Anyone ever empty the soggy grist and put the bag back in for the boil to catch hops and other trub? Not sure how well these nylon bags hold up above mash rest temps. Thinkin it might be a nice way to fully utilize hop additions without all the mess in the fermenter.
They are temperature rated to 230° probably be fine.
No different from using a hop spider. The bags hold up just fine in the boil–but make sure the bottom of the bag doesn’t rest on the bottom surface of the kettle, otherwise it could melt/scorch.
I have done it but I don’t recommend it. The bag I have is from brewinabag.com and is designed to be safe for boil. I wanted to use the bag as a spider and it worked for that, but the bubbles from the boil pushed the bag up constantly. The bag was bubbling up and folding over and hops were crawling up the sides of the bag and not staying in the wort. The beer turned out fine, so no real loss, but it was annoying. Lately, I sanitize the bag and just pour the wort through it to remove the hop matter. That works okay, but not great. The filter part works but the hops slow the flow through the bag which adds a few minutes to the transfer from kettle to fermenter at a time when the wort temp is cool and susceptible to infection.
I bought a 400 micron bag for this. I found my other 200 micron bag clogged and drained really slow due to the hops in the bag.
One last thing, neither the 200 or 400 micron bag filters hot and cold break material. That flows right through. The bags just filter hops.
I’m thinking about trying this and and leaving my whirlpool arm (Spincycle from Brewhardware in place. Should keep things from popping up too much. Do you use whirlfloc/irish moss? I wonder if that’d help with the hot break/cold break.
I use whirlfloc. But, with my brew process the break from Whirlfloc often seems to show up in the fermenter. I usually chill to about 85-90F in the summer and then transfer to the fermenter and place in my fermentation chamber to cool to pitch temp. Maybe if placed the kettle in the fermentation chamber and chilled to pitch temp that would help. I am not sure.
I always give my worts a settling period in the kettle after chilling and before transferring to the FV. I don’t sweat some trub in the fermenter, but I will say that I always get crystal clear wort into the fermenter. I achieved this simply by extending the settling time from 30 min to 60 min. I don’t whirlpool. Maybe you just need to give your worts more time to settle.
As a side note, and not to derail this, and to each their own, but those whirlpool arms are mostly useless. If you’re looking to whirlpool, all it takes is a gentle rotational stirring for 10-20 seconds with a sanitized spoon. Keep in mind the trub pile doesn’t begin to form until the whirlpooling stops.
I wouldn’t say they’re worthless. I use the whirlpool arm to ensure the second runnings of wort is added from mash tun to the boil kettle below the first runnings liquid level to reduce splashing. (I use a hose to run it to the bottom of the boil kettle for the first runnings.)
Also, I remove the hot water from my HERMS vessel, add cool tap water, then circulate my hot wort thru the HERMS to chill, then back into the kettle via a whirlpool arm. The whirlpool arm stirs the wort for me to mix the hot and cooled wort. I have to change the water a few times and add ice to the HERMS vessel in the end but it works great and I eliminated a piece of equipment from my process (copper immersion chiller).
After it’s chilled I do allow the trüb to settle before draining to a fermenter. That give me cleanup time so once it’s in the fermenter all I have left to clean is the kettle. I use the hot water from the HERMS vessel for that.
Sure, a WP arm would work for that, fair point (but so does plain ol’ silicone tubing). I guess my point was, if all you’re looking to do is create a whirlpool, an arm is a totally unnecessary piece of equipment; a long spoon and 10 seconds of stirring works just as well, plus it’s simpler and cheaper.
Good to know. I hadn’t thought of that.
I tried re-circulating into the brew bag (120 micron) during a 4oz hopstand a couple weeks ago and basically ended up with a bag of hot wort. It really didn’t want to drain afterwards. Maybe I’ll go back to the spider. I don’t seem to get the same flavor/aroma as I do with free-ranging the pellets but also don’t end up with clogged poppets/spigots when transferring.
Always a trade off I guess 
I’ve seen a lot of British homebrewers use a BIAB for hops. They close the bag and clamp it to the side of the kettle.
Whirlpool arms are not worthless, but definitely have their drawbacks. I find that the whirlpool helps most to get the hops into the center so they don’t plug up my drain valve. Using a bag for the hops also takes care of that. The whirlpool is about a draw for break material. Without a whirlpool I get large chunks of break material that will settle out rapidly. The whirlpool breaks these up into smaller pieces that take longer to settle. The whirlpool arm helps improve the efficiency of an immersion chiller by keeping the wort moving during the cooling. If you have the patience to stand there and jiggle the chiller during the whole cooling process you can achieve the same thing without disturbing the large chunks of break material (until you pull the chiller out).
Unless you are using an immersion chiller and WP while running the chiller. Lot faster chill time.
Definitely
This was my big reason for grabbing it. Lets me clean up, sanitize fermenters, etc. while I’m chilling.
Hmm… it must work OK then. Maybe them mesh on my brew bag is just too small to drain adequately. I think it was labled as “fine mesh”, whatever that means. I picked up a 250 micron bag from Amazon the other day. Maybe it will work better (as tommymorris suggested, thanks). The mesh certainly looks bigger than my other one. The stuff I’ve had to dig out of my clogged poppet during transfer (free-range hop stand/dry hop) was green flaky stuff, so pretty sure it was hop matter and not protiens or hot break.
I thought the whole idea of a BIAB set up was to help reduce clean up. After reading this thread I believe I was mistaken…
I think some of your concern is caused by “Term Definition Creep”.
BIAB is normally refers to mashing grain in a bag and is used to simplifying the process of sparging/brewing overall. It is an alternative to Fly sparging and Batch Sparging as all of these are mashing techniques. Easier cleanup is a side benefit. Personally, I batch sparge.
In the previous comments it sounds like BIAB is referring to containing the hops in a bag during the boil. I do this using a 5Gal Paint Straining Bag and a hop spider. The straining bag is the size of a 5 gallon bucket so the hops have room to spread out and move around, while still being easy to remove without too much stuff left in my brew kettle. Packing the hops too tight in a bag during the boil can limit your hop utilization so the big bag is good compromise between a bag and just dumping the hops in.
Hope that helps.
Paul
I think some confusion has arisen in the use of the BIAB as a boil filter, as well as a mash liner. The BIAB folks state on their website that both uses work well. Personally, I line my mash tun with a 400 micron bag whenever I am mashing and regardless of whether I am recirculating or batch sparging. I also occasionally use the bag (whether 400 micron or 200 micron) as a hop spider substitute to allow for more free flow of hop pellets in the boil. Clean up is pretty easy with the bag, but it does represent an additional item that must be rinsed out (twice if using the same bag for both mash and boil filter). The key is that any heat source must be avoided by suspending the bag above the bottom of the kettle or mash tun. The mash tuns I have all incorporate a false bottom or basket insert, so those are fine; as to the boil, I just clamp it to the kettle such that the bottom of the bag is above the bottom of the kettle. Easy peasy. Cheers!
I suppose, I could see some benefit to clean up. Using a bag, I don’t have grain husks floating around everywhere and stuck to everything. I’m using an Anvil Foundry with perforated mash pipe. The first few times I used it, I got a few stuck mashes and the recirc would just overflow the mash pipe. After putting a bag in there (as suggested by @Narvin on this forum) I haven’t had a stuck mash since.
Another thing I like with the bag is I can twist it up around a 2x2 to pull it out of the mash pipe and this allows for squeezing more of the wort out of the mash after it’s been draining for 10 minutes or so.