BIAB Mash Out

First post to this forum, hopefully someone doesn' already have a thread running on this topic. I am planning for my first BIAB session. I'm planning a MASH out per many recommendations, but haven't decided yet on how to do so. My first thought is to do what seems to be the standard full volume mash (strike water plus sparge water all in at the beginning) and adding heat at the end to mash out (bag raised on a steamer). Or alternatively, I thought to mash with just the normal strike water volume for 60 minutes and then add the higher temperature sparge water at the end to raise the temperature close to mash out temperature and add heat as needed. My question then is, can I use very hot strike water (190+) using a calculator to determine the actual temperature based on the 152 degree mash temperature and the strike water volume, or does adding very hot water into a mash produce tannins and other bad stuff, even if it is only for a brief period of time while the water is mixed in and the temperature is diluted. The alternative would be to add 170-175 degree strike water and apply heat to bring it the mash out temperature.

I don't think I explained this very eloquently, but I think those who have done the BIAB mash out will understand what I'm getting at.

Not sure what your setup is and what you're trying to attempt, but couldn't you simply add all of your water volume at the beginning then simply raise the temperature?

Many have advocated that the high water to grist ratio of an "all-in" mash makes the beer dryer and changes the chemistry if not the taste of the wort. Since I haven't even done my first BIAB, I should probably just go with the flow, but I was just wondering what the practical experience on this board would have to say about it.

In a full volume BIAB, you're immediately heating the mash to a boil and you're not sparging so there's no need for a mashout. Pull your bag, squeeze to appropriate volume, and turn on the flame. Bam- mash profile fixed.

daksin said:

in a full volume biab, you're immediately heating the mash to a boil and you're not sparging so there's no need for a mashout. Pull your bag, squeeze to appropriate volume, and turn on the flame. Bam- mash profile fixed.

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+1

OK, spent an hour reading a bunch of other posts on BIAB Mash-out and it seemed to be the majority opinion, doesn't really matter. So let's flip to the other side of this question, full volume mash vs. mashing with only the strike water quantity and adding the sparge water to the pot after 60 minutes. I didn't see this addressed much in the other posts I read, but on other sites, some felt strongly that the "proper" strike water volume should be maintained for the 60 minute mash cycle. The purpose of the sparge would be less about rinsing the grain (as I intend to do it in the mash pot, but to keep the water to grist ratio similar to the traditional full grain practice.

I do a semi-biab like you describe- mash in at 1.5 qts/lbs and heat my sparge water while I'm mashing. I mash in my 7.5gal turkey fryer (boil kettle) and sparge in another 8 gallon pot I have. Then I combine the two in my boil kettle and light the fires.

Since a batch sparge takes so little time, again, there is no need to mash out.

daksin said:

In a full volume BIAB, you're immediately heating the mash to a boil and you're not sparging so there's no need for a mashout. Pull your bag, squeeze to appropriate volume, and turn on the flame. Bam- mash profile fixed.

Click to expand...

+1
Above is how I do it - YMMV.

I'm a noob also to BIAB, did my first a week and a half ago. I had read a thread on here about steeping grains in a extract batch that said you should use less water to steep the grains in than your planned boil amount. I believe it said something about the PH being to high with too much water to grains. I guess you could adjust your water for that. Here is a calculator I used on my first BIAB that is easy to use http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/
It has a mash out option if that is what you want to do.

I tried full boil BIAB and sparging. The only diff I can see is the extra time it takes to sparge. Eff is no better. But I'm talking about using say 4.5 lbs of grain in a 2.75 gallon amt of water. I brew only 1.75 gallon bataches and I can really squeeze every last drop out of the grain. I only loose about .25 gallons to the grain.

So that batch is in the can. I thought since so many were willing to take the time to read and reply, that I would recap. Pretty much everything went as planned. I did the "All In" water with the recommended 3.39 gl of water to 4 lbs 1oz of grain bill for a 1.75 gal batch (per recipe and method provided by Beersmith). OG came out to 1.050 very slightly under the expected, but I ended up with 2 1/4 gallons in the fermentor instead of the 1.75 I planned for. So it would appear that my efficiency was better than expected but either my boil off was way low or I didn't leave much behind to the grain/or trub.
Here is where I have a concern. After boiling and fermenting, I poured the wort back through my bag to strain out the hops and break material. Problem is, the bag quickly became clogged. It was a large bag, but fine mesh. After sitting there for several minutes and with half of the wort still in the bag, I used my hand to move the liquid around in the bag, everntually having to squeeze the bag to get the rest of the wort out. I didn't think about it until late that night that I don't know how sanitized my hand was. I didn't plan on my hand coming into direct contact with the wort, and so wasn't real careful about what I had touched or to wash my hand with sanitizer. Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me.

Any suggestions for filtering the trub out of the wort when moving to the fermenting bucket without having to hand squeeze the wort. I didn't have any issues with filtering out the grain, but the hops clogged up real good.

RichE said:

...Any suggestions for filtering the trub out of the wort when moving to the fermenting bucket without having to hand squeeze the wort. I didn't have any issues with filtering out the grain, but the hops clogged up real good.

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Did you put the wort back through the same bag you mashed in? If so, you should never do this again. Grain is covered in lactobacillus and a few other nasties. That's a surefire way to souring your beer. I wouldn't even do it if you were soaking your bag in starsan after- too many nooks an crannies in a bag like that to hold air and not get sanitized.

Anyway, just dump all the trub in to your fermentor. Zero reason to keep it out. It's insoluble, so it's not going to make your beer any cloudier.

I use a hop bag during the boil, started this while doing extract. You have to drain the hop bag after the boil and it takes a few minutes because the bag is so fine but it keeps the wort clear of hops.

C-Rider said:

I tried full boil BIAB and sparging. The only diff I can see is the extra time it takes to sparge. Eff is no better. But I'm talking about using say 4.5 lbs of grain in a 2.75 gallon amt of water. I brew only 1.75 gallon bataches and I can really squeeze every last drop out of the grain. I only loose about .25 gallons to the grain.

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Interesting, i do small bian batches also (2.5 gal), and recently found out that dunking the grains into the ~170* water, stirring like crazy for 10 mins then letting it sit for another 5 increase my efficiency by about 12%. My last brew i got 82% using this method.

Biab generally ends up with more trub in the bottom of the fermenter then the standard method due to no vorlauf and since no mash beds are used to filter the wort. That being said, all of that extra material will settle out during fermentation. Some people let their ales ferment for 1 month to make sure that everything has completely settled out. I just wait until the gravity has become stable for 3 days (usually takes 2 weeks or so) then decrease the temperature in my fermentation chamber to 34F for a week.(coldcrashing, also known as lagering). After this, assuming u used whirlfloc, the beer is always crystal clear.

When beer sits at such a low temp, everything (including krausen foam on top) falls out of suspension very quickly and tightly compacts at the bottom of the fermenter. While I cold crash all my ales for a week, but even a 2-3 days works wonders. My personal view is that this also helps to clear off-flavors and contaminants in the beer, but that's just my theory.

I brew 15 gal batches on an electric biab system. I get 80% mash efficiency with no mashout.
I use a corona type mill, set as tight as possible with a corded dewalt drill and grind the grist into powder basically. Also I use swiss voille bags. I dont bother squeezing, but do let the bag hang ontop of the kettle until it stops dripping and I get around to removing it..

>>So let's flip to the other side of this question, full volume mash vs. mashing with only the strike water quantity and adding the sparge water to the pot after 60 minutes

The only reason I don't mash with full volume is I hold back 1.5+ G to do a dunk sparge (actually I place the bag in a pot with 1.5+G of water for 10 minutes) to get more sugar out. I can increase my efficiency by almost 10%.

I see no reason not to mash with less than the full volume otherwise. I've never read any posts or write ups or blogs where people hold back water only to add it during the boil.

Yea, that would be the whole point of doing a non-full volume mash: to sparge.

I really dont see the point in not mashing with your full volume. For me it defeats the purpose of BIAB, ease and simplicity. If you have to heat more water it requires another vessel and another source of heat. For me this is more work and more clean up I have always mashed the full volume of water, heated it up to a mash out temp before pulling the grains and then boiled like normal.

I don't believe you really need to raise the temperature to mash out. The only reason is that you raise the temp in a traditional setup is to stop the mash process, so pulling out the bag is what stops the mash process for biab.

ArcLight said:

>>So let's flip to the other side of this question, full volume mash vs. mashing with only the strike water quantity and adding the sparge water to the pot after 60 minutes

The only reason I don't mash with full volume is I hold back 1.5+ G to do a dunk sparge (actually I place the bag in a pot with 1.5+G of water for 10 minutes) to get more sugar out. I can increase my efficiency by almost 10%.

I see no reason not to mash with less than the full volume otherwise. I've never read any posts or write ups or blogs where people hold back water only to add it during the boil.

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I will have to try this the next time I brew. What temp is the water you dunk your bag into?

Thnikkaman said:

I will have to try this the next time I brew. What temp is the water you dunk your bag into?

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I plop the bag into a 8 gallon pot with room temperature water, and let it sit for 10 minutes. I stir / mix a little, and in the mean time I'm starting to raise my wort to boiling.

Ok. I primarily mash in a Coleman chest cooler with a custom BIAB so I could probably just hold back some mash water, dunk my bag in the kettle for 10 minutes while I set up my march pump to transfer the wort back into the kettle, and be good to go at that point.

This is from Bobby M in a similar thread that I thought made sense.

I do agree that the solubility of sugar goes up as the temp does (try dissolving a teaspoon of sugar in cold tap water, then try it in boiling water) but it's not very relevant to the mash out. Its purpose is foremost about deactivating enzymes prior to a 60minute + fly sparge where that longer activity may affect fermentability. In a BIAB, this is irrelevant as well. The last reason a mashout may be beneficial was touched on already. If conversion was only 90% complete, that last bit of ramped up temp will push the enzymes to complete conversion. In fact, you could practically shorten your mash by a good 15 minutes if you plan a mash out ramp up. For example, if a given bill normally takes 60 minutes to convert at 152F, you can do 30 minutes at 152 and spend 15 minutes ramping up to 168 and it will definitely be done.


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