Had a bit of a setback yesterday when I attempted to brew my first all grain BIAB. I thought I was going to save time by trying a smaller 2 gallon brew. The day was just as long and I only ended up with ~1.25 gallons of beer. All of the preparation, cleaning, etc. was enough for me to say “screw it”.
I’m really re-evaluating whether or not I want to brew again.
Small batches really don’t save much time other then less or smaller gear to clean after. I do it so I can brew indoors on hot and humid days. another plus is low investment in ingredients on something that might not work out as well as I hope.
And don’t give up. Try to find a brew buddy nearby that can help you. It took dozen or two batches before I could autopilot through a brew day. Even now I screw up from time to time. Screw ups can mostly be attributed to drinking during the brew day or forgetting to buy something.
When we moved out here I forgot that I needed a new nipple for my ball valve in my keggle. Didn’t figure that out until I was ready to sparge.
What problems did you run into other than low volume of finished product? Lots of people here that can help you trouble shoot your day
Learn to Homebrew day is coming up Nov 1st. Maybe you can join in with a group near you to see how a typical homebrew day goes before you decide to “screw it.”
I’ve had a number of set backs but just keep plugging away and getting more experienced and (hopefully) better with each batch. And I’m sure many of us on the forum can say the same thing.
I can remember many brewdays ending in cursing and once actually throwing my kettle out into the woods late at night in utter frustration. Somehow I always ended up coming back.
IMO you’d be better to make a larger batch and to water it down, different yeast, etc to turn it into multiple batches. Same amount of time yields multiple batches.
Well they were mostly due to my poor planning. At the risk of this sounding like whining, I’ll highlight a few things…
-The grain bag I bought was far too small to fit around the kettle
-squeezing the remaining wort from the grain bag took a long time and scorched my hands
-had a brain fart when it came to my hop schedule
-ended up with a ton of trub in my fermenters
I realize this sounds like not an enormous day, but I set out for a quick day with minimal cleanup and ended up working on this for 5 or so hours.
I gave this a try because I was never really jazzed about the taste of my extract beers. At the end of the day, I think my frustration stems from the fact that I want my home-brew to taste as good as my favorite commercial beers which they haven’t so far.
I think everyone can agree that your first all grain brew day is going to be a head ache, unless you take it slow and steady and read every step from your notes. That doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a “fast” brew day, but it will help eliminate errors. I have been doing all grain for about 6 batches so far and really am still trying to dial in my system, and now have a bigger kettle to figure out as well. We will see how next weekend’s Dunkel turns out, fingers crossed.
I’m not sure why anyone would mess with BIAB when batch sparging is so much more effective and even seems easier.
Hang in there - it gets easier and a lot more fun. And I agree on the batch sparging route to get started - get that down and then decide if BIAB would make things easier.
I’m curious, how much total water did you use on this batch? And did you take a gravity reading? Maybe grain absorption and other volume losses weren’t factored in and you ended up with lower volume/higher gravity. If that’s the case maybe you can still salvage this batch by topping it off.
It just takes some practice to get everything dialed in, but once you do it becomes really easy and you can start looking for ways to cut down on time. Give it another go next weekend!
After fly sparging for years, I can’t imagine anything easier than batch sparging.
At the risk of offending those that BIAB, I agree. I really wanted it to be as easy as everybody says, but after I tried it 3 times I decided that it just wasn’t for me.
With some more practice you will be making beers even better than some of your favorite commercial examples. I’ve got an APA on tap now that is better than any commercial APA I have recently had. I am quite proud of it. I wish I had made more than 10 gallons.
I see the big appeal of being able to mash and boil in the same pot. I also have two different Cheap and Easy coolers to mash in, so I don’t think I would try it. I’m sure it seems easy to someone who’s only done extract with steeped grains.
I see the “one pot” thing often put forth as a reason for BIAB. But as far as I can figure out, that means you’re doing no sparge. You can do no sparge with a cooler, too, and only use one Pot. Although you do have the mash tun to add in. But for either method, if you want to sparge you’ll need another pot.
Or buckets.
The big appeal to me is for small batches. I already have a 45 and 70 quart denny-tuns and wanted to avoid adding a third 12-16 quart for 1-2.5 gallon stove top batches. Sadly, I find myself wanting to add the third cooler after a handful of BIAB. Nothing majorly wrong with it m, just really like the results of batch sparging.
Don’t get frustrated brother. Just figure out what the issue(s) were and fix them for the next brew.
I agree, it’s a very viable method for small batches indoors.
This^^^^. A friend has told me that the most valuable brewing advice I ever gave him was “so you screwed up…you’re not an idiot. Deal with it!”