Negatives of BIAB?

wilserbrewer said:

I know the temptation to squeeze the bag is overwhelming, but I have found if the bag is simply left to drain, either hanging above the pot, or in a colander while the wort comes to a boil, there is not much left to squeeze at all. Try it, I was surprised how little wort is actually left in the grain if it is just left alone for 20 minutes or so.

Click to expand...

I've been leaving the bag hanging above the pot till it's close to boil temps. Then I squeeze it by sitting on it (Bag in basket and slightly smaller pot slides in) then dump that in the pot. By the time I'm done with the boil & cool, the bag has dripped maybe another couple ounces. I think this backs up the point wilserbrewer made. Maybe a small difference in the end between squeezing and not squeezing.
If you dump the drippage a couple times during the boil, the only question is how long is long enough to boil that last remaining drippage? Since I've been squeezing, and only have a ounce or 2 at the end, I've not bothered with it.

mtnagel said:

I use some old blankets I lose 3-4 degrees over the mash which I think it acceptable. I'm trying to find a cheap jacket or sleeping bag, but haven't yet.

Click to expand...

Check online if there is a Freecycle near you. I see quilts and comforters come up every so often.

Thanks for the reco.

I love messing with equipment, so BIAB is too minimalist for me.

smyrnaquince said:

Check online if there is a Freecycle near you. I see quilts and comforters come up every so often.

Click to expand...

Reflective insulation.... should cost no more than $15-25 tops. Works like a charm.

To me really no negatives at all.

Too much trub? Get a wilserbrewer bag or make your own polyester voile bag.

Too hard to maintain temps? 1 gallon batches wrapped in a towel 5 gallon blankets wrapped in a blanket or old sleeping bag

The ease of doing BIAB for me is that it is just so simple and fast that I got rid off big old mash tun pumps and stand. Just have 3 pots now

The only issue I've ever had with BIAB was when I burnt through the bottom of my bag. It was sitting on the bottom of the kettle when I turned on the heat to raise my temperature after dough-in.

Solution! I bought a 20qt kettle at Kroger for like $20. It was designed to be a tamale steamer I think...either way, it came with pizza pan style "false bottom" that is designed to hold the product off of the water for steaming. For my purposes, it holds my grain bag 2" off the bottom to avoid scorching! It was cheap and wont last very long but still...I love this thing!

I'm only doing 1 gallon batches right now and I've been doing BIAB in a big cast-iron Dutch oven which helps retain the heat during mashing. My pots are small enough for me to probably use the oven to help control temperatures. It has a "warm" setting and the lowest actual cooking temperature is 170, so I want to get an oven thermometer to get actual readings for that. If the readings are near target I might try a batch with that. Get the water to temp and add grains and then transfer to the oven to help hold the temperature. Maybe have it at 170 when I add the pot and then switch it over to beat to help carry the temp.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

d-usa said:

I'm only doing 1 gallon batches right now and I've been doing BIAB in a big cast-iron Dutch oven which helps retain the heat during mashing. My pots are small enough for me to probably use the oven to help control temperatures. It has a "warm" setting and the lowest actual cooking temperature is 170, so I want to get an oven thermometer to get actual readings for that. If the readings are near target I might try a batch with that. Get the water to temp and add grains and then transfer to the oven to help hold the temperature. Maybe have it at 170 when I add the pot and then switch it over to beat to help carry the temp.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Click to expand...

Put a couple quarts of water in your Dutch oven and set it in your oven with it set at "warm". Leave it for an hour and check the water temp. It will be more accurate than an oven thermometer.

Didn't think of that. I will do that this week for both the warm and 170 settings.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

d-usa said:

It has a "warm" setting and the lowest actual cooking temperature is 170, so I want to get an oven thermometer to get actual readings for that.

Click to expand...

!70 degrees is close enough to stabilize your mash temps nicely. I would try simply turning off the oven when placing your mash in the oven. Or maybe turning off the oven 10 - 20 minutes into the mash, or putting the oven on for 10 minutes midway through the mash. Compared to having your kettle at ambient, say 65, anywhere between 140 and 170 will really slow the temp change of your mash!

No need to over think it.

wilserbrewer said:

!70 degrees is close enough to stabilize your mash temps nicely. I would try simply turning off the oven when placing your mash in the oven.

No need to over think it.

Click to expand...

THIS ^^^. When I was mashing/boiling in my kitchen, this is what I did. Set the oven to warm while your water is coming up to temp on the stove top. Once I had the grain mixed in, I'd shut the oven off, pop the pot in, and set my timer for 60min. Worked great.

Ingenious.

Hot, heavy, sticky, messy... I only do 3 gallon batches so I have better control over the hot, heavy, sticky mess..... I much prefer my 3 tier gravity system.

dobe12 said:

Reflective insulation.... should cost no more than $15-25 tops. Works like a charm.

Click to expand...

That's pretty much how I wrapped my pot to do stovetop batches. My electric stove has less heat output than the propane burners most people use, but I get a good, strong boil this way. I boil 4 gallons or so to get 2.5 gallons into bottles.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

I did a 6 gallon, 1078 stout today. Go to the hardware store and get a ratchet pulley for about $15. Makes it super easy.

The key to mash temp is $10 - go to walmart, in the camping section they sell blue foam mats to put under your sleeping bag. Cut to size to wrap around your pot and duct tape the seam. I had enough left over to make a lid cover. I hold temp over an hour in my unheated garage easy.

BIAB brewing. It IS how I brew. I do a lot of barleywine styles, hench my avatar, and I have no trouble reaching high OG using this method. I don't insulate my mash tun, but I am seriously considering going with some of the ideas several folks have posted here. Bravo to the ingenious ideas :rockin:

I brew on a budget, like many of us. I brew using a single 10 gallon stainless pot. It's a Bayou Classic complete with spigot. I mash and boil my wort in this single pot. I mash my grains in the bag and when the mash is complete I open the spigot and drain what I can into a bucket. I then add my hot water back to the pot. I stir it around and drain again. Once this is complete I take the whole pot and bag outside and lift the bad and allow it time to drip drain until I get the gist of it. I empty my grain bag, spray it off and then pour what I had in that bucket back into the pot for the boil.

I always have a lot of trub in my fermentation vessel. But I don't care. My beers are clear and tasty. My efficiency is usually pretty good (I mill my own grain), and whirlfloc tabs are my friend.

It works for me the same as it does for so many others. Who would have thought that you could brew such great all-grain beer without spending more than a few hundred bucks on equipment.

Incredibly Short Version: I brewed in a bag for about a year (2010-2011), then switched to a more traditional homebrewing method and have never looked back.

BIAB Negatives

• Cleaning the fine mesh is something I never successfully mastered.
• You will invariably end up with some grain in the boil, not matter how fine the mesh, leading to barely-detectable undesirable flavors (I never felt I could achieve quite the best possible beer with BIAB).
• To get really efficient with it, you have to build a method to hoist the grains above the kettle to let them drip, which defeats some of the purpose of BIAB (lean and mean).
• There is (or at least was when I did it) a small chance that the mesh will tear under the weight of the grain and wort, resulting in Bad Things That Suck (a big load of grain in your kettle--hope you have backup bags to strain through).

Longer Version
I did Brew in a Bag throughout all of 2010, which equates to ~15 batches. Here's a none-too-brief description of my journey and why I stopped brewing in a bag.

I lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor with a wooden balcony. I wanted--nay, needed--to brew all grain in a confined space, and my stove just wasn't cutting it (nor could I use propane on that balcony).

So I got turned onto two things at once. First was using an electric turkey fryer to heat up my mash water and boil my wort. Way back in... 2010... electric heating elements were not really a thing in homebrewing, so they were hard to find and most would scorch the crap out of your wort if you tried to use them.

The second was an all-grain brewing method that was picking up steam in Australia (I was in Massachusetts, as an aside), and that sounded great. Get a fine mesh bag of a size that no homebrew places carried and I could just mash right in my turkey fryer, pull the bag out, let it drip for a while as I heated up to a boil, and I'd be golden.

Long story short, it mostly worked. Not at first, but after I reduced my batch size to ~3.5 gallons, doubled up on the mesh bags I made for myself (because one of them broke and pretty much ruined the whole experience), and refined my process, I was successfully brewing solid beers in a bag.

Then I moved.

I got a house, I had a deck, I was happy. So I got a propane burner and a kettle. I started pricing out parts to rig up a system to hold my bag for me to let it drip and method by which to filter the bits of grain that would always go through the bag. I resigned myself to just buying craptons of bags because I never found a way to clean them as thoroughly as I liked, and then...

I realized that the cost and process would be just as expensive, arduous, and space-taking as going fully traditional (in a homebrew sense) if I wanted to meet my need (in my mind) for the best possible beer.

So I went more traditional. I stopped with BIAB.

And I have never looked back.

Brewing with a discreet mash tun and boil kettle is no harder than brewing in a bag, and clean-up seems to be simpler for my process. I get more predictable results and have decided that it's the way I like to brew.

BIAB is great in certain situations, and it's an awesome way to get started with all-grain brewing (especially in small batches) without a significant monetary commitment.

If you love it and your process works for you, awesome. For me, maybe I'll mess with it again some day now that homebrew shops support the practice, but I like brewing the way I do now.

Hop said:

Incredibly Short Version: I brewed in a bag for about a year (2010-2011), then switched to a more traditional homebrewing method and have never looked back.

BIAB Negatives

• Cleaning the fine mesh is something I never successfully mastered. I'm not sure how. Just rinse it out well, let it dry then shake the rest of the dried bits of grain out.
• You will invariably end up with some grain in the boil, not matter how fine the mesh, leading to barely-detectable undesirable flavors (I never felt I could achieve quite the best possible beer with BIAB). True, maybe a few bits here and there, but not enough to effect any flavors, IMO. Lots of BIAB'ers out there and this is the first time I ever heard of this issue.
• To get really efficient with it, you have to build a method to hoist the grains above the kettle to let them drip, which defeats some of the purpose of BIAB (lean and mean). Strainer.... done.
• There is (or at least was when I did it) a small chance that the mesh will tear under the weight of the grain and wort, resulting in Bad Things That Suck (a big load of grain in your kettle--hope you have backup bags to strain through). Again, first time I ever heard of this. I guess with enough weight it's a possibility, but I've mashed up to 18lbs of grain w/water, it's quite heavy and never had a bag tear. Again, just my observations.

[

Click to expand...

Just my thoughts.

If you don't want to mess with bags there is another option, stainless steel mesh basket. I have a couple dozen batches under my belt with my 400 micron basket and it works great.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

wobdee said:

If you don't want to mess with bags there is another option, stainless steel mesh basket. I have a couple dozen batches under my belt with my 400 micron basket and it works great.View attachment 183140


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Click to expand...

Where do you find those? Seems like an awesome idea.

^^ My guess is a guy here named Chad. Check out his sight here. (link).


He's got some pretty cool brewing stuff.

The only negatives I can think of are the ones other posters have already mentioned....a heavy bag of grain to lift and having to clean that bag. It's not too big of a deal, but I plan on getting one of Chad's baskets like Wobdee's setup.

Besides that, BIAB has been the only way I brew. I am leaning toward a traditional 3V system, because I too like to tinker. For now, if anything, I may do a combo of the two methods, use a cooler to "mash in a bag" and then just drain the wort to my boil kettle.

Yesfan said:

^^ My guess is a guy here named Chad. Check out his sight here. (link).


He's got some pretty cool brewing stuff.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's where I got mine. Also purchased a couple hop baskets for the kettle and dry hopping. Chad makes quality stuff.

Yesfan said:

...For now, if anything, I may do a combo of the two methods, use a cooler to "mash in a bag" and then just drain the wort to my boil kettle.

Click to expand...

I'm of a similar mind. I use a bag with more traditional brewing methods. The bag takes the place of a false bottom, eliminates stuck spares, and allows for a finer crush which leads to shorter mash times. And, personal preference, I thinks its a quicker cleanup too. Its a great example of a engineered solution for those problems.

I didn't feel like reading all the pages so maybe this has been covered. I have only done four or five AG batches, all have been BIAB. The only downside I think I may face in the future (I don't intending on graduating from BIAB for a while) is if I want to do a REALLY big beer with 15+ LBS of grain. I have a really nice bag called "the brew bag". It was like $30 at the LHBS but completely worth it. It has a really fine mesh, straps that run through the bag, and loops at the top of the straps to grab the bag by. It is plenty strong for anything I could throw at it but simply lifting and draining 12lbs of grain is a pain, nevertheless 15+.

As far as maintaining mash temp, I preheat my oven to 170 degrees (the lowest setting it has) turn the oven off, and throw my boil kettle that I mash in in the oven. On a 90 minute mash I only lose about a degree of mash temp.

I brew 10 gallon batches with 20-30 lbs of grain in a keggle routinely. My solution is to use two bags hanging next to each other. Pull them one at a time and the weight is negligible. As far as problems washing bags, little bits of grain, torn bags, etc. I'm going to have to agree with dobe12 on those points. My only complaint after 2.5 years and a few hundred gallons of beer is too much trub. Not a big impediment but would be nice to have less. I do double crush at my LHBS so I get a lot of flour. I will probably try a traditional setup soon but I'm not convinced I'm going to be sold on it.

MikePote said:

I didn't feel like reading all the pages so maybe this has been covered. I have only done four or five AG batches, all have been BIAB. The only downside I think I may face in the future (I don't intending on graduating from BIAB for a while) is if I want to do a REALLY big beer with 15+ LBS of grain. I have a really nice bag called "the brew bag". It was like $30 at the LHBS but completely worth it. It has a really fine mesh, straps that run through the bag, and loops at the top of the straps to grab the bag by. It is plenty strong for anything I could throw at it but simply lifting and draining 12lbs of grain is a pain, nevertheless 15+.

As far as maintaining mash temp, I preheat my oven to 170 degrees (the lowest setting it has) turn the oven off, and throw my boil kettle that I mash in in the oven. On a 90 minute mash I only lose about a degree of mash temp.

Click to expand...

Have you thought about what your 90 minute mash is accomplishing? I regularly do a 30 minute mash with about 85% brewhouse efficiency and have been esperimenting with a 10 minute mash with good results too. Does your 90 minute mash get you more that a 10 or 20 minute mash would that makes it worthwhile to move the pot full of wort to the oven and back to the burner? If you have some iodine you can do a test for starch conversion at various times to see just how long it takes to get conversion to sugars.

MikePote said:

I didn't feel like reading all the pages so maybe this has been covered. I have only done four or five AG batches, all have been BIAB. The only downside I think I may face in the future (I don't intending on graduating from BIAB for a while) is if I want to do a REALLY big beer with 15+ LBS of grain. I have a really nice bag called "the brew bag". It was like $30 at the LHBS but completely worth it. It has a really fine mesh, straps that run through the bag, and loops at the top of the straps to grab the bag by. It is plenty strong for anything I could throw at it but simply lifting and draining 12lbs of grain is a pain, nevertheless 15+.



As far as maintaining mash temp, I preheat my oven to 170 degrees (the lowest setting it has) turn the oven off, and throw my boil kettle that I mash in in the oven. On a 90 minute mash I only lose about a degree of mash temp.

Click to expand...

By doing this are you hitting your OG targets? is your finished product sweet?

The reason I ask is that assuming your mash temp of water/grist is in low 150s where both beta and alpha amylase are active with your mash kettle in the 170F oven your mash temps will probably equalize in the mid 160s or higher. Beta-amylase denatures around 160F and alpha-amylase denatures near 170F (why mash out temps are around 170F).

I've tried the "mash kettle in the warmed oven approach" as my oven on Warming mode holds around 140F, however, when I check my mash temps they always creep up from the original 154F to the low 160s. I know, it doesn't make sense but that's what I've measured.

I've stopped doing this as I couldn't keep my mash temps in the range where both beta and alpha amylase are active. On my stove top I find I only need to put heat on the pot once or twice during a 90 min mash and I'm not bothering to insulate the pot, just keeping lid on it. To keep from scorching my bag and not having to hold my 10# of wet grist (I do 3G batches) I clip the bag to the lip of the kettle such that the bottom of the bag is suspended off of the bottom of the pot. As I'm applying heat I'm stirring the mash.

DY


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

youngdh said:

By doing this are you hitting your OG targets? is your finished product sweet?

The reason I ask is that assuming your mash temp of water/grist is in low 150s where both beta and alpha amylase are active with your mash kettle in the 170F oven your mash temps will probably equalize in the mid 160s or higher. Beta-amylase denatures around 160F and alpha-amylase denatures near 170F (why mash out temps are around 170F).

I've tried the "mash kettle in the warmed oven approach" as my oven on Warming mode holds around 140F, however, when I check my mash temps they always creep up from the original 154F to the low 160s. I know, it doesn't make sense but that's what I've measured.

Click to expand...

I've been using my oven since about my fourth BIAB brew, and that covers about 18 brewing sessions. It takes a bit to figure out the heating/cooling, but it works remarkably well. I do 10 liter batches and my oven warms to around 165F to 170F. As long as you give enough time for your oven to reach equilibrium, fully bringing the oven up to consistent temperature, the temp loss/gain is really pretty low.

I've even worked out the routine to keep the heat on after placing the pot in the oven for about five minutes if mashing at 152F to 154F or 10 minutes if mashing at 156F or above. I use a remote thermometer to watch the mash temperature. My temperatures do fluctuate a couple of degrees, very consistently and now very predictably.

Typically, if mashing at around 150F, my ending temperature will be between 149F and 151F; if mashing at 154F, it will be between 152F and 154F, and when mashing at 156F, it will be at 156F to 158F. These temps are far better than the 4F to 6F drop I was experiencing with a blanket wrap on the kettle.

Edit: Forgot to answer your first questions: Yes I hit the OG targets very consistently and the beer can be dry or have residual sweetness depending on ingredients and mash temperature.

4 batches into my BIAB lifestyle, and loving it.

All the above, plus...

I use an 1800w electric hot plate along with and STC-1000 to maintain my mash temps. This keeps it to within less than 1 degree of my set temp. The only trick I had to learn was to set the burner at about 2 in order to not have a lot of bouncing in the temperature. Oh, and lifting the 7+ gallons in a pot from my propane burner to the hot plate.

The_Bishop said:

For me it's more loss to trub. No matter how fine the bag is, you'll get very cloudy wort, which seems to translate into more trub. Other than that, not much. It's how I started in all-grain.

Click to expand...

I know this wont apply to very many BIABer's but: I use a RIMS set up so I have a pump. After mashing I raise the bag (basket in my case) above the wort. I used to use a large colander to set it in but now have a small crane. I then attach a valve to the end of the hose and attach it to the basket. I let the pump circulate the wort slowly through the grain until it runs clear effectively filtering out the trub and sparging. I also turn on the heat and bring the temp up to 168 for a mash out.

I started with BIAB in a cooler and moved to a SS mesh tube, since I already had a 7 gal brew kettle with a spout (I brew on the stove). I find it's a hell of a lot easier to just batch sparge in there than it is to lift a bag and drain it. When I did BIAB, I got pretty damn sticky by the end of my brew day. Not so now.

bondra76 said:

You fellas have bowled me over with all of the
I have a 8 gallon pot right now doing 5 gallon batches. Going to upsize to at least a 12.5 gallon pot so that I can do BIAB.

Click to expand...

You don't necessarily have to upgrade to a bigger pot if you don't want to. I mash in a paint strainer bag in a 7.5 gallon pot, and do a dunk sparge in another vessel. Works great for me, although I don't make very big beers. The most grain I've mashed this way is 11 lbs; I usually do 9-10 lbs.

The level of wort at the beginning of the boil is very close to the top of the pot, so you'll need to be very careful to avoid boilovers. I usually use a little fermcap, and keep a close watch at the beginning. I also keep a spray bottle of water handy to spritz it if it threatens to boil over.

Lots of good ideas / techniques being talked about.
This is an interesting thread.

For mash temp issues, I use the sleeping bag method. But I mash about 4L short of my volume and I have an electric kettle that will boil a liter of water in just a few minutes, so I make a few boiling water additions and my grain stays at 153 just fine. On warmer days I don't even have to add the boiling water, and I instead use the 4L I am short as sparge water (fly sparge arm through the grain into a bucket). My efficiency is in the low 80s.

Yooper said:

I can only think of one downside- for bigger batches, I simply can't lift a huge bag of heavy wet grain.

I know some people use hoists and pulleys and things, but I brew in my laundry room and do 10 gallon batches. I have a tippy dump on my MLT so I don't have to do much heavy lifting at all.

Other that the weight the grainbag, I can't think of any disadvantages.

Click to expand...

this is how i feel. i have a 16gal pot and can safely add about 20-22lbs of grain. so that is an average 10gal or a big 5gal. no way i could possible do anything more with the setup i have.

While some people want to do 1gal batches i want to go bigger. But the weight on the wet grains is a killer and the pot size is another. i would also have to consider a better or bigger burner.

i love BIAB because it's so simple and easy. you can complicated if you want to but at the end of the day you can make great beer with little effort and little invested in equipment.

I so can't imagine lifting a bag with 22lbs of hot, wet grain--that's about 50lbs! My stainless mesh cost $7, and I have never had a "real" stuck sparge. I had a slower sparge on this last weissbier (60%), but you can always just remix and revorlauf until you get it all out if you don't want to add hulls.

Not to evangelize, or anything! I see why BIAB seems easier, I started on it too. I finally cut up my voile BIAB bag to make into hop bags, last month. (I wound up throwing them away and buying some $2 hop bags, but you get my point.)

i have a pail that i drilled a bunch of holes in. so i pull the bag up enough to slip the bag into the pail. then i support it about the pot with some pieces of pine. (i have a stainless grate on the way) i don't know exactly how heavy the bag is but it's too hard to hold and squeeze. my new method seems to work really well and i can sparge some if i need to increase my pre boil volume.

fearwig said:

Not to evangelize, or anything! I see why BIAB seems easier, I started on it too. I finally cut up my voile BIAB bag to make into hop bags, last month. (I wound up throwing them away and buying some $2 hop bags, but you get my point.)

Click to expand...

It's not that it's easier, but you need much less equipment which is cheaper and it's way less time consuming. There are plenty of guys in my brew club who's brew days take them 6, 7, 8hrs or more. They may have a sparge that takes 1-2hrs or more to run off.... which to me is just a crazy amount of time wasted. I can start pulling my gear out and be putting it away in 4hrs for an average beer.