Can I bag the grain before dipping?

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puttster

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I am all set to go tomorrow, have an engine hoist to lift the grain bag. Probably overkill since I only have 10.5 lbs of grains and a 6 gal pot. This is my first BIAB effort and I was wondering how, after mashing, one ties the bag up to lift it up. There is no draw tie on the bag I got. I was thinking of prebagging the grain and tying a rope to the bag and dipping it into the hot water.

Seems like the interior-most grains might not get saturated compared to pouring the grain in freely but if anyone has some technique or how-to or a link, I would appreciate the info.
 
You should still be stirring the mash a bit so that would provide some assurance that all the grains are saturated. Besides that, water has a funny way of pushing itself through even the slightest gaps.


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Definitely open the bag after it's in the water and give it a good stir.

Standard practice would be to put the bag in and then dump in the grain, stirring during and after to make sure you don't get dough balls.

As far as how to hoist the bag without a drawstring, just tie a cord around the bag. Or you could knot the bag and a cord. I'm sure there are other threads, but flip through this for some inspirational pictures: Bag Hoisting
 
I used to place an empty bag in mash tun then slowly add the crushed grain while stirring. Now I place the bag in full of grain and stir out the dough balls and air pockets which is much easier and gets me to my mash temp in much less time.
 
So it sounds like it will be okay to tie up the bag beforehand and dunk it in the hot water to mash it. I have a 6 gal pot for this, wrapped with Reflexit insulation.

After an hour I'll hoist the bag up and pour 154 deg water through the bag and into the pot, enough to get up to 5.5 gals and start the boil.

At least that's the plan. I have an extra pot which I might use if pouring the water through the bag gets messy.

putts

on edit: oh, I see, you put the bag of grain in the pot but the bag is open, so you can stir it.
 
Last edited:
hawktrio said:
I used to place an empty bag in mash tun then slowly add the crushed grain while stirring. Now I place the bag in full of grain and stir out the dough balls and air pockets which is much easier and gets me to my mash temp in much less time.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do. You'll need to give everything a really good stir. Just make sure to have a good whisk on hand to break up those dough balls.
 
If you can sew, I'd fold the bag over by an inch and add a drawstring to it. It's pretty easy if you have a machine. Would take forever by hand. Definitely better to have the bag open and stir the grains, though. You want them all to be thoroughly wet.
 
Used the bag just like you all suggested, used miller's knot, hoisted, all worked out.

Q1, I brewed in a 6 gal pot and for most of the boil it was 2.5" from the top. When I started cooling and got it into the fermenter I only had about four gallons, maybe less! I added a gallon of water. My original reading was 1.047. I didn't take a reading after adding the water but do you think the real OG now is something like 1.037?

Q2, My carboy is chugging along but the beer in there is nasty looking. I had double ground the grain and squeezed the bag so I guess that is the result. When I siphon to the bottling jug, I guess that mess on the bottom will come right along? What is to be done - or do most people just rack it into the bottles and let it settle out there?
 
You're looking at the carboy wrong. That's beautiful stuff in there, it's on its way to becoming beer.

When the ferment is over, really over, the stuff on the bottom gets left behind. If you have a racking cane or autosiphon they usually have a cap at the bottom that causes them to draw the beer from just above the trub. You can make that work better if you start siphoning just a bit below the top and keep moving the racking cane down until it is near the bottom.

I usually don't worry too much about sucking up some of the trub. If I wait a few minutes most of it settles out in the bottling bucket and I leave it behind in there when I fill the bottles. Any that does get into the bottles will end up as sediment. To reduce the trub you suck up from the fermenter, give the beer plenty of time and the trub will compact down better.
 
RM-MN said:
You're looking at the carboy wrong. That's beautiful stuff in there, it's on its way to becoming beer.

When the ferment is over, really over, the stuff on the bottom gets left behind. If you have a racking cane or autosiphon they usually have a cap at the bottom that causes them to draw the beer from just above the trub. You can make that work better if you start siphoning just a bit below the top and keep moving the racking cane down until it is near the bottom.

I usually don't worry too much about sucking up some of the trub. If I wait a few minutes most of it settles out in the bottling bucket and I leave it behind in there when I fill the bottles. Any that does get into the bottles will end up as sediment. To reduce the trub you suck up from the fermenter, give the beer plenty of time and the trub will compact down better.
Click to expand...

Ok, I got clearer beer this time. Taped a nail to the bottom of the siphon, leaving 1/2" in the bottom of the pot. Then left 1/2" in the bottom of the fermenter. Also left some in the bottom of the bottling bucket. The bottles ended up with a thin layer of trub(?) on the bottom, but not bad. Agree with what you said, don't worry too much about it!
 
puttster said:
Ok, I got clearer beer this time. Taped a nail to the bottom of the siphon, leaving 1/2" in the bottom of the pot. Then left 1/2" in the bottom of the fermenter. Also left some in the bottom of the bottling bucket. The bottles ended up with a thin layer of trub(?) on the bottom, but not bad. Agree with what you said, don't worry too much about it!
Click to expand...


A racking cane and clip that attaches the siphon to the rim of the kettle works wonders. Only 5-6 bucks.
 

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