BIAB Brewing (with pics)

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I do 5 gallon batches BIAB no-sparge in my keggle (usually @8-9 gallons of water plus @ 12-14 lbs grain) and still have several gallons of head space.

Even with the head space, the thermal mass of all that grain and water in a 15 gal stainless keggle never loses more than 2 degrees over the course of a 90 minute mash (I just throw a blanket over the top because I have no lid). My converted cooler MLT loses more than that during a 60 minute mash.

Wow--that's impressive that your keggle retains the heat so well. With your keggle you would have enough headspace to make a bigger brew by a couple of gallons?

Also, I signed up for BIABrewer--thanks for the tip!
 
going with a 15 gallon pot will allow 5 gallon batches and if you heat a little additional water to "sparge" with, you can do 10 gallon batches with ease.

That might be a good option for those bigger brew days. To do this kind of sparging, I'd just have separate pot going with sparge water and transfer the grain bag into it after the mash, agitate, and let sit for a bit? Then drain it out and add the results back into the kettle?
 
That might be a good option for those bigger brew days. To do this kind of sparging, I'd just have separate pot going with sparge water and transfer the grain bag into it after the mash, agitate, and let sit for a bit? Then drain it out and add the results back into the kettle?

yep, that would be one way of doing it.. dunk sparging is a popular method with some BIAB brewers.. another option is to put the bag in a colander or on a cake rack over the keggle opening and slowly pour the water over the grains.
 
Forgive me if this was already covered (a quick search of the thread didn't give me an answer)... If I have an aluminum basket, do I need to worry about conditioning the basket ahead of time by boiling it in some water for a half hour or so? I've heard that "unconditioned" aluminum can leech off-flavors into beer, but I wasn't sure whether this occurred at mash temperatures as well as boil temperature.
 
Forgive me if this was already covered (a quick search of the thread didn't give me an answer)... If I have an aluminum basket, do I need to worry about conditioning the basket ahead of time by boiling it in some water for a half hour or so? I've heard that "unconditioned" aluminum can leech off-flavors into beer, but I wasn't sure whether this occurred at mash temperatures as well as boil temperature.

myth... don't worry about it
 
myth... don't worry about it

Sweet, that's what I wanted to hear, thanks. But let's say I was hypothetically going to do a sour mash (kentucky common, berliner weisse, etc) in my aluminum BIAB vessel w/ unconditioned basket for 24 hrs or so. Would the extended contact time and increased acidity of the wort still be no problem?
 
My wife has updated her blog and now has an order form for custom bags, makes the whole ordering thing a lot easier.

Check it out in my sig, we're selling a few bags a month depending on how we push it, but it's a small sideline nothing more serious, keeps her out of trouble while she's watching the kid ;)

We'll update soon with more pics of some of the recent work.
 
Sweet, that's what I wanted to hear, thanks. But let's say I was hypothetically going to do a sour mash (kentucky common, berliner weisse, etc) in my aluminum BIAB vessel w/ unconditioned basket for 24 hrs or so. Would the extended contact time and increased acidity of the wort still be no problem?

What would the ph be in that case? From what I've read in white papers, the oxidized layer of aluminum can withstand from 4.5 - 8.5ph. Any extremes will remove that layer and react with the aluminum.

The conditioning is a bit misleading. Having the aluminum exposed to O2 will "condition" it. Boiling in water or having it in the oven will grow the oxidized layer more, but there will always be an oxidized layer on the aluminum since it is always in contact with the air.
 
What would the ph be in that case? From what I've read in white papers, the oxidized layer of aluminum can withstand from 4.5 - 8.5ph. Any extremes will remove that layer and react with the aluminum.

The conditioning is a bit misleading. Having the aluminum exposed to O2 will "condition" it. Boiling in water or having it in the oven will grow the oxidized layer more, but there will always be an oxidized layer on the aluminum since it is always in contact with the air.

It'll hardly drop too low, star san effectively kills stuff at 3.5, I'd say it's barely going below 5.
 
From a little research, it looks like a sour mash is used to bring the mash ph down to 5.2. In that case, there's definitely no issue with aluminum.

But remember that aluminum does not like star san.
 
From a little research, it looks like a sour mash is used to bring the mash ph down to 5.2. In that case, there's definitely no issue with aluminum.

But remember that aluminum does not like star san.

My point was that if star san is killing all germs (effectively) at 3-3.5 then there was no chance that a sour mash was that low as it contains germs.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've been considering trying a sour mash for a while, but was a bit nervous doing it in my BIAB set-up... Sounds like it shouldn't be an issue, huzzah!
 
For my BIAB I only do 2½-gallon batches and I do it on my stovetop. I mash in a 4-gallon pot. With Maris Otter malt I get about 75% efficiency. I do the mashout as described. Also, if you end up short on the liquid because the grains absorbed too much or you didn't measure right, just add some water before the boil. The grains are very forgiving. The lowest efficiency I ever got was 70%, so you can't go wrong. The thing I noticed doing this method is that the wort is all first runnings, so it's very dark and thick and smells delicious and sweet! In the room where the fermenter is kept, the entire room has a delicious malt smell. I do not ever get this strong and wonderful a smell from extract. This is because the wort is so wonderfully FRESH. :fro:
 
Quick question and I am sure it is a stupid one. I am new to BIAB and I am trying to do half batches. 2.5 gallons. I have only been following recipes in the 10 or so 5 gallon batches I have brewed so I am unclear on how to caculate how much water I need to start the mash and moving into the boil.

I have read 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. Then I need to add boil off and grain absorption. Is this correct ? What is the easiest way to calculate grain absorption ?

Boil off seems to be something I need to test on my own by boiling for an hour and seeing how much is left. To test this, can I just thrown 3 gallons of water into my pot, boil for 60min and measure ? using that as an estimate ?

Thanks for the help. I am still learning.
 
Here is how I am looking at it and please let me know if I am off.

I have a recipe that uses 13.4 pounds of grain. If I cut that in half it is 6.7 pounds of grain.

6.7 pounds of grain
x 1.25 = 8.375 quarts which is 2.09 gallons

2.09 gallons
+ 1 gallon for boil off (looked this up as an good starting point)
+ .1 gallon per pound of grain (also looked this up as a starting point) = .67 gallons

I would need 3.76 gallons to start ? Does this look right ?

Thanks for the help !
 
Here is how I am looking at it and please let me know if I am off.

I have a recipe that uses 13.4 pounds of grain. If I cut that in half it is 6.7 pounds of grain.

6.7 pounds of grain
x 1.25 = 8.375 quarts which is 2.09 gallons

2.09 gallons
+ 1 gallon for boil off (looked this up as an good starting point)
+ .1 gallon per pound of grain (also looked this up as a starting point) = .67 gallons

I would need 3.76 gallons to start ? Does this look right ?

Thanks for the help !

The .1 gallon/lb grain is going to be lost from your strike volume, so if you strike with 2.09 gallons you will lose 0.67 gallons of volume (=1.42 gallons).

Now if you want to do a sparge here, you can use whatever volume you want that will raise the 1.42 gallons to the total volume you want pre-boil.

So say you boil off 1 gallon/hour in your kettle, then you can sparge with 2.08 gallons to get 3.50 gallons pre-boil total volume, and then start your 60min boil to get it down to 2.5 gallons post-boil.

Or you can be lazy like me and just make a calibrated stick with notches for gallon measurements specific to your kettle. Then just estimate the amount of water and boil it all down till you get to your desired pre-boil volume. Some say extended boils cause carmelization, yada yada, but it's worth it to me.
 
Hi all,

I did my first BIAB today, my first all grain and my third brew ever. It was a mixed experience. The brew was a clone of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, a great blonde 7% ABV hop bomb. I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour. I couldn't do a full volume since my pot is 7 gal. This all seemed to go well despite missing my temp by a couple degrees, but that was corrected with a little heat and stirring. I gave the bag a good squeeze and then transferred to a batch sparge at 168 (missed my 175 target temp again but didn't correct it this time). I combined the sparge and mash and took a sample to cool for SG. I then did my boil but I felt my volume was about .75 gal lower than I predicted with 0.08/lb absorbed by grain. So, about 30 min into the boil I added .5 gal water. Finished my boil and cooled and then remembered to take my preboil SG and my OG. Those came out at 1.060 and 1.064 respectively, a ways from the expected of 1.068 and 1.076. At 60% efficiency I was pretty disappointed.

I had two other problems. My wort has a huge amount of trub that didn't want to settle out. I didn't use the finest bag, probably should have been finer. I also came out about 0.5 gal short of my target volume. I thought I started with 6.3 gal to end at 5.4 gal (with 0.4 gal yeast starter). I guess I may have missed one of my 0.75 gal water additions when measuring. I ended up with 4.7 gal even after about .9 gal of additions.

Anyway, I should be fine but I sure would like to know where the water went and why the low efficiency.

Curt
 
Curt your first went off a bit like mine. I did a 1 gallon batch yesterday and used the wrong end of my "dip stick" to measure my water and was 1/2 gallon short when I poured it all into the fermenter. I looked at the scale on the fermenter and it read only 1/2 gal. WTF, then I figured out what went wrong and added 1/2 gal to the wort, pitched the dry yeast and now I'm waiting, and waiting. Gee only 6 more weeks till I can drink my new Porter. Good think I have at least 60 bottles in the pipe line.
 
Hi all,

I did my first BIAB today, my first all grain and my third brew ever. It was a mixed experience. The brew was a clone of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, a great blonde 7% ABV hop bomb. I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour. I couldn't do a full volume since my pot is 7 gal. This all seemed to go well despite missing my temp by a couple degrees, but that was corrected with a little heat and stirring. I gave the bag a good squeeze and then transferred to a batch sparge at 168 (missed my 175 target temp again but didn't correct it this time). I combined the sparge and mash and took a sample to cool for SG. I then did my boil but I felt my volume was about .75 gal lower than I predicted with 0.08/lb absorbed by grain. So, about 30 min into the boil I added .5 gal water. Finished my boil and cooled and then remembered to take my preboil SG and my OG. Those came out at 1.060 and 1.064 respectively, a ways from the expected of 1.068 and 1.076. At 60% efficiency I was pretty disappointed.

I had two other problems. My wort has a huge amount of trub that didn't want to settle out. I didn't use the finest bag, probably should have been finer. I also came out about 0.5 gal short of my target volume. I thought I started with 6.3 gal to end at 5.4 gal (with 0.4 gal yeast starter). I guess I may have missed one of my 0.75 gal water additions when measuring. I ended up with 4.7 gal even after about .9 gal of additions.

Anyway, I should be fine but I sure would like to know where the water went and why the low efficiency.

Curt

first... Congrats on your first BIAB. You just made beer and I bet it tastes better than anything you've made before. now, why the poor efficiency..

The main cause of low efficiency in BIAB is the crush. use a voile bag and crush the grain finer. if you buy them pre crushed, have them double crushed. You'll also find that with bigger grain bills the efficiency goes down a little as well. The biggest thing is crush. here's what my crush looks like.. every kernel crushed. most are crushed very fine the rest are flour :D
pasta_crush.jpg


for the water problem. squeeze the bag as hard as you can. I use this formula. batch size + boil off + absorption + trub loss = water needed. for absorption I use grain weight x .07. learn the boil off rate for your equipment.
 
I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour.

Curt

I'm preparing to do my first BIAB and from what I am reading a 90min Mash is common. Was there a reason for the 60min or am I misinformed?
 
MysticMead, Thanks for the suggestions. I will make a finer bag and get a better crush of my grain. I invested in a really nice 7 gal stainless pot about a month ago which works great for a partial mash but I'm now wishing I had a 10 gal one. I don't want to invest the cash so I guess I will try to go with smaller batches or lower ABV brews. This one was supposed to be 7.5 and I don't think it will pass 6.0. I'm going to loose a gal to trub, I imagine. Maybe I will put my fine bag over my siphon tube when I transfer to secondary.

I noticed you are using a modified pasta machine for your crush. What is the modification. I have a pasta machine that seldom gets used.

I have a pretty active ferment going right now, in fact I am trying to cool it down a little as my fermentation closet is getting up the 71 and the wort seems to be about 73. I'm trying to hold it at 68 with a little cool water.

Let's see where I end up.

Curt
 
I noticed you are using a modified pasta machine for your crush. What is the modification. I have a pasta machine that seldom gets used.

here's a thread on converting the pasta maker. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-pasta-maker-mill-grain-75784/

I basically took a drill bit and roughed the hell out of the rollers. they looked like they had been a chew toy for a pit bull for a week. then using a 3/8th spade bit in place of the hand crank I use my cordless drill to power it. my hopper is made out a Wii box along with tape (both gorilla tape and blue painters tape cause that's what I had on hand.) with any DIY project the options are endless.. get creative.
 
Working on my first BIAB right now. Everything has gone pretty smoothly besides my thermometers being out of whack. The one with the probe kept jumping around so I grabbed my CDN to get a middle ground. I was paranoid checking my temps.

It looks like I only lost about 2 degrees in the 60 minute mash with my cheap equipment.

I have a couple of questions

1. How much are you supposed to squeeze the bag ? I really went to town on it. I squeezed until the last drop.

2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.
 
Working on my first BIAB right now. Everything has gone pretty smoothly besides my thermometers being out of whack. The one with the probe kept jumping around so I grabbed my CDN to get a middle ground. I was paranoid checking my temps.

It looks like I only lost about 2 degrees in the 60 minute mash with my cheap equipment.

I have a couple of questions

1. How much are you supposed to squeeze the bag ? I really went to town on it. I squeezed until the last drop.

2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.

congrats on your first BIAB!!

1. Squeeze the heck out of that bag. or not.. it's all up the each brewer to decide that. I squeeze for every drop I can get.

2. sprinkle it on and you'll be fine.
 
2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.

FYI: I was reading Chris White's yeast book from White Labs last night. He said something interesting regarding rehydration of dry yeast. His claim, and I presume established by experiment in his case, is that dry yeast dropped on or into wort leads to death of about half of the cells whereas rehydrating in 10 ml of sterile filtered water/gm of yeast at ~100F is much better. IIRC (I don't have the book with me) about 10 min there and cool to within about 10 deg of the temp of your wort before adding. He suggests that the sugars and salts of the wort get through the membrane when it is not rehydrated and shock the yeast. The water apparently hydrates the membrane without allowing toxic materials in. I would have thought the osmotic shock of the water would have been worse but, to be honest I have never understood yeast dehydration well.

I should say, with even half of the yeast you are probably fine but I thought it was knowledge worth relaying.
 
FYI: I was reading Chris White's yeast book from White Labs last night. He said something interesting regarding rehydration of dry yeast. His claim, and I presume established by experiment in his case, is that dry yeast dropped on or into wort leads to death of about half of the cells whereas rehydrating in 10 ml of sterile filtered water/gm of yeast at ~100F is much better. IIRC (I don't have the book with me) about 10 min there and cool to within about 10 deg of the temp of your wort before adding. He suggests that the sugars and salts of the wort get through the membrane when it is not rehydrated and shock the yeast. The water apparently hydrates the membrane without allowing toxic materials in. I would have thought the osmotic shock of the water would have been worse but, to be honest I have never understood yeast dehydration well.

I should say, with even half of the yeast you are probably fine but I thought it was knowledge worth relaying.

Thanks. I actually read the same thing online and figure that since it was just a 2.5 gallon batch it probably wouldnt matter. I am glad to report that it is bubbling away. Fermentation started really quick on this one.
 
I just stumbled upon this little beauty while reading another thread here at HBT: Rope Ratchet

I just ordered one to replace the pulley that I rigged up previously from spare parts. Thought I would post this here in case anyone else needed a simple and inexpensive pulley for their BIAB adventures.

14rat.jpg
 
I've used this method 4x now, and have had very positive results. To ensure the efficiency stays at least 70% I usually Mash for 90mins (just cover pot with blankets, etc), and then do a mash-out, followed by a batch sparge for 15-20mins. I usually get between 70-80%. The clean-up is so nice for this method, and as long as you whirlpool you don't collect too much more trub for your fermenter.

Thanks for all the advice on this convenient method.
 
I've used this method 4x now, and have had very positive results. To ensure the efficiency stays at least 70% I usually Mash for 90mins (just cover pot with blankets, etc), and then do a mash-out, followed by a batch sparge for 15-20mins. I usually get between 70-80%. The clean-up is so nice for this method, and as long as you whirlpool you don't collect too much more trub for your fermenter.

Thanks for all the advice on this convenient method.

I'm glad to hear that you and others are getting good results with BIAB. I also love the easier cleanup and I've been improving my technique and getting my equipment dialed in so well that I recently had to update all of my recipes to account for the increased brewhouse efficiency. :mug:
 
Just finished my first AG brew day using the BIAB method and everything went surprisingly smooth! Big thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, as it convinced me to stop working on my MLT cooler and just give AG a try with the bag.

Anyone who is hesitant to get into AG (or even those like me who have limited space) should certainly read up on this method.

If I took my measurements properly, my efficiency was incredible. BIAB may have just turned my Mild into a full blown American Brown!
 
I have been using the BIAB method quite fequently, and love the simple efficient approach. BIAB is a great method. I have started making BIAB bags for sale If anyone is interested in purchasing a bag, visit my web site linked here...
http://biabbags.webs.com/
I can make bags for just about any kettle, keggle or cooler. Handy ratchet pulleys, hop boil bags and hop socks available.

Thanks!

 
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