Mashing in a grain bag?

Hi everyone. This is my first post and I wanted to take 30 seconds to set myself up before I asked my question.

Me: New to brewing. My personality type demands I read up on something as much as I can before jumping in. I purchased and read (a couple of times now) How to Brew by John Palmer. Wonderful book, though it highlighted some inaccuracies in Food Network's Good Eats episode on Brewing, which is what piqued my interest in home brewing in the first place.

Anyway. I suppose I should start by making an extract batch (maybe include some steeped specialty grains), but I really have this urge to jump right into all grain.

I understand that steeping specialty grains is purely sugar extraction from grains which have already had their starches converted by the roasting process. The temperature of a typical "steep" seems almost exactly what the typical mash temperature would be (though in a mash, I would be converting my own starches to sugar, and then extracting them during the lautering process).

Ok, here is my question: If you can steep specialty grains in a grain bag... Can you not also conduct a mash using grain bags?

While I have not conducted my own mash yet, or gone through the lautering/sparging process, it seems to me all unnecessarily complicated. Why not put your malted barley into several grain bags, mash at the proper temp for the proper time, remove the bags and have wort. Right?

If this doesn't work, can someone explain why not? If it does, can someone explain how much adjustment a grain recipe would need? It would seem, if I could mash in 4-6 gallons of water, without having to use 8-9-10 gallons to sparge with, that the mash would be much more concentrated, and that I would have to use less grains.

Thanks all!

First, let me say welcome!

Second, good call on reading "how to brew". That book got me off the ground and running. I appreciate your excitement in wanting to go all grain from the getgo, however there are a lot of procedural items that you learn by doing extract batches. AG requires a little more equipment, in addition to a mash tun, the other biggie is being able to cool 5 gallons of 212 degree wort. A wort chiller is pretty much required for AG. You can cool 3 gallons pretty effectively in an ice bath.

There are some posts (here I think) that are all about "brew in a bag" which uses 5 gallon paint strainers from your hw store. Search around for that.

In the meantime, do yourself a favor right now and find some brewing software. A lot of people on here like beersmith or promash or beer tools pro. It is well worth the investment of $20.

While you gather your equipment, go grab a kit from the local home brew store or one of the dealers online and get something fermenting already.

Technically speaking, yes. You can mash in a grain bag (and I have done this). However, there are a number of problems with doing it that way:

• The largest muslin bag can take ~3 lbs of grain.
• It takes a long time to drain the wort from a grain bag
• Mashing in a grain bag doesn't create a filter bed, meaning you end up with loose grain particles in your wort (tannins, etc.)
• You can't stir the grains in the grain bag, meaning the outside grains get utilized more than the inside grains. You'll get a very poor efficiency.

I would suggest the same thing as s3n8, start off with a kit (I did one and have designed my own recipes since) and learn the procedures used in extract brewing. Almost all of these (and all of the equipment, if you think ahead) transfer over to AG and its good to reduce the grade on the learning curve IMO. This will also give you some better understanding of what different grains and hops will do, meaning you'll be better prepared to design your own AG recipies later.

pfgonzo said:

If this doesn't work, can someone explain why not? If it does, can someone explain how much adjustment a grain recipe would need? It would seem, if I could mash in 4-6 gallons of water, without having to use 8-9-10 gallons to sparge with, that the mash would be much more concentrated, and that I would have to use less grains.

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I also would like to clear up a misconception you appear to have here. When you go AG, you're not going to sparge with 8-10 gallons of water. You're going to put in ~1.5 quarts/lb of grain and then sparge the grains in order to collect your desired preboil volume. This could be 13 gallons or it could be 6 gallons. If you'd like a good read on the process of mashing and sparging I'd suggest Bobby_M's All Grain Primer.

GearBeer said:

Technically speaking, yes. You can mash in a grain bag (and I have done this). However, there are a number of problems with doing it that way:

• The largest muslin bag can take ~3 lbs of grain.
• It takes a long time to drain the wort from a grain bag
• Mashing in a grain bag doesn't create a filter bed, meaning you end up with loose grain particles in your wort (tannins, etc.)
• You can't stir the grains in the grain bag, meaning the outside grains get utilized more than the inside grains. You'll get a very poor efficiency.

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Ok, couple things. I hate to be contradictory but the above isn't quite true.

First off, get a big enough grain bag, and you can mash 12lbs of grain with no problem. You can make them yourself, or if you're lazy like me, get a big bag from your LHBS (i think they're used for winemaking).

It takes almost exactly as long to lauter with a grain bag.

If you treat a mash in a grain bag the same way as you would a normal lauter, i.e. vorlaufing, you won't get any grain particulate in your sparge. Tannin extraction happens only if you squeeze the bag.

You absolutely can stir the grains in a grain bag, as long as it's big enough and the grains are loose enough to allow water to circulate through them.

I speak from experiance, I brew this way exclusively. Check out this link, it shows my whole brew in a bag process step by step.

Welcome. If you have the equipment to maintain 155 degrees for about an hour - you can try your hand at mini-mashing kits. It is a good gateway to AG and will improve the flavor of your beer quite a bit. Otherwise, just to get some batches under your belt, I usually just extract brew (get a good kit - not a canned kit) and just drop a pound or so of crystal malt in a grain bag into the boil water at the start, and remove the grains from the water once I started seeing little bubbles on the bottom of the pot (or remove before 170 degrees if you have a thermometer). That will give you the freshness of grains without the mashing process and you don't have to be as precise.

The differerence between steeping and mashing is really not in the technique- it's in what's happening inside chemically.

In steeping, your making a grain tea. It gives color and flavor, but not fermentable sugars. In mashing, you are forcing the starches in the grain to be converted to fermentable sugars.

You can definitely mash in a grain bag. It works. The efficiency is lower, though, usually. If you use a big enough grain bag, where the water and the grains are free flowing, you'll do ok.

You're talking about concentrated wort from the mash. That is partially true- it'll be more concentrated from the mash than if you add the sparge water. You don't HAVE to sparge- there are plenty of brewers out there who do a no-sparge method. The problem would be the amount of grain you'd need to mash to get a decent amount of wort. Say, you have a recipe that you want to have the OG be 1.050. In my method (standard 5 gallon batch in a cooler for an MLT), I'd need about 10 pounds of grain. Without a sparge, you'd need approx 15 pounds of grain.

I mash with 1.25 quarts per pound and sparge with up to .5 gallons per pound to get my volume. In practice, in a "normal" 5 gallon batch like yesterday, I used 15 quarts for my mash, and nearly 4 gallons for my sparge, for a boil volume of 6 gallons.

I would suggest either trying PM brewing (see Deathbrewer's tutorial- it's great), or try AG in the bag, but plan on sparging. I did it in my bottling bucket, lined with a big grain bag at first. The problem was that, even wrapped in a sleeping bag, the temperature dropped a bit too much.

If you have a 30 quart pot or larger, and a way to boil it (big burner, or an outside turkey fryer), you could definitely go AG.

Also, you mentioned mashing in 4-6 gallons of water. See, that is the problem. Ph is critical when mashing. In order to have the proper ph and the proper "thickness" of the mash, you shoud mash at 1.25-2 quarts of water per pound of grain. Otherwise, we'd all just mash in 6 gallons and call it a day!

MikeRLynch said:

Tannin extraction happens only if you squeeze the bag.

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As you said, I hate to take exception, but "squeezing the bag = tannins" is a myth. I agree with everything else you said.

Here is a post where I discussed this very thing yesterday:

Tannin extraction results from two primary conditions:

1. High pH and low gravity (i.e., < 1.010) combined with sparge temperatures (e.g., 160F - 170F).
   
2. Temperature higher than 170F.

Squeezing the bag results in neither of these conditions.

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You only get tannin extract from (1) oversparging (rinsing until the grain bed runs clear) or (2) sparging at too high of a temperature (> 170F).

lamarguy said:

As you said, I hate to take exception, but "squeezing the bag = tannins" is a myth. I agree with everything else you said.

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Why wasn't this on the Mythbusters alcohol show last night?

It might be fun to see a skilled pair of HBT'ers do a Youtube brewing Mythbusters to deal with all that brewing misinformation out there I'd do it but I don't know what I'm talking about a lot of the time

whoops

MikeRLynch said:

It might be fun to see a skilled pair of HBT'ers do a Youtube brewing Mythbusters to deal with all that brewing misinformation out there

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Ya, that would definitely be an interesting show, assuming you could find some homebrewers that were knowledgeable and entertaining. I think the "knowledge" part wouldn't be too hard, but the "entertaining" might be a challenge.

Did you see Alton Brown's episode on making beer? All entertainment, baby...

Just recently I have been pointed to a discussion of BIAB (as it is called) on the brewing network board. (here is the link http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4650). While it was noted that there is some controversy, the discussion on that thread is pretty much in favor. The idea is that you can brew AG with just one large pot.

- mash thickness: it will get close to 6 l/kg for smaller beers (3 qt/lb) which is not really a problem for conversion yet. If you want to mash with less, dough in with less and add more water later. This will require an additional pot for heating the additional water, but that pot doesn&#8217;t have to be large.

- efficiency: basically the no-sparge efficiency which can easily be in the mid to upper 70s for smaller beers if you have ~100% conversion in the mash

- turbid run-off: you need a mesh that is really fine to achieve this but aside from this I don&#8217;t see a real problem here.

So I think it works and it may be the new batch sparging when it comes to a technique simple enough for entering AG brewing. It also works well for PM brewers as you could do this in a 5.5 gal turkey fryer set-up.

Kai

I do large partial mashes (up to 5 lbs of grain) with a large nylon bag and a 2 gallon insulated drink cooler. I actually line the cooler with the bag (like putting in a garbage sack) when I mash so the top of the bag is open and I can stir the mash. When it's time to sparge I can just pick up the top of the bag, let it drain and move it to a sparge kettle. My efficiency seems pretty good (I don't really know how to measure it but I'm always a bit over my expected OG) and I know I could do a 2.5 gallon all grain batch with my current setup. In fact I plan to try that very soon.

All fantastic responses. Thanks everyone! I think I'll keep reading and start off with an extract batch as suggested to get a feel for the process.

you can definitely do all-grain in a bag. i do it weekly. check out the link in my sig in regards to partial mash/all-grain in a bag.

DeathBrewer, real quick... what does the "RIS" in your sig on Scarlet Dragon Dark Strong Ale stand for? I presume it has something to do with when it was bottled, but I can't figure out the acronym.

The "RIS 08/08/08" can be found here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/08-08-08-a-41782/

It's a Russian Imperial Stout.

The Scarlet Dragon was my first Dark Strong Ale and i finally dug it out of the basement the other day. it tastes terrible :cross:

i've gotten better, tho

DeathBrewer, I read through the steps (awesome write up by the way), but I had one more question.

I didn't read all 13 pages of the thread, so I apologize if this info is in there, but I'm curious to know what sort of gravity you got from the mash before adding the extract? Did you happen to take any measurements?

Thanks!

I don't generally take measurements with this method until after it is cooled...i get pretty consistent 70-75% efficiency.

it would be best to take a reading before you start your boil to decide what amount of extract you want to add. however, don't forget to account for your boil off, as the gravity will go up as h20 leaves the beer.

promash or beersmith will help with these calculations.

MikeRLynch said:

If you treat a mash in a grain bag the same way as you would a normal lauter, i.e. vorlaufing, you won't get any grain particulate in your sparge.

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I mash the same way in an unmodified Gott cooler. I do need to have my girlfriend hold the large nylon grain bag off the bottom of the cooler so the liquid continues to flow. We could put a veggie strainer in the bottom, to keep the bag raised, but for some reason we never do.

The only difference is I don't vorlouf since the bag is being raised/moved around a bit. I use a very fine mesh nylon bag between the MLT and the kettle that picks up anything that made it's way out of the medium mesh grain bag.

pfgonzo said:

All fantastic responses. Thanks everyone! I think I'll keep reading and start off with an extract batch as suggested to get a feel for the process.

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This is very wise. The other night I was doing a Partial Mash and thought about the fact that once the mash is done the real work was all set to begin. What I mean is that a really big part of brewing is getting routines down for boiling, cooling, and cleaning up afterward.

Most important is getting your sanitization routine down pat. This is harder than you might imagine. In my first first batches I always had to quickly make up another santizer solution to get some piece of equipment that I had missed or contaminated.

I would recommend you get a few batches under your belt using the extract/steep grains recipes or kits before moving to PM or AG.

Start with an unhopped extract recipe, add steeped specialty grains and hops. Plenty of good extract recipes out there, stay away from the kits. (I like having left over ingredients to play with in my next batches.) If you've done the research your ready to jump in above the basic beginner level.

You'll have a lot more control if you don't use a kit (little more of this a little less of that). Steeped grains still should be crushed (local homebrew shop can crush them for you)

Here's my most recent recipe I plan on making in December:

Brown Ale

+/- 1/2 lb 80 lvb Crystal malt (steep grains in bag 15-20min before boil)
+/- 3/4 lb Choc. Malt(steep grains in bag 15-20min before boil)
1/2 lb Maltodextrin

6lbs Amber DME (add to boil)

1oz willamette-60 min boil
1oz goldings- 20 min boil
1oz fuggles-steep 5min before racking to fermentation. or dry hop haven't decided

Nottingham yeast

Gypsum
Irish Moss

Advanced All Grain Brewing Looks like a good place to start.

Personally I got into AG pretty quickly after starting because partial and extract just didn't seem right for me. I've always used bags, and as long as you strain before you go to Primary, than you'll be fine. Get a nice double-mesh strainer, take your time, and you'll get most of what you want out.

Then rather...

For those of you who mash using the unmodified cooler and large grain bag method, what kind of efficiency do you get?

I am a new all grain brewer and just did my first batch using this method. I ended up around 65% efficiency according to beersmith, and was wondering if my low efficiency is due to mashing in a cooler without a manifold, or just from being a beginner.

I've done 4-6 batches BIAB Australian style (in the boil kettle).

I get 75% efficiency on average, no sparge.

Bednc,

You can get better than 65% efficiency with a bag. Do you sparge, and if so, how? I think most of us 'dunk sparge' in hot water rather than pour water of the grain bag, which probably doesn't work as well.

EDIT: well, remillard doesn't sparge at all, but the kettle method uses all the water at once. I think if you mash in less water in a cooler and then add water after, you have to sparge.

My PM setup (large grain bag in unmodified 2 gallon cooler, 5 minute batch sparge) routinely gives me 70% efficiency though it does drop a little bit if I mash much over 4.75 lbs of grain.

McGarnigle said:

Bednc,

You can get better than 65% efficiency with a bag. Do you sparge, and if so, how? I think most of us 'dunk sparge' in hot water rather than pour water of the grain bag, which probably doesn't work as well.

EDIT: well, remillard doesn't sparge at all, but the kettle method uses all the water at once. I think if you mash in less water in a cooler and then add water after, you have to sparge.

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I pretty much used the grain bag just as if it had been a false bottom. I'm using one of the 36" fine mesh bags so it is big enough to line the inside of the 5 gallon igloo cooler I have.

For my 3 gallon pale ale recipe I mashed 6.5lbs of grain with a little over 2 gallons of water at 153 for 60 minutes, then batch sparged with two 1.5 gallon batches of 170F water. This ended up giving me around 4 gallons in my brew pot, which is about all I can handle on the stove top in my apartment.

Looking back on my process, I think I could have sparged longer as I only let the 170F water sit in the mash long enough to stir, vorlauf, and let it run out to the brew pot. I researched this a lot before my first attempt. Other than maybe sparging longer and using some 5.2 next time. I don't know what else I should do to improve my process.

Just a reminder that this was my first all grain. I am also pretty new to the hobby. I have done 4 extract/steeping batches but found the process a little to simple and decided to move up to the next step. I was still very pleased with my results and look forward to tasting my first all grain beer, but still consider myself somewhat of a n00b and will be looking for ways to improve the process and get my efficiency number higher.

I really would suggest the extract with specialty grains and individual hop additions to start. There is an amount of manual skill and familiarity with procedural steps and ingredients that you can only develop by doing it. And jumping into the the multiple and sometimes finicky processes of all grain from the start would not be easy. At the very least, find someone who does all grain and watch them brew a batch first.

And I managed a 3 gallon brew in an bag experiment with a five gallon enameled canning pot and a paint strainer bag. It was a stove top mash and I had to add a little heat a few time to keep the temp up. It actually worked quite well, was quite easy to do, and I got about a 75% efficiency. It would be a great way to ramp up from steeping intop partial and small full mashes.

You can do a whole lot with PAINT STRAINER BAGS for the local hardware store. They come in 1 and 5 gallon sizes. I use a 5 gallon one to mash in, by lining the inside of my 5 gallon cooler with it (the bags come with an elastic top). Doing all grain now with an unmodified 5-gallon cooler and a single paint strainer.