You do a web search on this and end up about 50/50 either way.
http://search.netzero.net/search?ac...urce=hybrid_zerobar&query=Grain bag squeezing
This would make an interesting side-by side comparison test.
OTOH: I don't squeeze my mash out, and a rinse of it (sparging) is sufficient to get the flavor from the grains--so, what's wrong w/ a rinse of the grains and no risk of tannin extraction?
You have to realize, that just like the whole long primary discussion, some of the thoughts in favor of bag squeezing are new, and are coming about because of thfact that BIAB brewers DO squeeze. BIAB is old to Aussie brewers, but is relatively new to us Americans. I mean we really first heard about it a little over a year ago, when John Palmer wrote about it in BYO, along with No chill brewing. You should see some of the flame war threads on here about No chill. It got nasty.
And then many Aussie brewers jumped in laughing at us about some of the arguments folks were making about it, and reminded us that they've been doing no chill for decades and no one died from Botchulism or any of the other stuff folks on here were bringing up.
So of course you're going to find mixed info on the webs. Folks have been mindlessly repeating the "Don't squeeze you'll extract tannins" line verbatum for years. Hell, I can be accused of doing it too. But it wasn't until I started reading and seeing the info on BIAB, where people were indeed squeezing their bags, that I started questioning that "conventional wisdom," and looking at the info on tannin extractions. And eveidently other folks were doing the same thing.
You can't go by the statistics of the web search to give you a valid answer, try this do a google on Autolysis annd long primaries. You will see there are more hits on autolysis, because for the same reason; folks online have been repeating the same info about that verbatum as well. But it's only been in the last couple years, especially
this last year that folks like palmer, and Jamil, and Basic Brewing, and BYO have seriously started doing what we've been doing, and getting beaten for, for the last 4 years,
re-examining their beliefs on the role of yeast post fermentation, and the de-emphasis on autolysis.
Ideas change, info changes, science changes, and that's why I get down on the "old info" being repeated nearly verbatum over and over and over. Just look at all the treads in the similar threads box below and see how many times the answered is phrased exactly like ths "Don't squeeze you'll extract tannins"
as the entire answer to the post.
With no change in phraseology, and no more information provided, just what they were told, by someone who was told it, by someone who had it repeated verbatum to them. With no questioning of it, no bothering to look at actual info on tannin production in beer, (Like the articles in BYO, and Aussie Braft brewer.) We just keep repeating over and over what we've been told, like a broken record.
But you can't do that, you gotta look beyond the rote, and especially look at the NEW ideas, NEW information, and NEW answers.
Heck, how many of you have actually read the HARD COPY version of "How to Brew" or only have read the first edition, the online one? How many of you even know there's a hard copy edition, actually by now more than one, iirc?
Do you know that Palmers, CHANGED some of them things he's written since the online version?
Palmer has since made some changes in the book since the online versions, including his explanation of Ibus, and his ideas about using a secondary.
Just like any book, things change with the time. The problem has been, since the online edition is so readily available and we recommend it so often here, people think the info is "gospel" and don't know that it's been changed in later editions in light of new knowledge and science.
It's a great start, but forums like this and on podcasts are where you hear the most state of the art info on brewing. If someone like papazian or palmer so much as farts new info, more than likely one of us has heard the podcast and will post before the gas even clears in the studio. Plus many of our brewers on here are in the forefront of beer knowlege, and have appeared on podcasts or in Byo or Zymurgy magazine.
Here's the stuff on IBU's that pretty much contradict what he originally wrote.
Basic Brewing Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:30 PM
John Palmer, author of How to Brew, shares information from a conference that challenged his concept of what defines an International Bitterness Unit (IBU).
Click to listen, MP-3
And here's a thread with his changing of his views on secondaries,
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/ though as you can see, STILL some old dogs can't be taught new tricks.
But if you don't KNOW that Palmer's changed his views, and ideas since the online, and all you quote verbatum is the online edition, then who's right, and who's wrong? WHat info is truly valid or not?
That's all I wanted you to do, to
think about it before you simply epeat the just repeat the "don't squeeze you'll extract tannins" line that you you've heard......It may no longer be the ONLY answer....Nor may be the "correct" one.
