with a passive sparge in a single hard vessel". The key feature of the BIAB we originally intended is that the sparge is what can be regarded as a passive one - it is done at the same time as the mash and for this reason, only one vessel and one heat source is needed.

This leads on to...

As far as I can see the only difference is the no sparge. I am having trouble getting my head around what the advantage of not sparging is though.

Being able to remove two 'hard' vessels and one, sometimes two, heat sources as well as a pump or two gravity tiers is a major convenience of course. I think however you might be thinking that there is some sort of disadvantage in not doing an active sparge. One thing that many people believe is that not doing an active sparge will somehow lower your kettle efficiency. It doesn't. On simultaneous side by sides i identical kettles we have found no difference. Assuming time, temp, pH etc are the same, the key to kettle efficiency is actually how much water comes into contact with the grain rather than when it comes into contact.

The concept of an active sparge not being necessary can be a hard thing to come to grips with psychologically. In some ways it does not seem intuitive. For example, when we wash our clothes in the washing machine, the 100 litres or so that is used in the wash is split between a wash (mash) cycle and then several rinses (sparge) and spins (lauters). Why? Well, if all 100 litres were used at the start, the washing machine and its motor would need to be massive. In brewing, we have the same cycles except our spin cycle is nothing like the aggressive spin of a washing machine, it is just a slow drain. If your clothes washing machine just had a slow drain, your clothes (grain) will be cleaned just as well whether you add the water in one hit or in stages.

All this means that over the last few years, we've done a lot of work (stus did heaps) on creating formulas that auto-estimate your kettle efficiency for you. These work for both BIAB and traditional brewing. You can see this auto-efficiency formula working in the pre-release version of the BIABacus which also includes lots of other auto-estimates such as trub and evaporation to make things super easy. The file is only in a spreadsheet form but playing with it over a beer or two should enable you to see some of these interesting features working. (I think you still have to register to get that file but that only takes a sec.)

One final thing that might be worth noting is that there is a big diferene between the brewing technique of "no-sparging" and that of pure BIAB which is "passive sparging". The best way I have of explaining this is in this series of 'Sweet Liquor Shop' posts...

Sweet Liquor Shop 1
Sweet Liquor Shop 2
Sweet Liquor Shop 3

I think those three posts might help here a lot. Fingers crossed ,
Pat

 

[Pickaxe]

AHB was always the bastion of (seemingly) knowledgeable all grain brewers who were talking all kinds of craziness about 'salts' and 'pH' and sprinkling German words throughout their posts.

Sounds like a haven for nazi war criminals trying to replicate das nectar of das Fatherland!

Tausend Jahre Reinheitsgebot!!!!!!!!

 

[MastersBrewery]

woah, another top post PP, I never did go over all the original BIAB posts, my first all grain I followed Nicks guide. I never really got down to the nitty gritty of how and why, hell it made beer! That first DSGA was awesome. As I had already had started collecting bits and pieces for my rig, I just went along my merry way. I now have a full blown 3V cappable of doubles with pumps and chiller, after 8 batches with this I find I'm still dialing in and fine tuning some things.

Has me wondering: time, space, cleaning, ease of consistency, maybe I should have done what Crusty did and just got a crown Urn h34r: