How do you suspend your grain bag to avoid burning through it?

When doing partial mashes, how do you all avoid having the grain bag touch the bottom of the pot, and burning through. In my prior 6 brews, I've tied the bag to a large wooden spoon and essentially hung/suspended it on the spoon, which rests over the pot. It's a pain to get it at just the right height so it doesn't touch the bottom, but also allows plenty of room for the grains to roll around in the hot water. Well, yesterday, I guess I mis-tied by 1/8" because I got a dime sized hole burned through the nylon. Besides being annoying, this let out a handful of grain to free float around and make tranferring the wort a pain due to clogging the hose. It's also strange that no directions I've ever read warn you about not letting the grain bag touch the bottom. They just say "put the grain in the bag and heat the water...".
Is there a better way to do this that I'm missing??

I never had that happen to me when I did extract beers, but I usually just wrapped the excess of the bag around the pot handle.

I don't think I used nylon grain bags, though, either.

I also had to use barely any flame to maintain temperature.

Folding steamer with the center post removed. Place it in the bottom of your cooler...it will lift it off the bottom, and also keep the bag from blocking the spigot , resulting in a stuck sparge.

look for one with fairly long "legs" The Martha Stewart K-mart one if the one I keep on hand.



THen put the bag on top of it, and I usually rubber band it in place.

I never had a problem having my bag sit on the bottom of the pot. I never burned one yet hops bags or grain bags. I'd say try a different bag I use the ones from Williams brewing. Or to prevent your bag from touching bottom buy a 3" dai. by 2" long piece of pvc pipe some threaded rod 1/4-20. Drill and tap holes every 90 drgrees on the pipe. Cut and install the threaded rod so that the rods support the ring ( pipe ) on all 4 side then use the large black paper clips around the ring attaching the bag to it. There is a thread from the guy who originally made this but I'm too lazy to find it. Some one will find it if you don't understand what I wrote. Take care!!!

I've got a highly refined tool -- a 2' piece of string

tie it to the knot in the grain bag; lower to the right level, and then tie off on the handle of the pot.

Thanks guys. I really like the steamer idea. Brilliant!

I use a wooden clothespin to hold the string to the handle of the pot.

I clip it to a spoon.

tie the bag to the handle.

I use a metal skewer. Poke it thru the bag just below the knot, slip it (pointy end) over the edge of the pot and under one of the handles with the bag almost to the loop at the end of the skewer and the loop is the perfect size to slip my floating thermometer into right next to my grain bag. Great innovations here guys. Love the cute girraffe spoon there Tenchiro

I use zip ties and the keg spear from when I made my keggle... I've got a pic somewhere, but I'm not sure WHERE

You could use the same device many folks use to suspend their hop bags in the boiler:

Great idea, BM. Gotta love a device that has two uses. I love mine.

BierMuncher said:

You could use the same device many folks use to suspend their hop bags in the boiler:

Click to expand...

Man, brother, it's been quite awhile since you flashed your old ugly junk to the unsuspecting n00bs. After your slick garbage can tapper system, I forgot just how rough some of your earlier work was.

lol Revvy. After this, and seeing photos of St Arnold brewery, I'm wondering if my beer would be better if MY junk was ugly.

i use a long wooden spoon

I've always heated the water up to the strike temperature and then put the bag of grain in. If the temperature settled out where I wanted it, I shut the heat off. By using 2 quarts of water per pound, unless it is freezing out, the temperature stayed close enough.

I clip mine with the thermometer on the edge of the kettle.