Grinnan5150
Well-Known Member
For BIAB is there a particular size of paint strainer to use or are they all the same size? Also, do they have a tendenancy to tear when you lift it out of the wort or are they pretty durable?
Paint strainer usage for biab
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AFAIK, paint strainer bags only come in cardboard cones for 1 gallon, 1 gallon bags and 5 gallon bags. The 5 gallon ones are what most people use for BIAB.
I have done 3 BIAB with the 5 gallon bag. There is no sign that there is any weakening. I am not afraid that it will tear or split open.
I have done 3 BIAB with the 5 gallon bag. There is no sign that there is any weakening. I am not afraid that it will tear or split open.
I used a 5 gallon strainer on a 10qt pot for a 1 gallon batch and it worked great. I think they're pretty durable but I guess that depends on the amount of grains you're using. One thing i'm not sure if I need to worry about is if it will burn from touching the bottom of the pot.
Not trying to pee in anyone's Cheerios.. but paint strainer bags aren't even close to being food-grade. I'd shop around for a food-grade grain bag. I don't know if I'm allowed to link items here, so I won't. But there are food-grade grain bags sold by many reputable beer supply websites.
Used paint strainer bags for biab for years. They work fine. And yes, if they get scorched, they're Swiss cheese. Don't ask how I know. 
C'mon man, most BIAB's are paint strainer bags, or voile curtain cloth from Walmart. Think curtains are "food grade"?
whitehause
Well-Known Member
The 5 gal bag is a little small in a 10 gal pot. It will work, and I've used one many times, but make sure you have some kind of clips to help hold it to the rim of the pot. I Have one that's on it's 10th batch with no signs of weakening. I'm getting(or making) a bigger one so the grain isn't as compressed in the bag when making bigger beers with a 13Lb + grain bill.
i got a couple pack of those 5 gallon strainer bags from HD im having my cousin cut the seams on 2 of the bags and sew them together to form a bigger bag so i can do my frist biab ^^ wish me luck will only be my 2nd batch
Voodoo_Child
Well-Known Member
I picked up two 5 gallon paint strainer bags from Lowe's for around $3, anyone have any idea how much gain they can handle? I'm thinking of brewing Edworts Robust Porter which is at just about 14 lbs.
Long term I would go with voile material or a curtain, not even sowing it, just clipping to my 9 gallon Bayou Classic.
Long term I would go with voile material or a curtain, not even sowing it, just clipping to my 9 gallon Bayou Classic.
Course not. That's one of the many reasons I don't BIAB : P
Voodoo_Child
Well-Known Member
TheBeerist said:
What could a curtain possibly harbor that wouldn't be destroyed in a 60 min boil?
I have been using paint strainer bags for years for hops in my boil and rarely do shorter than a 75 minute boil. I'm not buying the "food-grade" argument at all. If someone doesn't want to use them out of personal preference, I'm not going to tell them otherwise but they are used by a huge number of folks and I've never had a problem or heard of anyone having a problem with them.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
I use paint strainer bags for my hops as well. The only concern I have is that the elastic band in them would start to break down when they get old, so I intend to replace mine soon. I don't worry about them being food grade. As far as BIAB goes I ordered a huge grain bag from Austin, and it's basically the same as the paint strainers. It's great for BIAB, since it's big enough to go in an 11 gal kettle.
I BIAB exclusively and am using a 60 qt commercial stock pot. I made my bag out of a couple of yards of voile. Dozens of batches later (some with 20+ lb grain bills) it shows no signs of weakening.
A single layer, or doubled-up? I think the material is pretty strong, but I often wonder about doubling it up and making a really heavy-duty bag.
Airplanedoc
Well-Known Member
Im about to, just finished building mine
Cheers!
I'm looking for ways to easily do a larger batch, be it double batch and use HLT to do second boil (probably wouldn't save much time, 2nd mash time=1st boil time) or get a larger vessel to heat wort.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
I've done a few BIAB batches in my 15.5 gal sanke with the grain bag I mentioned a few posts earlier. I have an insulation jacket I made with reflectix to keep the heat in during the mash. I don't do this very often, though. I usually mash in my Coleman cooler.. If I do BIAB it's usually a small batch (say 3.5 gal more or less) and I use one of my smaller kettles...
The other option for me is 2-vessel brewing, what I did for quite some time. I either used BIAB in the cooler to hold the mash, pull bag, dunk in sparge volume (in BK) and then squeeze, pour runnings into BK from cooler.
Or use the BK as the HLT and collect sparge runnings in a bucket until kettle is emptied of it's sparge water...which is really 3 vessels but only one needs to heat liquid.
I'm electric in the basement right now. If I get a keggle I don't have power for 220v. I could try two 110 elements but the boil would be dreadfully slow and the investment of money (even though not huge) isn't in the books. Cheaper to borrow neighbor's turkey burner for use with keggle and get a craigslist cooler for mash/sparging...or just get a big grain bag.
I use a 5 gallon bag from the LHBS that looks like a paint strainer bag to me. In any case, 14 pounds sounds like a lot for a 5 gallon bag. The grains won't stay submerged and will be hard to stir them. I made 2 batches of 9 lbs that I ended up with 85+% efficiency, and then a 14 lb batch that was at 60%. I had a hard time handling all that grain in the small bag.
Single layer, though I did double stitch all the seams. one pass zig-zag, and one pass straight.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
If you could borrrow a neighbors burner and get a large (cheap) bag then that would be the cheapest option, I would think. You could just mash in the keggle with the large bag and throw some blankets on it to hold the temps. I used to set my keggle in the sun so it wouldn't lose temp as fast.
As far as electric goes.. I'm a bit of a redneck, and I hard-wire my wood floor sander to two 110 circuits in breaker panels in real old homes that don't have 220v. I would probably do that at home if I had a 220v element until I could afford to wire up and build control boxes. I don't recommend that you try this at home, though. I'm just crazy like that!
ghpeel
Well-Known Member
I've started doubling-up my paint strainer bags during the mash, and it seems to help wort clarity. I still run the mash runoff throw a filter, but it seems like most times, having the two bags seems to filter the mash pretty much on its own.
Horseballs
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I just did two BIAB with those bags, an ESB and a Hefeweizen each with an 11 lb grain bill. I think I could have used one bag to handle it, but I wussed out and did a 50/50 split between two bags for the mash, stirring each bag every 10 minutes or so during the boil. Worked fine, hit my numbers exactly.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
I've considered putting a paint strainer bag over my SS braid to see if I get a cleaner wort. I already get a very clear wort as it is, but there is always room for improvement!
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
In your case the 2 bags was probably the better choice, anyway. It gives the grain enzymes the ability to swim around more and get the job done, so you didn't wuss out IMO..
EDIT: Looking back and reading again, did you boil the grain? Or did you mean you stirred every 10 minutes during the mash?
My concerns have nothing to do with sanitation. Since when does boiling a chemical make it safe? I'm not talking about pathogens. I'm talking about toxins like BPA that are in plastics. Talk to a chemical engineer about the properties of plastics sometime. There is a reason that there is a separate grade of plastic that is deemed food grade.
I bet toxins like BPA enjoyed the extra 15 minute bubble bath that you're provind them. A "huge number of folks" used to believe asbestos was safe too. At the end of the day, why risk it? If someone wants to use non-food grade items out of ignorance, then have at it. Food grade denotations exist for a reason. But when the only reason not to use them is to save a few dollars despite the risks of toxins leaching, you're just claiming ignorance.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
You might want to consider giving up breathing! Heck, the bi-products that are in your food are likely as bad or worse. All sarcasm aside, I don't think any small amount of whatever might be leaching out of my bag can be worse than drinking alcohol, smoking an occassional cigar, eating some sort of fast food, or any other vice I might have. We're not talking about boiling in asbestos bags here!
I think it would be too fine and probably not let much liquid out when it was time to squeeze. Curtain sheers can be found anywhere, make sure they're polyester, or go to any fabric store and get a yard or two of voile cloth. LHBS or online brewing supply stores sell grain bags, too.
ok...let me pose this question.....is there a "food grade" bag available??...as it looks to me , everybody is using either a paint strainer of some sort, or else curtain material....as of yet I have not seen a brew bag that claims to be of "food grade" material....I could be wrong . I just have not run across one yet.....Tom
Horseballs
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I did two bags in one pot full volume mash. No sparge, just squeezed the bags and started the boil. I clipped the bags to the pot using binder clips, on opposite sides of the pot.
TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
One of my best friends is a chemistry professor at a decent state university, actually. Has a lot of industry experience, including some plastic injection molding. He tells me that the "food grade" designation on plastic almost always means that the same process was used, with more testing, and more paperwork, and the potential that a batch will fail and thus not receive the food-grade certification.
BPA isn't a toxin in the usual sense. What's wrong with BPA is that your body thinks that it is estrogen. It is probably one of several factors causing females to grow breasts at an earlier age than they did 30 years ago.
So I'm here to say that you're so afraid that you're not even afraid of the right things. Phthalates are where the (tiny) danger is, and any phthalate based plastic will corrode and release phthalates. Even BetterBottles, because the yeast chews on the plastic. really. Sort of. electrochemical attack from the enzymes used by yeast to break down sugars also breaks down plastic just a little bit.
Unless you're a child or a pregnant woman it's generally not worth losing sleep over. Read here: http://www.epa.gov/teach/chem_summ/phthalates_summary.pdf
With regard to paint strainer bags, they are made of nylon. Nylon is pretty harmless stuff, provided that you keep it away from strong acids, chemical oxidizers, and temperatures in excess of 555 degrees fahrenheit.
I say throw 'em in the washing machine with your kitchen towels and then let them drip dry before using.
TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
My mother has "cheese cloth" that is made from old curtains that were literally woven from glass fiber, with the selling point that it is impossible light it on fire -- with enough heat it just eventually melts, at the same temperatures that glass melts.
As far as i know, nobody makes that grade of glass fiber fabric anymore, or has in 40 years or more.
But if you're straining juice out of grape must, there's nothing like it.
allclene
Beer, What a beautiful thing
Here's a question for everyone. I want to use a bag for my hops in the boil and am considering all possibilities. A friend of mine uses his wifes old nylons (washed of course). He cuts the legs off and uses them like bags. What do you all think of that? Is it okay or not? Who has a good source for brew bags? And finally, sounds like people are using the same bag more than once. So what would be the limit on reuse? And what about flavor imparting on other beers if reused?
I use the 1 gal paint strainer bags. Been using the same bag over & over. I just dump the hops, rinse it out and wash it in PBW with the rest of my utensils. It's just as clean as it was when new, cheap and available and not stretchy like nylons.
I cant attest to your friend's wifes nylons, but I dont see why not. The hop bags Ive purchased from Brewmasters Warehouse are a little too short. For BIAB bags, I get my 5-gal paint filter bags from Home Depot (2 per package). After several uses, Im finally using the second one. First one developed a small hole, probably from squeezing the heck out of it to drain. After a good wash with detergent and rinse, the bag is pearly white again. I go outside and flick the bag to get rid of any stray grains before the wash.
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