1st biab................ holy trub batman

I did my first all grain/biab batch today. Everything went great...I held my mash temp with a sleeping bag and it was just as easy as a extract batch except for the trub after chilling. I clogged the funnel twice and dumped a bunch in the fermentor....im not worried about this batch ......but I want a better process of filtering out all the trub and hops because I want to reuse the yeast.....any ideas??

If you chill in your brew pot then transfer to your fermenter you can leave a good amount of hops and trub behind in your brew kettle.

Try whirlpooling. Also try using a racking cane or auto-siphon and holding it above the trub line.

What kind of material are you using for your bag?

I left some in the brew kettle.....but there was alot of trub in the first gallon that I got out of the ball valve. I think that racking instead using the ball valve might help ........that's a good idea.....I think I should use just the plastic tubing and not a cane.....I could see that being a pain in the ass

Im using a 5 gal paint strainer bag from the depo

ohdannyboy said:

Im using a 5 gal paint strainer bag from the depo

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Before I went to AG, I brewed BIAB with the same strainers. I actually used to sew two of them together so I could fit them over the lip of my brew kettle. I always whirlpooled in an ice bath after I used my IC and then after about a 25-30 minute rest I would auto siphon to my carboy. With this method, I had minimal trub during transfer.

you could just not filter

If you switched up and fermented in buckets, you could pour through the 10" screen strainer straddled over the bucket and you don't have this issue.

Why not just use your BIAB bag for the hops? Clean it out after mash and put it back into the boil add your hop additions in the bag.

ohdannyboy said:

Im using a 5 gal paint strainer bag from the depo

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When I switched to Voile fabric I noticed a reduction in trub in the boil kettle and clearer beer.

Voile material? Not sure what that is................please enlightenment. Me........I feel the easiest and most lazy solution is a better filtering bag that fits the pot.......looks like the trub is mostly grain parts.....im used to hops and that was never a problem as long as I use pellets.

ohdannyboy said:

Voile material? Not sure what that is................please enlightenment. Me........I feel the easiest and most lazy solution is a better filtering bag that fits the pot.......looks like the trub is mostly grain parts.....im used to hops and that was never a problem as long as I use pellets.

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Voile is a fabric used for curtain backing the "sheer" behind curtains. You can get it at any fabric store sold by the yard in nylon and sometimes polyester.

Voile is a fabric for curtains? You can buy it online or at Walmart in the fabric section.

It's what a good percentage of BIABers use. It has a tight weave and is good and strong.

I do like your idea of a filter bag. Let us know how it goes if you choose that route.

ShakerD - did you make a sewen bag out of voile material or just have enough to stuff it in the pot and "bag" the grains without sewing.

I have no access to a sewing machine so it's either hand stitching or new-sew bag.

I was actually thinking about using the BIAB in a 5gal bucket to transfer the boiled wort and strain out the trub/hops debris. Plus multiple pours/transfers should help aerate the wort so long as your sanitation is ok.

Just for others, I made my BIAB out of a polyester voile/sheer curtain that was 48x68". It was $5 at Target, It could be used as a single layer without sewing with some difficulty. For a simple bag you can double it over and sew the edges (this is what i did). it fits my 15.5gal pot with room to spare and should be plenty strong for 20+lbs grain wet.

@ultravista

I bought the fabric and had the lady that hems jeans at her little shop sew it for me.

All she did was flip the edge a couple of times and and sow it.

Nothing fancy just a big square bag but it works great. It's good and strong I do 10 G batches every time.

Machine sewn?

I cut out a circle and my wife was kind enough to double over the edges and sew a pocket for a nylon rope drawstring. It works great. I have the material for another one, and hope to use one for the mash and the second for the boil.

Machine sewing would be the best with a locking stitch. However, I will say the old 1970s machine I used had some trouble going through several layers with the heavy duty polyester thread I was using. It took some manual walking of the machine to get it started, and was fine after that.

Im thinking of going to a dry cleaner ......they usually have a person who does alterations ..is it better to double it up for better straining power?

gunner65 said:

Why not just use your BIAB bag for the hops? Clean it out after mash and put it back into the boil add your hop additions in the bag.

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Did this last night. I was amazed by how much just 3 onces of pellets expand. My fermentor is looking much more full of wort and not setteled out trub.

ohdannyboy said:

Im thinking of going to a dry cleaner ......they usually have a person who does alterations ..is it better to double it up for better straining power?

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For sure the seams should be doubled up by folding before sowing.

I thought about doubling up the bag but so far so good and I always brew 10 gallon batches.

Cheers

I bought a couple yards of voile from joann fabrics. I cut a round disk for the bottom and sewed it with an edge over stich then rolled that edge and did another edge ove stitch plus a super strong triple stitch just off the rolled edge. I also stitched the vertical edge of the bag the same way. I also used somebody elses suggestion and made it big enough to fit the keggle inside. It's a bit long, but this way I have plenty to fold over the top. It's strong enought that I think it will hold a 50 pound bag of grain.