Burning your bag in BIAB?

[thatgeekguy]

A stainless or chrome plated cake cooling rack or steamer rack works great for keeping the bag off the bottom, that’s what I used for my first BIAB kettle. My new kettle is a 15 gal Blichmann, I found a chrome plated replacement grill at Bass Pro Shops that fits the kettle perfectly and sits on the stepped bottom lip in place of the false bottom.

[dixonmike20]

@hopfenundmalz

@beersk

@hopfenundmalz

@erockrph

If you don’t heat your kettle during the mash you never have to worry about scorching. Insulating your kettle during the mash should help you keep your heat loss to an acceptable level.

If you’re thinking of doing step mashes with BIAB, I think you’re a lot better off doing it as a separate infusion. Directly heating your kettle during the mash can create hot spots. If you’re worried about scorching your bag you should have the same concerns about the enzymes in your mash as well.

You can apply heat if the grains and bag are not close to the bottom of the kettle. I think the guy in the club recirculates while applying heat. If I make it to the club meeting on Friday I can ask him.

As for the enzymes denaturing, well many in this area do a RIMS approach all of the time with a false bottom and a pump. You just need to be judicious with the heat.

Yes, you will denature enzymes. I had a slew of beers I did with brew in a bag that wouldn’t finish below 1.020, even with lots of healthy yeast, pure o2, and low mash temps. I would stir, but it wasn’t enough, the heat on the bottom of the kettle was much warmer than what my thermometer near the top was reading… and now I know…

That is why the pump comes in handy. You pump from under the false bottom, and have the return coming back submerged in the grainbed. As I said, use judicious heat, not a blast. That way the wort does not get too hot. No problems with that system/technique. If you don’t have a valve to drain/recirculate I do see issues.

+1

If you’re going to heat during the mash, your options are either to stir constantly or recirculate. I recirculate.

Before anyone brings up HSA, I’m convinced it’s a non issue. 1. The pros say it isn’t for homebrewers 2. My club split a batch. One was a normal process. The other had pure oxygen ran for 5 minutes while hot.  The blind testing at the club meeting (150 present) showed no detectable difference. That sealed the deal for me.

[ynotbrusum]

As to HSA, I think you are right, Mike, but isn’t it really a storage issue - i.e., HSA mainly affects the time period that storage can be had before staling sets in?  If so, then to be really meaningful, the test should be side by side over various lengths of time to see the difference (unless your club did long term aging on both samples that were tested).

I’m no Hashimoto, just saying…

[hopfenundmalz]

@ynotbrusum

As to HSA, I think you are right, Mike, but isn’t it really a storage issue - i.e., HSA mainly affects the time period that storage can be had before staling sets in?  If so, then to be really meaningful, the test should be side by side over various lengths of time to see the difference (unless your club did long term aging on both samples that were tested).

I’m no Hashimoto, just saying…

The research was done for long term storage of pale lagers as I remember. Those have little/no darker malts with anti-oxidative properties, and are often filtered so there is no yeast in the package.

Charlie Bamforth says we should not worry about it.

[ynotbrusum]

I agree Jeff.  One of these days I am going to bottles one lagers and see how well they hold up over a longer period of time - my regular crew drinks these kegs as fast as they go on tap (I don’t recall the last time a lager lasted more than 3 weeks on my tap), so there is no staling happening with mine!  And I typically hot side strain through a double mesh colander by just pouring the runnings into the boil kettle, so if HSA were an issue, I sure would think that I would have noticed by now.

Cheers to the BIAB discussion and sorry for the hijack!

[dixonmike20]

@ynotbrusum

I agree Jeff.  One of these days I am going to bottles one lagers and see how well they hold up over a longer period of time - my regular crew drinks these kegs as fast as they go on tap (I don’t recall the last time a lager lasted more than 3 weeks on my tap), so there is no staling happening with mine!  And I typically hot side strain through a double mesh colander by just pouring the runnings into the boil kettle, so if HSA were an issue, I sure would think that I would have noticed by now.

Cheers to the BIAB discussion and sorry for the hijack!

No worries. And Charlie Bamforth is a wealth of knowledge. His studies have really contributed to brewing ans served to disprove many brewing myths…his work on head retention being one.