BIAB Brewing (with pics)

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I think one of the biggest problems with a big grain bill is actually lifting the bag! Will you be doing all-malt, or adding extract, sugar, or syrup? If all-malt, yeah, you'll probably have a bit lower efficiency. I shot for 1.100 with my standard efficiency on a recent brew and hit 1.095 or so. Not a terrible loss of efficiency.
Thanks, that's good to know.

It's all malt, but right now, I'm only planning to do 3 gallons, so I can't remember what the grain bill came out to, but I've done a 17 lb grain bill (my first BIAB) and it was fine. I've improved my process from that, I think it should be okay.
 
Oh, and are you boiling off to get a certain volume (say, with a sight glass)? I think if that's how you're measuring, you might want to squeeze the grain more. That way you have more sugar in a given volume, thus better efficiency.

I don't have a sight glass.
Going to get that Corona mill and see where I'm at after a couple batches with that.
Thanks
 
I made a BIAB batch today and made a potentially significant mistake. I wanted to mash at 158 so I used a strike temperature of 163. When I mash at 154 I use a strike temperature of 160 so 5 or 6 degrees loss due to the grain is expected. When I was finished adding the grain the temperature was at 162, probably measured the 163 wrong. So, I stirred and waited and stirred and waited till the temperature got to 157 and started the mash. I mashed for an additional 60 minutes and my brewhouse efficiency was at 99%.

After the boil my og was right on but I'm not sure how much of the sugar will be fermentable.

Does anyone have any experience with this to give me an idea how it is going to turn out.
 
I made a BIAB batch today and made a potentially significant mistake. I wanted to mash at 158 so I used a strike temperature of 163. When I mash at 154 I use a strike temperature of 160 so 5 or 6 degrees loss due to the grain is expected. When I was finished adding the grain the temperature was at 162, probably measured the 163 wrong. So, I stirred and waited and stirred and waited till the temperature got to 157 and started the mash. I mashed for an additional 60 minutes and my brewhouse efficiency was at 99%.

After the boil my og was right on but I'm not sure how much of the sugar will be fermentable.

Does anyone have any experience with this to give me an idea how it is going to turn out.

Been there, done that. :eek:
That is a pretty high mash temp. It is likely that many of the of the sugars will be long branch and will not ferment out. At this stage all you can do it let it ferment and see where it goes.
I did this on my very first ever batch and my beer went from 1.067 and stuck at 1.040. If it gets to that stage you may be able to fix it with Alpha Amylase Enzyme. It worked well for me. If you beer gets stuck and is too sweet to be drinkable it will be worth a try. Feel free to post or PM if you have questions about it.
 
I am all over then place. I have read this fengjdw thread to knbowfvafjf c e s but of miss
 
I made a BIAB batch today and made a potentially significant mistake. I wanted to mash at 158 so I used a strike temperature of 163. When I mash at 154 I use a strike temperature of 160 so 5 or 6 degrees loss due to the grain is expected. When I was finished adding the grain the temperature was at 162, probably measured the 163 wrong. So, I stirred and waited and stirred and waited till the temperature got to 157 and started the mash. I mashed for an additional 60 minutes and my brewhouse efficiency was at 99%.

After the boil my og was right on but I'm not sure how much of the sugar will be fermentable.

Does anyone have any experience with this to give me an idea how it is going to turn out.

After 2 days, not even a hint of a bubble. I think I'll just consider this new knowledge and move on. Thanks for your suggestions.
 
raymadigan said:
After 2 days, not even a hint of a bubble. I think I'll just consider this new knowledge and move on. Thanks for your suggestions.

I would be shocked if this temp issue made the wort totally unfermentable - there's no way. You know the enzymes were active since you extracted sugar, and you know bubbles are not a reliable sign of fermentation. Are you sure your year are ok? More likely an issue there if its really not fermenting
 
I would be shocked if this temp issue made the wort totally unfermentable - there's no way. You know the enzymes were active since you extracted sugar, and you know bubbles are not a reliable sign of fermentation. Are you sure your year are ok? More likely an issue there if its really not fermenting

There are no bubbles in the airlock and the surface of the wort is like glass. I will measure the gravity of it again, I might pitch a dry yeast this afternoon. The yeast gas was expanded in the slap bag.

I just don't want to spend too much energy on this to have a less then mediocre beer.

I'm just trying to sort out what to do with this.

I have a firm deadline, I have 10 days until this has to go in a secondary and sit for 2.5 to 3 months. I'm not sure why it isn't fermenting. But if I need to do this again to have something I'm going to want to drink, I have a day to start over,.
 
I'm having left hip surgery and left hand surgery at the same time so I will not be able to lift and carry anything.
 
Why the firm deadline? With your time line of up to almost 3.5 months, I don't think you should rush it. Pitch a dry yeast.

and voila it is gassing at least. No krausen just a air lock bubble every second. I guess I just wait and see now. I appreciate all the help on this issue.

Thank You
 
MMJfan said:
Could we have that in English please? :drunk:

I would love

image-3450738385.jpg

to provide a translation, but can't remember the thought. I guess you could say I had a successful wee heavy.

Still experimenting with biab, trying to find my best system, but enjoying the process.

Cheers!
 
and voila it is gassing at least. No krausen just a air lock bubble every second. I guess I just wait and see now. I appreciate all the help on this issue.

I just checked this beer and it fermented to 1.024. It tastes aweful, so sweet and nothing like I would drink. Chalk this up to one for the learning curve.

Thanks again for all of your help on this brew.
 
I just checked this beer and it fermented to 1.024. It tastes aweful, so sweet and nothing like I would drink. Chalk this up to one for the learning curve.

Thanks again for all of your help on this brew.

Bottle it up, sit it in a closet and forget about it for a while, who knows how it'll be in 4 or 5 months. Or find someone who likes their beer a little sweet and make a gift out of it.

Or cook with it, an overly sweet brew would probably make some killer pulled pork or bbq ribs.
 
Bottle it up, sit it in a closet and forget about it for a while, who knows how it'll be in 4 or 5 months. Or cook with it, an overly sweet brew would probably make some killer pulled pork or bbq ribs.

My only choice it to store it as it is in the primary for the duration and deal with it when I'm able. It doesn't taste good enough to drink, maybe I could cook with it. Maybe I can make a reduction with it and sell it :) I have 2.5 gallons of the stuff.
 
Long story short, I did a slow cool of my wort over night in the fermenter, my mom pitched the yeast the next night. I came back 5 days later to a dried-out airlock. Am I screwed?
 
Possibly but probably not. It is possible that there was a layer of CO2 over the beer the whole time and, if you didn't get contamination by the time it fermented out, you might be fine. Take a hydrometer sample, measure the specific gravity and, while you are at it, take a taste and put something in that airlock. I'm gonna guess your ok as long as mom didn't contaminate it on the way in and your carboy is not sitting somewhere really scummy.
 
Filled the airlock with vodka. Unfortunately I will be away from it for another month and a half as I am at school, and they are not too fond of students having fermenters in their closets :/ Its in a fairly clean basement. Guess I'll just have to wait and see. What would the gravity reading indicate? Extra fermentation? It's a sweet stout so I doubt the alcohol content would help kill anything
 
The gravity reading would just tell you whether your fermentation is done. Once you fill the airlock, nothing much will happen if it wasn't already contaminated. Its also correct that if there is a lot of alcohol, many, but not all, bugs will grow poorly, if at all. That is, if they got in after fermentation was well under way. However, if you use vodka in the airlock, it will be evaporated well before a month. I would use water or, if you really want to make sure it wont evaporate, make a blow off tube that goes into a big bottle of water.
 
I used this tutorial yesterday afternoon , pitching yeast at 7 pm . Worked super for my first shot in new territory coming off without a hitch ! Blow off was bubbling like a motor boat this morn :rockin:
 
Followed tutorial to a point for a Christmas Red Ale. Ended up with 79.X% efficiency. Really impressed.
 
Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g
 
Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

1) Sparge water temperature is not that critical, 180 is a good place to be, you basicly want to keep the mash below 170. You can even sparge with room temp sparge water if it's easier, but then it will take longer to heat to boil.

2) Yes, you can squeeze the bag to extract more liquid, both from the mash and sparge.
 
Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

I use a 2 kettle system as my boil kettle is only 7.5 gal. I mash my grains in my boil kettle for 60 min. at whatever the mash temp calls for. Once the 60 minutes is up, I then add heat to my boil kettle and do a mash out (usually I heat up to around 170F). I then let the grains rest for another 10 minutes or so and while they are resting, I heat up some water in a smaller kettle to 170F for my sparge. Once the sparge water is up to temp, I pull the grains and let them drain in my boil kettle and then place them in my sparge kettle and let them rest for an additional 20 minutes. I then pull the bag and let it drain and then add the liquid from the sparge kettle to my boil kettle and that usually gets me to my desired pre-boil volume. If I'm a little short I do squeeze the bag to get more liquid to add.

I've used this system since about my 2nd or 3rd BIAB batches and have had great success using it with efficiencies consistently in the mid to upper 70's... :mug:
 
Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

#1 I shoot for 180F for the sparge water.

#2 Sure, I squeeze the crap out of my bag. I put it in my stock basket then I put a bucket on top of the grain bag nearly full of water, then I press down on it hard, squeezes a LOT of water out of the grain.

I had to improvise this weekend because my 42qt pot has two small pinholes in it (damnit) and had to use my turkey fryer pot (I think it's 28 maybe 34 quarts) so I did a 4 gallon mash @149 for 90 minutes and a 3 gallon sparge @170 for a Tripel with a 12 lb grain bill. The recipe called for 1.081 OG I measured at 1.080 so I was happy with my outcome. And the wort tasted heavenly I can't wait for it to be ready to keg.
 
Not in my opinion, that's pretty good for BIAB. Your efficiency only affects how much grain you need to achieve your target OG, not how good the beer tastes.
 
Is there a target efficiency that I should be trying to achieve? I generally get around 73%. Should I be trying to improve that?

If I'm doing a "regular" beer I tend to get 72-75%. Higher gravity gives me lower efficiency, and session beers usually give me 83-85%. Figure out efficiency at various levels and strive to keep it consistent.
 
Thanks guys for all the help. The long story is that I am using a 44qt Bayou fryer bucket and I have a 14 1/2 lb grain bill and rackers says that it will take up 5 gallons of space, so I will be using your info to do my first biab
 
While the bag is dripping after Mash Out, can I be heating the wort up to boil temp? Or do I need to wait for the bag to finish dripping?
 
I attempted BIAB for the first time today, going from extract brewing. It did NOT go well. I was trying to make this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f78/holly-christmas-ale-145580/

My pre-boil efficiency came out to be around 57%, unfortunately. I have two theories based on what I observed today.

1. Bag Size: I used a 5 gallon paint strainer from Lowe's, which seems to be the norm around here. I think this brew was a little too big for this bag. First of all, I discovered that bag's mouth does not cover the opening of the kettle. In fact, I could only stretch it across about half way. So because of this, I added the grain to the bad OUTSIDE of the kettle. In hindsight, this prevented me from adding a little bit slowly and stirring as I pour in the grain. Also, because the bag was so full I think it was packed a little too tightly. This prevented the water from really getting in there.

2. Mash Temp: Because I added all the grain at once, the water didn't slowly get to the right temp. I got the strike temp to about 160 and tried to stir as best I could. But 30 minutes into the mash, I checked and the temp was around 142. I immediately heated back up and I added some time to the mash. I did wrap the kettle in blankets. I don't think I necessarily LOST that much heat, but my strike temp wasn't initially high enough and after I added the grain it was packed so tightly that it didn't immediately drop the temp down a lot, but as water got into the grain it brought it down more than expected.

I think overall 1 was more of an issue than 2, but both definitely played a part.

I added some DME and my actual OG wasn't too terribly off the target for this beer. 1.066, which is what some people in the thread for that recipe have reported when doing BIAB.

I am disappointed but I think I learned a lot. Do my guesses as to what went wrong seem possible? My biggest takeaway is that I need a larger bag (hello, http://biabbags.webs.com/). I really should have done a smaller beer for my first...
 
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