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Looks like a workable method especially for someone not wanting to spend alot of money or create some extravagant setup to go AG. My AG setup is similar in a way. I use a cooler for the mashtun and put all the grains in a large grain bag to separate spent grains from the wort. I still sparge though and do step mashes just like brewers with more advanced setups do though so it isn't exactly the same, but I did see similarities in their ideas and my ideas of how to simplify the AG process and do it with simpler equiptment. There are many ways to get to the same place. In the case of AG brewing 99% of them are great routes to take.
 
I think the cooler with ss braid looks a bit harder to build, but much much easier to operate. The cooler with ss braid would probably be easier and more fun for the beginning home brewer.
 
I checked that out as well and would recommend going with batch sparging, its not hard and you don't have to make a huge bag out of a curtain.

Also notice he is mashing with the total volume of water needed for the boil, that works out to around 3 quarts of water per pound of grain, thats gonna really mess with the mash ph and would have to hurt efficiency not to mention the tannin extraction. I know he claims otherwise but I just don't see how you could avoid it.

Also I don't like the idea of having to lift that big bag of hot wet grain out of the boil kettle, I can see all kinds of ways to get burned and what a mess.
 
From the website:

There are 2 main reasons why people think its a bad idea.

1 - Extreme Liquour to Grist ratio will effect the wort fermentability

2 - Lousy efficiency due to not sparging

Here's why they aren't really a problem.

1 - I can and have gone into lengthy discussions about L:G ratios. Mainly, people seem to be concerned about Beta Amalayse enzymes becoming denatured too quickly at such a high L:G ratio; and leaving you with an overly dextrinous wort. Then again, others say that a thin mash leads to increased fermentability, and therefore BIAB worts will be overly dry. In a way, they are both right. Both these things are a concern. BUT, in practise, they seem to balance themselves out and worts well within the normal range are produced. Even at the L:G ratios involved with BIAB, still by far the biggest influence on wort fermentability is temperature. To be on the safe side I mash 0.5 to 1 degree C lower in temp than I normally would, and haven't had problems yet.

2- Everyone thought that the efficiency would suck. Even those of us who were working on developing the technique (I take VERY little credit, its all other peoples work) Strangely however, the actual efficiencies achieved seemed to be quite comparable to low end batch sparging results. People were getting mid 60s to 70% efficiency. When we refined a little and realised that with the bag acting as a filter, you can mill your grain exceptionally finely, those results leaped up to the mid 70% range. For low to normal OG worts I calculate my recipes on a brewhouse efficiency figure of 75% and for High OG worts at 70%. It WILL drop quite dramatically once your grain bill starts to get realy big. But the same holds true for batch sparging. If you make sure you mill or get your grain milled to the finest possible crush and you make sure to heat the mash up to a good mashout temp and stir it well. Your efficiency should be pretty comparable to batch sparging in a normal AG set-up

The actual limitations of BIAB are:

Batch Size - Its all gotta go in that bag, which you have to lift out, which has a finite strength before it breaks.... and you also have to fit everything in your kettle at once. So, much bigger than 5gallons and BIAB isn't the appropriate method

Step Mashing - While you can add heat to your mash tun, because of the volume its less like steps and more like ramps. the couple of guys who have tried it haven't been too thrilled. But I'm sure that a way could be worked out. It just hasn't yet.

Maybe no "Extreme" beers - As stated above, BIAB has the potential to be unkind to Beta Amalayse enzymes. If you are planning mashes at the extremes of the acceptable mashing temp ranges, or if you are using really significant amounts of adjunct that need to be converted. Then maybe BIAB wont do the trick. This hasn't been tested, but certainly it would be playing to the method's weaknesses
Click to expand...
 
Maybe I missed it on the guys post, but this is pretty common for partial mashes.

I am planning on doing this for my partial mash, but in my bottling bucket so there will be a spigot, and that makes it easy to batch sparge.

It seems to me, I don't know if this was addressed, that you would need a lot more grains to achieve the same OG.
 
I'm going to try the Aussie approach to brewing in a bag for my next batch (my curtains are already sown!). It might work, or it might be horrific, but I've always thought that brewing is all about experimenting. If anyone's tried this technique in the interim then I'd be grateful for any tips. Otherwise, I'll let you know how I get on :mug:
 
mew said:
I think the cooler with ss braid looks a bit harder to build, but much much easier to operate. The cooler with ss braid would probably be easier and more fun for the beginning home brewer.
Click to expand...

honestly, I find the cooler MLT very easy to build. The hardest part is getting the SS braid off the hose that's inside of it...but if you push it, from the right direction, it slides right off.

but it is a $50-$70 investment for a new cooler and the parts list. you've gotta be willing to make that little leap.
 
Waldo said:
But he doesn't address ph and tannin extraction.
Click to expand...

I don't see how this method would affect ph and tannin extraction any more than a normal MLT. I definitely see how it would affect efficiency. And, I can see how it can affect tannin extraction with a fine crush. But I don't see how ph would be affect any more than any other method. And, tannin extraction is based on three factors occuring at once: high heat, ph, and crush.

Since I don't see how this would lower the ph and the heat wouldn't be any different than any other direct fire decoctions.

Perhaps I'm missing something?
 
srm775 said:
I don't see how this method would affect ph and tannin extraction any more than a normal MLT. I definitely see how it would affect efficiency. And, I can see how it can affect tannin extraction with a fine crush. But I don't see how ph would be affect any more than any other method. And, tannin extraction is based on three factors occuring at once: high heat, ph, and crush.

Since I don't see how this would lower the ph and the heat wouldn't be any different than any other direct fire decoctions.

Perhaps I'm missing something?
Click to expand...
From what I've seen in the discussions elsewhere on this topic, it's been claimed that the temperature is not high enough for tannin extraction to be a problem. I have no idea what this is based on, so for all I know it may be nonsense (or indeed, gospel truth). What did strike me is that there appear to be many people claiming from experience that this technique makes good beer. These folk may be real beer connoisseurs, or they may be complete goons - I'm kind of intrigued to find out which. I'm going to give this a go because it's a way of trying all grain brewing for a cost of about £4, which is roughly the cost difference between using extract and using grains. If I end up with horrible beer I will definitely let you know.

Now I just need to figure out a way to lift up five gallons' worth of soaking grain...
 
malkore said:
honestly, I find the cooler MLT very easy to build. The hardest part is getting the SS braid off the hose that's inside of it...but if you push it, from the right direction, it slides right off.

but it is a $50-$70 investment for a new cooler and the parts list. you've gotta be willing to make that little leap.
Click to expand...

I converted a 5 gallon round cooler to do partial mashes and the total cost including the cooler was about $40.00. I did one PM in a grain bag and missed my target by about 0.005. I converted the cooler last weekend and hit my target dead on. Granted, I only mashed 3.5 pounds of grain but was encouraged by the result and will be mashing 4 pounds this weekend. I think it's a great way to move up the ladder towards all grain - it's a low enough percentage of the total grain bill so as not to be terribly detrimental to your brew if you miss the target badly, but a big enough piece of the puzzle to learn from and build confidence. I have been reading and using as reference Papazian's book (The Complete Joy.....) to get a grasp of which grains to mash and how they affect the conversion of other additional grains based on how modified they are... etc etc.
The point being that you can make it as simple or complex as you are comfortable with - the actual cooler conversion is very simple and makes a quite effective MLT to begin moving to the next level if that's what you choose to do.
 
Today I made my first BIAB (brew-in-a-bag) beer. I decided to make Edwort's Haus Pale Ale as it gets such great write-ups. I've never made an all-grain beer, so I can't say how the two processes compare. But brewing in a bag was fairly straightforward. Most of the things that I found difficult/surprising were to do with doing a full boil for the first time, rather than the brew-in-a-bag part of it (I had no idea, for example, that the outlet water for an immersion chiller would be so f***ing hot - doh!). Lifting the bag of grain out of the kettle wasn't too bad, as I'd sown some nylon rope around the bag so it was easy enough to get purchase on it. I sparged the grain bag once I'd taken it out of the kettle to get a little extra liquid. The wort smelled like wort and tasted good and malty (with an OG of 1050), so I'm hopeful that I'll get a drinkable beer by the end. There was a lot of very fine gunk at the bottom of the brew kettle - I don't know if that was very fine grain that got through the bag, or if it was just normal hot/cold break material. I suspect it's a little of both, but I'm planning on a couple of weeks in secondary so I hope it won't make too much of a difference. I'll post back in a few weeks when the beer's drinkable to let you know how it compares to the extract beers I've made.
 
I have a 48 qt mash tun and still use TheVeryBigGrainBag for PM and session ales. Granted, I spent $17 on a winemaker's bag, rather than making one out of a curtain.

As far as the gunk goes, I have a bazooka in the kettle and use a fine mesh strainer to catch most of the rest.
 
srm775 said:
I don't see how this method would affect ph and tannin extraction any more than a normal MLT. I definitely see how it would affect efficiency. And, I can see how it can affect tannin extraction with a fine crush. But I don't see how ph would be affect any more than any other method. And, tannin extraction is based on three factors occuring at once: high heat, ph, and crush.

Since I don't see how this would lower the ph and the heat wouldn't be any different than any other direct fire decoctions.

Perhaps I'm missing something?
Click to expand...

The optimum Ph for mashing is about 5.2, slightly acidic. The grain naturally creates this environment, or at least it should under the correct conditions. Since water is closer to 7, the more water in the solution, the less acidic the mash.

As for Tannin ectraction, I was under the impression that it takes a combination of high temps and Ph issues to extract Tannins. The only way I've managed to do it though, was to rinse my grain way too well when I steeped/w grain, and had no idea what I was doing.
 
After two weeks I've just racked my Brew-In-A-Bag version of Edwort's Haus Pale Ale to secondary. There was a fair old layer of crud at the bottom of the primary, a little more than with my previous beers, though given that this was my first AG that's not surprising. The colour is a very nice pale orange. The beer smells fine, with no off-smells that I could detect. I chilled and drank a sample, and I have to say at this stage it tastes like easily the best beer I've made. It's a little green, but coming out of primary I think it tastes better than my extract Sam Adams clone tasted coming out of secondary. I'm really pleased that the crazy Australian brew-in-a-bag technique actually seems to work. I'm sure it's not the best way to make AG beer, but the beer seems absolutely fine - there's no evidence that I can detect of any of the flaws that I've seen mentioned when discussing the BIAB idea. And it means that I was able to make the switch from extract to AG for £4, making beer that (at this early stage at least) tastes better than either of my other two beers.

I'm probably the 3,000th person to say this, but Edwort's Haus Pale Ale recipe is awesome. :ban: Thanks Edwort!
 
I just tried my first bottle of Brew-In-A-Bag Edwort's Haus Pale Ale, and it tastes absolutely fantastic! Way better than the extract beers I've made previously. I'd give a definite thumbs up to all-grain brewing in a bag.
 
Danek said:
I had no idea, for example, that the outlet water for an immersion chiller would be so f***ing hot - doh!
Click to expand...

Almost spit some iced tea on my monitor :D

IF you Google BIAB Brewing there is tons of info on this. I looked it over for a couple days when I was ready to make the switch but decided the cooler tun was the way to go for me.
 

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