I am trying the Brew in a Bag for the 1st time, brewing up a Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter. I am an all grain brewer and brew on a 3 tier setup but it is a pain to take to our clubs group brews so I thought that I would give the BIAB a chance and see how it goes using just my keggle, and if it works out I will cut down on all the crap I have to lug to the group brew days.
Wow, I have to research how to do that.
I hope to include BIAB in the talk I’m giving at NHC this summer. I’ve never tried it, so I’d appreciate hearing about technique and results from anyone who’s used it.
Well I over shot my pre boil volume by 1 1/2 gallons so I had to do a 2 hour boil, but man is is alot easier than using the MT and HLT and transfering all the liquid around. So now on my next batch I will adjust my water by about 1 1/2 gallons, I thought that I accounted for the dead space in the MT and grain absorption(it was a lot less because you let the bag drain) but I guess I didn’t.
How difficult is it to lift this bag out of the wort? How big of a batch?
You should give it a try.
I mean to try it as well at some point but not before the HNC.
Kai
Yeah, I should and I intend to. I just don’t know if I’ll have time before NHC, either.
I’m in the final stages of getting my biab setup going. I’ll be sure to post some info once it is done
You can do a small batch like this guy to try it out: http://brewing.lustreking.com/articles/stovetopallgrain.html
I did a 6 gallon batch with 16# of grain and it was not bad getting the bag out of the keggle but it was a little messy, so once I got the bag out I let it drain into a 5 gallon bucket and then put the wort back into the brew pot. The only other difficult part of this was making sure all the grain was wet and no dough balls, it is alittle hard to tell if there is any dry spots.
Seems a little unwieldy to me. That’s my main concern- deadlifting a steaming hot ball of grain out of scalding wort at arm’s length like a humongous tea-bag. :o
A hoist comes to mind.
Dbbfrewing, do you think it is worth doing on a regular basis?
This was the 1st time I did it, so I plan on using the BIAB method again. Our club has a group brew on the 27th so I plan on trying this again and see how it works again. I never touched the hot part of the bag just the top( it was the largest grain bag that the LHBS has like 18" X 32") and had the mash spoon under it.
Denny, do you want to borrow my engine hoist? ;D
Did you check to see what kind of efficiency you got?
I have a 7 gallon and a 4 gallon brew pot, I figure using the second pot for a BIAB sparge I should be able to get 70%+ efficiency. With two pots I would be able to use two burners on the stove to get my wort up to temp for winter indoor brewing. Additionally grains would be more manageable and I wouldn’t have to clean my lauter tun which can be a pain in the ass over the sink.
The only major downside I see is getting too many solids (protein, grain powder etc) in the wort that would be filtered through a set grain bed. That and larger beers would require a good size rig for draining the bag.
Actually as I think about it, a custom lauter tun shaped strainer bag would save a little bit of cleanup time…
Chances are you’ll get 70-80% efficiency even w/o the sparge step.
Kai
What bag or material is being used? Its amazing how the wheels of progress turn so slowly sometimes, a year or two ago the Aussie’s did this and everybody sorta scoffed at it. They were also doing grain conditioning long before it was considered by homebrewers in the US. I think when they first started mentioning BIAB, a guy had a site showing the bag he used and it was some sort of curtain material like you would find in the sewing or craft department stores and they sewed their own bags? Is there something else out there available, even large bags made of very fine woven material? Perhaps the large fine mesh bags offered on some of the sites like NB are fine and strong enough.
This is a really good thread for biab info: Beer Forum • View topic - How to go from Extract to AG for < $10.00
I got my fabric at a fabric store, it is called “swiss voile” or similar for about $10.
In addition to biab, the Australians have also pioneered the “no chill” method. You basically transfer the wort into a “jerry can” or other suitable container right after the boil without chilling. You would let wort cool overnight and pitch the next day. Some of them even store the wort and pitch several weeks or months later.
I think that biab + nochill would really save time and would greatly reduce the equipment required to move to AG. Most of the “potential problems” have already been debunked on various forums and many of the naysayers have no real experience with these “new” methods.
Thanks anyway, David, but I think I’ll just do a small batch…like maybe a 16 oz. batch! 
OK but you’ll never make into the Tim the Toolman Taylor Club like that. :-\
I’ve been experimenting with the no-chill and it seems to work fine for me, you can even see the break material at the bottom. I don’t transfer from the BK… just leave it there to chill overnight. Is the swiss voile priced at $10 per yard or is that to make the entire bag?
dean-
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose leaving it there in the BK? My understanding is that the scalding wort sanitizes the fermenter/container first. I’ve wondered about if this actually matters. Confidence in one’s sanitation and then a huge pitch of yeast and it would be OK?