"Brew-in-a-bag"

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eon

eon

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I was just wondering if anyone has ever used the "brew-in-a-bag" technique? I have seen the Basic Brewing guys use it before and it looks great! Is this a substitution for using a cooler mash-tun? It would be great if I could go this route for now until I have the money to go all out and buy a real mash-tun etc...

Here is a video of them using the technique. They go more in depth in another video but I couldn't seem to find it.



Speaking of Basic Brewing, anyone out there watch these guys? I love their videos. I am learning a lot!
 
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I use it and it's great. I currently mini-batch BIAB on my stove top, I'll soon jump into traditional AG with a mashtun cooler, but I'm cheap right now and haven't wanted to jump onto a $200 kettle and propane rig.

http://www.biabrewer.info/ has some great guides and knowledge. There's also some on that aussiebrewer site that are tops as well.

____________________

It's really simple. Mash in your boil kettle with a large bag (big enough to line your kettle and have the grains able to move) using your total boil volume for the most part. The idea is not to sparge, but you can set a collander over your kettle and run some sparge over it, or dunk-sparge if you have another pot. Simply pickup the bag and all the grains are removed and you boil like normal!

It's really simple and works quite effective. You will lose a few efficiency points by not having a proper sparge, but many people still manage to get a great 80+ %
 
easy peasy! Perfect when you're working with limited space and particularly well suited to doing a mini-mash.

I improvised on my last batch, a partial mash. I used BIAB, mashing about 5 lbs. of grain in a small ice chest (cooler). Batch sparged right in my brew kettle. Definitely easier to clean up too.
 
There's a ton of threads on BIAB here. We were sort of the first US forum to begin discussing and playing with it after the BYO article brought it and no-chill brewing to folks in the state's attention. You'll find a lot of new tips and tricks for it by poking around on here.
 
Ok, so let me see if I can get this straight. I'll use the recipe below as an example:

16.25# 2-row
1.5# victory (called for 1.25# melanoidin)
0.25# cara-pils (none called for)

hop schedule(whole leaf)
0.75 oz Simcoe(11.2%)-60min (called for 0.62 oz @13%)
0.67 oz Nugget(12.5%)-60min (called for 0.53 oz Warrior@15%)
0.75 oz Centennial(10.1%)-45min
0.75 oz Centennial(10.1%)-30min
1.50 oz Cascade(6.0%)-15min
1.50 oz Cascade - dry(pellet)

yeast
WLP001 (called for WLP002 or Wyeast 1968)

mash
159ºF for 60 min

-------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so I would take a HUGE grain bag to fit into my say 8 gallon brew pot. Next, I would fill the pot with water and bring it to 159F? Then I would pour all three of these grains into the bag and let them sit for 60 minutes at 159 degrees?

After that pull the bag out(with grains in it), bring it to a boil and then proceed as normal by boiling for 60 min, adding hops, etc...

does that sound right?
 
While you can just take the bag out and let it drip the remainder into the boil kettle, you might want to put the bag into a wire colander and drizzle 170 degree F water (maybe a gallon or so) onto the grain to wash out all the goodness.
 
Thanks for the info iijakii. Right now I am doing extract and partial mash. I usually only do 3 gallon boils and then add the extra water to the wort in the fermenter.

What size brew pot do you think I should buy when I move to all grain and BIAB? I would like to buy a pot that's big enough so I never have to worry if it's big enough! :)
 
If you are buying a pot definitely go for atleast 10 gallons, preferably a 15.5 gallon one.

I'm actually mashing my last mini-biab batch right now! I just sprung and bought http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VXD94A/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 tonight.

If you let me know what kind of pot you have to work with, we can come up with a scaled recipe tailored for that.
 
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Or maybe If I were to do the above recipe BIAB, I could always do half the 2 row and then dump that out and then do the other half of the 2 row?
 
Hmm, I've never really read up on that at all.

You could do try doing that and making a concentrated wort and then diluting to proper volume/starting gravity once you take the grain out and are about to boil. I'd imagine you'd have less than ideal efficiency, but RDWHAHB comes into play I'm sure. :tank:

Edit: What are you even trying to make? Looks like an American IPA, but why so much grain? Are you trying to make a really high ABV? What type of pre-boil and post-boil volume are you trying to do?
 
Well, the example recipe is a three floyds dreadnaught clone. It is a clone of this beer:

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/three-floyds-dreadnaught-imperial-ipa/8933/

I just randomly pulled that recipe off the internet. Maybe I don't really need that much grain. There has to be a way to clone that beer with less grain? Not really sure as I have never done all grain or BIAB.
 
Well, no you cannot clone that beer without using the same amount of grain. Basic guide to beer: imperial-anything = ****loads of grain :p

You could scale it down and make a smaller batch, however. With 8 gallon kettle you can't BIAB that recipe because you won't have enough room. For instance, I BIAB a 5gallon pot and never go over a 7lb grain bill. That leads me to doing 2.5-3gal batches.

Welcome to all-grain man. Whatever gear you have, it's never enough!
 
I BIAB with two 7.5 gallon pots - mash in one, sparge in the second, then add the two together for the boil.

The most grain my "mash" pot can handle is about 13 lbs. While that is mashing, I bring my sparge water to temp and then dunk/sparge. Its a really easy way to go all-grain.

If you only have one pot and want to do that big of a grain bill - I recommend a partial mash. BIAB about 1/2 of the grain and supplement with extract to hit your desired gravity. One of the online recipe formulators can get you there pretty easy.
 
Eon,
Definitely do the BIAB. It's so easy you'll love it. But start with a different recipe and do it all in your single 8 gallon pot until you get the hang of it or feel like buying more stuff. Like wvlheel said, 13 lbs of grain or so will work, but that's a fairly big beer too. Start with something around 10-11 lbs and you'll be happy.

I am getting 85+% efficiency every single time so you don't need tons of grain.
 
I tried this with an 11 pound grainbill, and you definitley need a bigger pot. I had water spilling over the side.




eon said:
Ok, so let me see if I can get this straight. I'll use the recipe below as an example:

16.25# 2-row
1.5# victory (called for 1.25# melanoidin)
0.25# cara-pils (none called for)

hop schedule(whole leaf)
0.75 oz Simcoe(11.2%)-60min (called for 0.62 oz @13%)
0.67 oz Nugget(12.5%)-60min (called for 0.53 oz Warrior@15%)
0.75 oz Centennial(10.1%)-45min
0.75 oz Centennial(10.1%)-30min
1.50 oz Cascade(6.0%)-15min
1.50 oz Cascade - dry(pellet)

yeast
WLP001 (called for WLP002 or Wyeast 1968)

mash
159ºF for 60 min

-------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so I would take a HUGE grain bag to fit into my say 8 gallon brew pot. Next, I would fill the pot with water and bring it to 159F? Then I would pour all three of these grains into the bag and let them sit for 60 minutes at 159 degrees?

After that pull the bag out(with grains in it), bring it to a boil and then proceed as normal by boiling for 60 min, adding hops, etc...

does that sound right?
Click to expand...
 

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