Normally after I mash and sparge using a bag (I use a BIAB/batch sparge method) I pass the wort through a coarse strainer and remove a bit of the fine material that seeps through the bag but a good bit still makes it into the kettle. Sometimes I’ve taken the time to fine strain everything but it’s a hassle. I’ve read before that grain particles in the boil can cause bad flavors so I was wondering if anyone finely strains their wort after BIAB mash and if anyone knows if fine straining should improve my beers?
i did BIAB for a while and didn’t do any extra straining and was worried about all the extra mash crud so i started recirculating the mash before i transferred to the kettle.
drain wort into a bucket or something and pour it over the mash bed a few times to filter the wort then collect your first runnings into another bucket. Then batch sparge and do the same thing by recirculating it a few times. this is much easier when you have an actual mash tun.
with that said i sill made great beers w/o recalculating the mash… main thing is you don’t want large grain to make it into your boil… use whirlflock in the boil to help coagulate the kettle trube.
The only time I had any astringency issues was one time when I tore a small hole in my bag and several whole husks made it through to the boil. Shortly after that I got a high quality custom bag from http://www.bagbrewer.com/ and I haven’t had any issues since then.
+1 to a better bag. When I BIAB its mostly for ease so I’m loathe to add an extra step and more to clean.
Before I pull my basket I do a quick Vorlauf from my kettle spigot. The first quart or so is usually a bit cloudy then it runs clear after that. I also skim the hot break just prior to boil which may also contain small grain particles. Since I’ve started doing this I see a little clearer wort and a little less trub in the fermenter.
This is exactly why I gave up on BIAB. My fermentors always ended up with a crapload of trub even with sending the wort through a strainer before the fermentor. I never noticed a flavor issue just a significantly larger volume of trub. When brewing one gallon batches in four liter jugs fermentor space is a premium and that excess trub resulted in losing beer to blowoff and losing beer to the excess trub. I’ve since developed a cooler mash tun for these batches and resolved the problem.
I think one of the main problems with more trub in BIAB is the ultra fine crush most people preach to get that higher efficiency. I’ve seen people pulverize their grain almost into flour and brag how they got 90% mash efficiency but then lose a lot to trub in the fermenter. I condition my grain prior to crushing and it helps me grind fine enough without a lot of flour to achieve 80% mash efficiency.
One other thing I have found that helps is cold crashing a few days prior to kegging or bottling, it really helps compact that cake down.
Not to mention all the tannins and undesirables…
The Aussies swear by it. I’m beginning to think they just have terrible palates down under.
I don’t filter and I squeeze the heck out of the bag. As far as the amount of trub, the pellet hops are the big culprit.
I concur with that statement!
Having tried BIAB, and giving my best effort, for me(and the judges) it did not produce the quality of beer I am accustomed to. On average it score 5-10 points lower for the same beer produced by my “normal” methods.
I’ve done four batches with BIAB and so far haven’t noticed any particular issues with taste, but maybe some palates are more sensitive then mine.
I know double crushing or crushing once on a mill with a tiny gap is common for BIAB. I never adopted either of these practices when I did BIAB specifically to avoid excessive trub. I still ended up with an avalanche of trub. I can only imagine how much worse it would be had I adjusted my mill.
I’m guilty of the double crush method. And I do get a lot of trub. That being said I’ve been pretty happy with my brews lately but definitely would jump on an opportunity to potentially improve.
Would simply adding a spigot and a braid to my circular cooler and switching to single crush/batch sparge likely improve my beers?
I use BIAB for almost every batch, but of course, my process is unique. For one thing, I’m only making about 1.7 to 2 gallons per batch. That makes life very much easier. But even when I made bigger batches a few years ago, I followed the same process and it wasn’t too difficult…
I place a large colander over a big plastic bucket. I place the grain bag into the colander. I sit down then carefully and slowly pour the entire mash volume through the grain bed. It takes a good long time, 15-20 minutes. This is how I “recirculate” to eliminate the small particles.
Then I also sparge, the same way.
See, I told you my process is unique. ;D
Lately I’ve begun to experiment with just placing an extra grain bag or two into the colander, and pouring through that instead of pouring through the entire grain bag, so the small particles come out faster. Also incorporate a dunk sparge, and we should be good to go – no small particles, sparged for efficiency… perfect. I should have been doing this for a long time already but just never really thought about it too hard.
There have been a number of other things going on with my process as well. Like mill gap settings. They say “crush till you’re scared”. Well I did that, for many years, and found I can easily get 90+% efficiency this way. However, I believe this comes at the expense of malt flavor intensity, not to mention, stuck sparges. So I have since opened the mill gap. Now I can sparge easier and still get decent efficiency around 80-ish AND get plenty of malt flavors.
But anyway… yeah, I do my own thing. And you can too. We all make good beer. There’s a million ways to do it, and no one’s wrong as long as it all tastes great. 
Thanks dmtaylor, you gave me some other techniques to try.
No filtering or sparging here. I just let bag drain, give a little squeeze, and proceed to the boil. Easy peasy.
I did a 3 gal Helles brew yesterday and vorlaufed 2 gallons through my basket before the boil then I took a fine strainer to the wort after pulling the basket and still had some fine flour looking stuff. The trub looked to be a little less in the bottom of the fermenter than usual so I may stick with this method to see if it makes any difference for me.