Using a grain bag in a mash tun.

I've searched the forum, and i wasn't able to find a thread about this.

But has anyone ever used a Jumbo grain bag (like thoses used for Brew in bag) in their mash tun? I've done it twice and the only benefit to doing this is cleanups are faster. After sparging, i just lift the bag out, instead of scooping out the grains.

I just wanted to know if anyone else does this, and if you have any tips you would like to share.

I started out BIAB in a 6 gal pot then got a 10 gal to do full boils. Now I use the 6 gal as a mash tun with the grain bag as a "filter." It works well but I do end up with a fair amount of trub in my fermentor.
Since you like the bag for easy clean-up, are you using a manifold/ woven stainless steel tube as a filter?

Yes. I use a stainless hose fashioned from a waterline, in a 10 gallon igloo cooler. I mash and sparge as a normal mashtun would.

Having done about 12 BIAB's now and some standard 2/3V before that, my tip would be - try a single sparge and then pull the bag out and squeeze and capture all the wort. The pH should be within an acceptable range which would allow for squeezing (without extracting tannins). Your bag may also be too coarse, in that case, I would use a bag made out of voile fabric.

kegboy5000 said:

But has anyone ever used a Jumbo grain bag (like thoses used for Brew in bag) in their mash tun? I've done it twice and the only benefit to doing this is cleanups are faster. After sparging, i just lift the bag out, instead of scooping out the grains.

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I just dump the grain out into the garbage can. Doesn't get any faster than that. And I don't have to clean the bag afterwards.

Another benefit of using a grain bag inside a mash tun or cooler is that you don't need build a manifold or braid to lauter, and also the chance of a stuck sparge is practically nil. Just lift the bag slightly if the runnings slow a bit.

what's the estimated efficency with this method? i usually get 72% in my cooler/mash tun but cleaning it up is a b**** and if the bag helps and i won't lose much efficency, i'd love to try it

cval said:

what's the estimated efficency with this method? i usually get 72% in my cooler/mash tun but cleaning it up is a b**** and if the bag helps and i won't lose much efficency, i'd love to try it

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If you are batch sparging, efficiency should be the same irregardless whether you use a bag, manifold or braid.

I use a cooler with no manifold lined with a voile bag. I get in the 70's efficiency. Mash as usual, add sparge water (or dunk in pot filled with sparge water), stir, drain. I get trub too but I have been using a colander lined with voile on top of my fermenter when I siphon the wort in. Works well.

I use this method. Using my bottling bucket and sparge bag. Batch sparge getting 80% eff. Take bag to garden. Dump turn inside out and spin Gets most of the grain out. Then rinse and clean

cval said:

what's the estimated efficency with this method? i usually get 72% in my cooler/mash tun but cleaning it up is a b**** and if the bag helps and i won't lose much efficency, i'd love to try it

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If you are using a fine mesh bag and are only getting 72% efficiency you need to double crush your grains because the particle size it too big. With the bag you shouldn't have to worry about a stuck sparge or even lautering since the bag should be your filter instead of relying on the grain husks to form a filter bed.

henryred said:

I use this method. Using my bottling bucket and sparge bag. Batch sparge getting 80% eff. Take bag to garden. Dump turn inside out and spin Gets most of the grain out. Then rinse and clean

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interesting. You'd think channeling would hurt the efficiency as the grist thickens near the end of each sparge...guess it's not a huge deal

I started putting a bag into my cooler mash tun when I did wheat-heavy recipes after a stuck sparge and it works great for that. I did a 5G recipe with 10lbs wheat double-ground, flowed like a champ.

I am using my existing manifold, and just drop the bag over it. I do that because the bag is a really tight fit around the top of my (round) cooler, and tends to pop off, so I wanted double protection in case the bag slipped down into the mash. It really works great...unbelievable. I get the same efficiencies...mid 70's although I don't obsess about that. The thing this has over BIAB (opinion only) if you already have a cooler tun, you don't have to try and lift heavy bags of wet grain and squeeze them and all that. It's more equipment but works great. The bag makes cleanup a little easier too, but not much. I don't use it every time, just for wheat.

[EDIT] and I would add that since I have a 5G igloo mash tun, I have always just inverted it over a 5G bucket with a trash liner to dump the grains out. I do the same when the bag is in there. So all in all it does not help me with cleanup but I see it could be helpful.

I wash my voile in the laundry, then hang it to dry. Of course, I rinse as much grain with kitchen sprayer as I can first.

I do the same thing as you as insurance that I don't get a stuck sparge. It only took one time having to empty my mash tun into my boil pot to convince me since I use a copper manifold and it was a nightmare to get it unstuck.

I'm doing this right now with a wheat batch. Another benefit is not having to vorlauf...comes out clean as a whistle.

i have been thinking about that my self, where do you get a bag big enough to mash in?

payton34 said:

i have been thinking about that my self, where do you get a bag big enough to mash in?

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5 gallon paint strainer bags will be big enough but they might be hard to control in a cooler. Some homebrew stores, online or regular, may have what you want or you could sew your own from voille curtain material.

I mash in my turkey fryer with a paint strainer bag and the ones I bought that have the elastic top stretch over the rim and stay there nicely. I could use the ones I bought that have no elastic by using some kind of clip but I think I will just use them for hop strainers instead as the bags are cheap enough to be worth re-purposing.

I have a 10 gallon round cooler as a mash tun. It has a SS braid manifold. I had been using Deathbrewer's stovetop all grain method for quite a while. However, I live in the Midwest and we are the land of temperature extremes. I found it troublesome to keep my mash temperature steady. When I had the chance to pick up this tun for $25 on craigslist, I jumped on it!

I use a "jumbo coarse bag" often used in winemaking to line the tun. Works well for me. I do not have a grain crusher, so I depend on the store to crush. If I get my grain from my favorite place, I average around 72-75% efficiency. I'm happy with that number. Maybe someday I'll start crushing my grain and either cut back on the quantities or recalibrate and go no sparge.

I like the predictability of the insulated tun, ability to squeeze the bag, and ease of cleanup.

Cheers

I use grain bag in the MT which allows for a finer crush at .39 for me. I get 85% consistently. I do one batch sparge then dunk the bag some in my remaining water volume in the kettle. That gets quite a bit of sugar out also. Last time i measured 1.016 in the dunk sparge water, but of course that depends on how much grain you have and the volume of water. Mine was around 9lbs and maybe 3 gallons?

As long as you tied off the bag opening with string you should be able to do this in a rectangular cooler also right?

I use a two yard section of voile in my rectangular cooler, which is probably 22qt. Lid holds it up great during mash and it overlaps a few inches on the shorter sides.

I have been thinking this same thing I have a 5 Gallon Rubbermaid drinking water cooler that was left over from a project I did many years ago it was brand new I have only used it for I think for lemonaid once and tea once it is super clean figure I can do an alll grain of around 10-11 lbs but not much more. Seeing this makes me believe my thoughts on using a bag were correct.

I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to mash in an extra bottling bucket, since it's cheaper than a mash tun, and I already have the bags from BIAB. If the temp holds in a metal pot, why not in a plastic bucket? Bucket from the bakery, a $4 spigot, and a $1 PVC elbow for dip tube was all it took.

tennesseean_87 said:

I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to mash in an extra bottling bucket, since it's cheaper than a mash tun, and I already have the bags from BIAB. If the temp holds in a metal pot, why not in a plastic bucket? Bucket from the bakery, a $4 spigot, and a $1 PVC elbow for dip tube was all it took.

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Yes, you can certainly mash in a bottling bucket. Wrap it in a few blankets or a sleeping bag to hold the heat in. You will likely lose a couple three degrees oveer the hour, so I would mash in and start 2-3 degrees high to anticipate the minor loss...say 154-155.

Now I want to know if there exists a bag that can line the rectangular cooler in which I mash without dead space outside of the bag? I use a 2yd section of voile now and press it all the way around the cooler walls, but no easy way to hoist and hang it is teh sucking.

tre9er said:

Now I want to know if there exists a bag that can line the rectangular cooler in which I mash without dead space outside of the bag? I use a 2yd section of voile now and press it all the way around the cooler walls, but no easy way to hoist and hang it is teh sucking.

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Awesome discussion! I'm with you on the rect cooler. Some of the larger bags would work pretty decent on cube or smaller width/length coolers. They wouldn't work so well on 48qt+ coolers because of the dead space as you mentioned.

I bought a 5 gal rubbermaid from HD the other day for about $21. I may go BIAB with that or I'm also thinking of getting a 28 qt rect and returning the 5 gal round. The 28qt isn't too wide or long but I don't think the bag will reach all the corners like it would in the 5 gal round. You have to admit - with the 5 gal round since there isn't a lot of surface space - you're bag will have an easy time in covering the bottom and thus avoiding deadspace/channeling. You're idea of getting a bigger bag or making one fits but the problem with pulling it out and hanging it exists like you stated.

Question is - biab bag vs braid.....they'll probably be close in terms of cost....the bag will work great in a round cooler....but not so good in a rect cooler....where as the braid would work decent in either...however in a 5 gal cooler - the braid may have issue with weight on it stick....or flatten too.

I hate choices...

The braid requires sparging, too, which is moving more water from vessel to vessel to vessel. With BIAB in the cooler, I just pull the bag and put it in the BK (which is heated to 175) and leave it there for 10 minutes, pull, squeeze, and dump the cooler runnings into the BK.

Also, I ordered some kevlar/rubberized high-temp gloves from Amazon to help me with squeezing the bag since I don't have a hoist setup going yet (in which case I'd just use two pan-lids and smash it).

I'm thinking of purchasing this for my 10 gallon cooler:

http://www.brewinabag.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-brew-bag-for-coolers

But for those that have circular coolers with screw-on lids, are you able to close it all the way over top of the bag? Can you screw it on all the way, or do you have to just lay it on top of the cooler?

Deckers_Beers said:

I'm thinking of purchasing this for my 10 gallon cooler:

http://www.brewinabag.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-brew-bag-for-coolers

But for those that have circular coolers with screw-on lids, are you able to close it all the way over top of the bag? Can you screw it on all the way, or do you have to just lay it on top of the cooler?

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If you have your own mill, set it very fine. With the finely milled grain the conversion will happen quick enough that the lid doesn't need to be tight to hold in the heat. Just lay it on top. That's just one of the benefits of using a bag.

Deckers_Beers said:

But for those that have circular coolers with screw-on lids, are you able to close it all the way over top of the bag? Can you screw it on all the way, or do you have to just lay it on top of the cooler?

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I use a 10 gal Home Depot cooler with screw-on lid and a wilserbrewer bag. The lid screws on tight with no problem.

Alpotun said:

I use a 10 gal Home Depot cooler with screw-on lid and a wilserbrewer bag. The lid screws on tight with no problem.

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Awesome. I've looked at their website as well. Thinking about going with the Wilserbrewer.

I mash in an unmodified 10 gallon igloo cooler. I use a grain bag as my filter. Mashing in a bag in a cooler is the best of all worlds! Cheap and easy!

buy a Wilserbrewer bag, they fit your cooler and last forever.

I use that brew bag in 10 gallon cooler and it works good. Easy cleanup, no risk of stuck sparge and same efficiency with batch sparging.

I mash in a bag. I've found I have to reduce grain and water due to efficiency increase. Clean up is super quick.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482971351.036012.jpg

tre9er said:

Now I want to know if there exists a bag that can line the rectangular cooler in which I mash without dead space outside of the bag? I use a 2yd section of voile now and press it all the way around the cooler walls, but no easy way to hoist and hang it is teh sucking.

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A bag should not add any dead space to your cooler. Here is a nice bag made for rectangular coolers. It's reinforced, and they will make it to fit the dimensions of your cooler.

With my HERMS system, I use a bag in my inverted keggle Mash Tun because I was having issues with small bits of grain husk getting past my false bottom and giving me fits with controlling the flow out of my chugger pumps. A bag took care of it, nothing gets past my false bottom any more. Much less prone to stuck sparges now too. Clean up is kind of a wash, tun is a little easier, but now I have to rinse out the bag.

Shameless plug...I make bags for rectangular coolers as well. $33 shipped or about $15 less than above.

HNY
Wilser