AG or BIAB?

Here is my question...I want to get away from extract brewing and get deeper into the AG thing. I assume BIAG is the logical next step up. Here are a few questions that I have one vs the other -

1. I have a 7.5 gallon Aluminum Bayou Classic pot. I brew on my gas burner outside. Well, its cold here in Ga in January/February and that pot doesn't hold heat very well at all. how will I keep my strike temp where it is supposed to be with no chance of holding heat?

2. What equipment would I need for both BIAG and AG? I know I would ned to convert a cooler to a mash tun, but how much would that cost me to do? In general? BIAG, I could use what I already have, except for the fact that the kettle won't hold the heat.

3. If I did BIAG and did it in the house on the stove, I can set the stove to keep the heat around where I need it and then take it outside to boil...Is BIAG messy at all? Will my wife kill me during my first brew?

Im just conflicted...cmon guys...talk me into one or the other...please? :fro:

Welcome from just north of you in Gainesville! Ok, so first of all Brew in a Bag IS all grain, it's just not the traditional 3-vessel method for extracting sugars from grains. To answer your questions:

1) You need to make an insulating jacket for your kettle out of Reflectix or simply cover it in a bunch of blankets during the mash.

2) BIAB equipment for 5 gallon batches: 10 gallon kettle, fine mesh bag (recommender Wilserbrewer bags), a wort chiller, a pulley system for your bag is really nice but optional. Beyond that it's the same as extract. For traditional 3-vessel system you need: A water heating kettle (HLT), a mash tun (a converted cooler usually), and a boil kettle, a wort chiller, a sparge arm is optional but nice for fly sparging. In terms of cost BIAB is very much cheaper. I converted a brand new 10 gallon igloo cooler to a mash tun for $80 including the price of the cooler.

3) I wouldn't do it on the stove, just hit your strike temp properly, turn off the heat, insulate your kettle as stated in #1 and wait an hour. I wouldn't describe BIAB as messy, but I do get drops of wort outside my kettle frequently, and I wouldn't do it indoors, but there's really no need to!

GeorgiaTiger said:

1. I have a 7.5 gallon Aluminum Bayou Classic pot. I brew on my gas burner outside. Well, its cold here in Ga in January/February and that pot doesn't hold heat very well at all. how will I keep my strike temp where it is supposed to be with no chance of holding heat?

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A lot of people just wrap it with blankets, sleeping bags, reflectix, etc.

GeorgiaTiger said:

2. What equipment would I need for both BIAG and AG? I know I would ned to convert a cooler to a mash tun, but how much would that cost me to do? In general? BIAG, I could use what I already have, except for the fact that the kettle won't hold the heat.

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So technically BIAB is AG but just a specific setup where there is no dedicated mash tun. Typically it's no-sparge/full-volume mash. If you are concerned about heat loss in BIAB you could skip the bag and get yourself a simple rectangular cooler mash tun with hose braid. Cost would be just the cooler, a stainless steel hose braid from your local hardware store, a stainless ball valve and hose barb (~20 bucks) and a weldless manifold (~10 bucks... really just a stainless nipple, o-ring, hex nut, and washers).

That way you've got a 2 vessel AG setup that lets you do full-volume/no-sparge in an insulated cooler. Your pot/burner doubles as both your HLT and kettle.

GeorgiaTiger said:

3. If I did BIAG and did it in the house on the stove, I can set the stove to keep the heat around where I need it and then take it outside to boil...Is BIAG messy at all? Will my wife kill me during my first brew?

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Not a great idea lugging ~6 gallons of hot liquid through the house IMO.

biab *is* all-grain brewing, it's just a simpler way to accomplish it than using a separate mash tun.

I don't personally biab, but i used to always mash on the stove, and I still often do so (for smaller batches or step mashes). I do it inside, and if the pot is full, and I wrap a towel around it, it holds the heat very very well (1 degree or less of heat loss in 60 minutes. I suspect there could be some mess if you are not careful when lifting the bag out, especially if it is heavy and you don't have some kind of winch or assistant, but I will let others extoll about the virtues of BIAB brewing.

Essentially, the bag is just a means of separating the grains from the wort. there are other options. for a couple years I mashed on the stove and used the 2 bucket papazap system (basically just a giant colander) to sparge. Cheap, and effective. Late last year I built a cooler-based lauter tun, which cost me less than $100 including the cooler from home depot, so now I can mash in that, or if I need to do a step mash on the stove, i can just pour the mess into the cooler when the mash is done to strain it out (sparge).

If you are going to brew 5 gallon or larger batches, I think BIAB may require some extra equipment or ingenuity to lift the spent grains. If you do 1-3 gallon batches, you can probably just lift them out by hand and set them in a colander or bucket to drain more while you start boiling stuff. Anyway, good luck.

A few quick responses;
1 - There are several ways to hold temp. You can wrap with insulation, a blanket, add hot/boiling water periodically, maintain a low flame on the kettle etc. so the pot should not be an issue. You just need to find what works for you.
2 - A mash tun cooler is very easy to convert. Plenty of DIY on this site, youtube, google search etc. A cooler and some way to filter the wort from the grain is all you really need. Bells and Whistles can be added later to create the set up that works best for you. I actually kind of do a mix of Mash Tun and BIAB. Use a grain bag in a cooler. Mash in, close the cooler, open and stir/temp check about every 20 min. Pull the bag and the end of mash time and dunk in 175deg sparge water. Stir for about 5 minutes before pulling the bag. Mix the cooler wort into the kettle wort and drain/squeeze the bag as it comes up to boil. This system may not be "traditional" of either styles of brewing, but it works for me.
3 - BIAB can be very messy, trying to pull a bag of wet grains without spilling wort everywhere. It can be done without making a mess, but I haven't done it yet. I brew in my garage or on my patio and usually have to hose it off when I'm done.

If you are making 5 gallon batches, I don't see a 7.5 gallon pot being big enough for BIAB. I use a 10 gallon tamale pot for the mash and boil, and a 2 gallon pot for sparge water (a modified BIAB process).

I don't want to go bigger than the 10 gallon pot because that is the biggest that will fit in my oven. For mashing, I get to temp, then put the whole pot with a temperature probe in my oven, preheated to 170F. I turn the oven off and usually it will hold temperature just fine but sometimes my probe alarm goes off and I fire the oven up for a minute.

BIAB can be messy. Or not. My wife usually looks forward to my brew days as she knows that either way, the kitchen is getting a thorough cleaning. I don't know what the path from your stove to outside is like, but I sure wouldn't want to carry 7 gallons of 170F wort to my backyard. The kitchen is easy enough to clean but I'm not going anywhere near my living room carpet with wort. Hope that helps.

trav77 said:

Not a great idea lugging ~6 gallons of hot liquid through the house IMO.

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if you are old, infirm, or disabled, this is probably good advice. I've been doing it for many years without issue, but I'm only 55, and I make sure I don't have to go very far. It definitely is a bit of a limiting factor tho. I could not realistically brew larger volumes.

If you want to do it in the house where you don't have to worry about so much heat dissipation and can be more comfortable, I suggest getting a one-gallon setup working for BIAB. I built one and have used it now almost as many times as my 10 gallon 3V. Its nice too becasue you can really experiment without ending up with a bunch of something you don't like. If that is a route you'd consider, here are my suggestions:

Phase One:
BeerSmith (moble ap or PC version)
3 Gallon Kettle
BIAB bag to fit (if you scale up later, this is your hop bag)
Auto Syphon
Scale (tenth gram accuracy – hops now, water additions later)
Refractometer
FG Hydrometer
5L wine bottle or equivalent (Capable of fermenting 1.25 gallons with headspace for krausen)
Airlock
(2) 2L flip-top growlers/bottles
Corn Sugar for priming, grain for recipe (pre-milled), hops for recipe
Starsan
PBW
Whirlfloc

*With this setup you can mash and boil 2-2.5 gallons of wort on your stovetop (need at least 1.25 gallons of boiled wort), chill the boiled wort in your sink, transfer wort and ferment in the wine bottle, then transfer to the growlers and prime for carbonation. You end up with 4L of finished beer in two growlers. Not to mention you can do this in your kitchen.

Phase Two:
Mini fridge (tall enough to fit your fermentation vessel with airlock)
Inkbird temp controller (2 stage)
Reptile heat-mat (or propagation heat-mat or whatever source of heat you want to use)
Second 5L wine bottle
Second airlock
Two more flip-top growlers
Maybe a cheap Corona grain mill, but buying pre-milled at this rate of consumption is totally fine

**Now you are set to control the temperature of your fermentation and double you production capacity. With a 2 week fermentation window and a 1 week bottle refermentation you could add a third set of fermenter/airlock/growlers and set yourself up with 2 growlers per week with weekly brew days, and you can make a wide range of styles and not have to worry about what you’ll do with 5 gallons of Russian Imperial Death Water. Not to mention that if a recipe does go awry, you can dump and not lose much in the way of cost.

Phase Three:
Download Brew’n Water (and read all the notes)
pH meter
pH meter calibration/storage solutions
Pipette
Lactic Acid (go EASY on additions here…start with half what is specified in Brew’n, measure and adjust further)
All chemicals for water adjustment listed in Brew’n Water (Gypsum, Calcium Chloride, Baking Soda, etc.)


***Now you are not only controlling the temperature of your ferment, but you are also in control of your water profile. It can be tailored to support certain styles and their characteristics.

motosapiens said:

if you are old, infirm, or disabled, this is probably good advice. I've been doing it for many years without issue, but I'm only 55, and I make sure I don't have to go very far. It definitely is a bit of a limiting factor tho. I could not realistically brew larger volumes.

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I use a furniture dolly to transport my kettle.

The only thing you NEED for BIAB which is AG is,
A pot that you have but should get a 10 gallon
A bag from Wilser that are cheap and a non issue
And heat that you have. So your pretty much on your way!
Rig up a pulley to make your day more enjoyable,which could be as simple as throwing a rope over a beam or tree branch. GO FOR IT!!!

So many choices...Im gonna mull all of this over and figure this thing out. BTW...I knew AG was the same but it is is different in technique...thats what I meant.

As said you can use your pot and insulate after stirring in the mash. You can do a traditional mash with a cooler and valve with a bazooka tube on the inside or make one out of a water heater braid. I did a bronze cooler valve assembly from Northern Brewer and a water heater braid. The 10 gallon water cooler = $45. Valve = $29.99. Water heater supply line about $12 a hose clamp about $2

You can heat your water in your present pot, collect the wort in a bucket and sparge with water from the pot. Transfer the wort back to the pot for the boil. The pot you have is bare minimum for a 5 gallon batch.

I got 2 ten gallon pots and set up a 3 tier system, gravity fed.

I prefer it to BIAB because I did not set up for BIAB first. If I was going to do BIAB in larger that 3 gallon batches I would set up a system for hoisting the grain out of the pot.

Unless you set up BIAB properly or stick to small batches, IMO, it is a hot, sticky, messy process.

I BIAB, I have a 9 gallon SS Bayou Classic pot and that is good for a 5 gallon batch with about 14 lbs of grain...but it is full to rim. I use a fleece blanket to insulate it and it maybe loses 2-4 degrees over an hour on a 40 degree day. No real need for a pulley system unless you start dong large grain bills. And if you want to collect that extra bit just pull the grain out and let it sit in a bucket while heating up, then pour the wort back in before the boil starts.

I think BIAB is less messy, just dump and rinse the bag. Pretty easy clean up. I switched from a 3 vessel system to BIAB to reduce equipment because of space, but a nice consequence is less equipment means less to clean.

If you were not way out in the godforsaken wilderness of May Retta I would have you come over to metro Americus and brew either a 3G or 5G BIAB batch with me. You kettle will handle full volume mash for 3G and with a sparge step it will do 5G. I would try indoors with a big beach towel or blanket to insulate. I know what you mean about winter .. brrr ... i needed a polar fleece this am and it was 11 before i could go out in just a t shirt.

BNolt17 said:

BIAB can be very messy, trying to pull a bag of wet grains without spilling wort everywhere. It can be done without making a mess, but I haven't done it yet. I brew in my garage or on my patio and usually have to hose it off when I'm done.

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BIAB is not Messy in the slightest. I brew 10 gallon batches in my nice kitchen with hardwood floors, That's 25 pounds of dry grain, around 35 wet.If I get 3 drops on the floor its a lot...Your doing something wrong.
My process is to lift grain with a hoist, let drain for awhile, give it a squeeze to get any dripping water out and lower the bag in a pot...So amazingly simple. Bring the grain pot outside and dump in the woods.The OP is brewing outside so even if he got a few drips on the ground who cares.

GeorgiaTiger said:

So many choices...Im gonna mull all of this over and figure this thing out. BTW...I knew AG was the same but it is is different in technique...thats what I meant.

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You can get crazy with the bells and whistles but you need practically nothing for BIAB. You don't need a mash tun or valves or pumps ETC. If you can make a cup of tea you can make great beer BIAB.
Heat water to 154 or so
Put bag in pot
put grain in bag,steep for an hour (like tea)
Pull the grain bag out...That's it...Very very easy
Everything else,boil,hops racking to primary and chilling is the exact same thing you've already done with extract. I was scared/nervous when I went all grain. At the end of the day I was like "that's it,thats what I was worried about" I have one pot and that's it..its all you need

FWIW, I recently switched from a cooler mash tun to BIAB and love it. My mash tun only gets used to collect water from my wort chiller to use for cleaning or recirculation. IMO, it makes things easier for someone transitioning to all-grain. Less vessels to manage and no sparge. I would recommend a grain mill for better efficiency. I have a 10G kettle and a wilserbrewer bag and insulate with reflectix and a sleeping bag if cold outside. Very minimal temp loss over the duration of a mash.

soccerdad said:

If you were not way out in the godforsaken wilderness of May Rette I would have you come over to metro Americus and brew either a 3G or 5G BIAB batch with me. You kettle will handle full volume mash for 3G and with a sparge step it will do 5G. I would try indoors with a big beach towel or blanket to insulate. I know what you mean about winter .. brrr ... i needed a polar fleece this am and it was 11 before i could go out in just a t shirt.

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LOL. Yeah, it has been warm lately. But it's gonna snow Sunday night according to Curt Mellish. The hell is Americus? I'm all about taking a road trip to learn!!

South of Macon. West of Cordele.

Oh Jeeze. YOU are the one in the wilderness. Ugh.

Brew in a ***** is all grains so it's the same thing

Just scale back 5 gallon recipes to 4 gallons and use your existing pot to BIAB mash on your kitchen stove. When the mash is done, carry the pot w/grains to the garage/burner area, and pull the bag out there to avoid making a mess in the kitchen. If 4 gallons with grains is too much weight to carry scale back to 2.5-3 gallons for the winter, go to a bigger volume when the weather warms up and you can do the whole thing out in the garage.

You've gotten lots of advice on how to keep the mash at temp for an hour. Here's something different. Get a cheap Corona mill. Set it as fine as it can be set, plates rubbing when empty. Mill your grains with that and you don't need to keep the mash warm for an hour because the conversion will be complete in less than 10 minutes. Wrap a sleeping bag or jacket around the pot and you won't lose even one degree.

While the conversion will be done quickly don't stop the mash then, let it continue for at least 30 minutes to extract the color and flavor or you will have some very bland beer.

BTW, it isn't cold in Georgia in January. Cool yes, but not cold. Northern Minnesota gets cold in January. We drive trucks on the lakes in January.

RM-MN said:

BTW, it isn't cold in Georgia in January. Cool yes, but not cold. Northern Minnesota gets cold in January. We drive trucks on the lakes in January.

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I was thinking the same thing,I picture Georgia as a warm weather kinda place. Atlanta weather for the next week is in the 50's,thats not cold,its chilly.

another option (that i found out about after i started building my mash tun), is get a square cooler with a drain, and get a bag from wilser that fits it, and BIABIAC. Boom. done. Just about as simple as it gets. You can do no-sparge, or a small sparge just to get some extra sugars from the 2nd runnings. Lots of folks on here are using wilserbrewer's bags in coolers.

motosapiens said:

another option is get a square cooler with a drain, and get a bag

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This is becoming more and more popular, some claim it makes clean up easier. I can see this as a benifit for someone that doesnt want to build a MT, or has a cooler on hand. Also the cooler can be used for brewing on Saturday and taken to the beach on Sunday as no modification is required. I have never done this, just made the bags so I have a couple questions for the board...

1. Does one need any sort of manifold or drain, or do you just open the cooler drain and let it rip / drain?
2. I assume most are draining the runnings rather than lifting removing the bag with a pulley? I've had several request for a pulley with a cooler bag, and thought it strange....why use a pulley when you need to drain to another vessel anyhow...

thanks

I think you can use your 7.5 gallon pot (at least to start) as you can 'sparge' using BIAB several ways. Mash with 5 gallons of water. After the mash, pull out the bag and squeeze to get most of the liquid out. Drop the bag into a food grade bucket. Open the bag and pour 170 degree water over the grains. Stir the grains and then let sit for 10 minutes. Pull the bag and squeeze out the liquid. Now add that liquid to your brew kettle. You should now have your pre-boil volume.

It takes some calculation, but it certainly isn't rocket surgery.

wilserbrewer said:

This is becoming more and more popular, some claim it makes clean up easier. I can see this as a benifit for someone that doesnt want to build a MT, or has a cooler on hand. Also the cooler can be used for brewing on Saturday and taken to the beach on Sunday as no modification is required. I have never done this, just made the bags so I have a couple questions for the board...

1. Does one need any sort of manifold or drain, or do you just open the cooler drain and let it rip / drain?
2. I assume most are draining the runnings rather than lifting removing the bag with a pulley? I've had several request for a pulley with a cooler bag, and thought it strange....why use a pulley when you need to drain to another vessel anyhow...

thanks

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Some of us are tightwads and don't want to lose the last of the wort but don't want to squeeze a hot bag of grains.

Peruvian802 said:

I think you can use your 7.5 gallon pot (at least to start) as you can 'sparge' using BIAB several ways. Mash with 5 gallons of water. After the mash, pull out the bag and squeeze to get most of the liquid out. Drop the bag into a food grade bucket. Open the bag and pour 170 degree water over the grains. Stir the grains and then let sit for 10 minutes. Pull the bag and squeeze out the liquid. Now add that liquid to your brew kettle. You should now have your pre-boil volume.

It takes some calculation, but it certainly isn't rocket surgery.

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You don't need to use 170 degree water. Cold water does nearly as well and doesn't require another pot to heat it in. Unless conversion is not complete you don't need to let it set 10 minutes either. Pour in the water, stir to rinse the sugars off the grain and drain.

Edit

I do 3.25G batches BIAB in a 7.5G aluminum turkey fryer kettle. I start on the stove and heat to strike, dump grains in wilserbag, cover to insulate, heat up after mash, and take it outside to the burner. EZPZ.....

wilserbrewer said:

This is becoming more and more popular, some claim it makes clean up easier. I can see this as a benifit for someone that doesnt want to build a MT, or has a cooler on hand. Also the cooler can be used for brewing on Saturday and taken to the beach on Sunday as no modification is required. I have never done this, just made the bags so I have a couple questions for the board...

1. Does one need any sort of manifold or drain, or do you just open the cooler drain and let it rip / drain?
2. I assume most are draining the runnings rather than lifting removing the bag with a pulley? I've had several request for a pulley with a cooler bag, and thought it strange....why use a pulley when you need to drain to another vessel anyhow...

thanks

Click to expand...

I'm having trouble understanding why anyone is using a cooler or mash tun with BIAB. Is it just because their pot is to small to hold the grain for a full volume mash? Its just another step and thing to clean

RM-MN said:

You don't need to use 170 degree water. Cold water does nearly as well and doesn't require another pot to heat it in. Unless conversion is not complete you don't need to let it set 10 minutes either. Pour in the water, stir to rinse the sugars off the grain and drain.

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I approve of this message.

I've been doing BIAB for a few years now, and I have no intentions of switching. After a few months of tinkering with my system, I have a few tips that have worked for me and increased my efficiency:

1) Always mill your grains twice.
2) The following process is for a 5-6 gallon starting boil in a 7.5 gallon kettle:
-I heat 1.25 quarts of water for every pound of grains.
-I overshoot my strike temp by 10-12 degrees depending on grain bill so that I don't undershoot it when I add my grain bag.
-I take the kettle off the burner and add my grain bag.
-Then I wrap my kettle in a wool blanket on a chair, and let it sit for 90 minutes. (I've never had the temperature drop more than a degree.)
-When there are about 10 minutes left in the rest, I heat up 3 gallons of water to my strike temp in a separate pot and pour the heated water into a food grade bucket.
-Once the 90 minutes is up, I lift the bag from the kettle and squeeze out all the liquid from the bag.
-I put my kettle on the burner, and I put my grain bag in the bucket with the freshly heated water. (I find that this rinses the grains of the remaining sugars.)
-As the kettle is heated on the burner, I just let the grain bag rest in the bucket.
-When the kettle is almost at a boil, I drain the bag over the bucket and dump the bucket to get to my desired batch size.
-Then you just boil it like extract.

I'm sure there are plenty of brewers wiser than me, that would look at my system and point out tons of flaws, but this is what I've found that gives me the best and most consistent efficiency. Take it or leave it, but I thought I'd share my method.

That's a solid simple process jimbom, good for you!

wilserbrewer said:

That's a solid simple process jimbom, good for you!

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Flattery will get you everywhere. I may have to buy a bag from you now.

I like to mash on the stove using my old 5 gallon pot. It's perfectly sized for a standard batch, retaining heat really well since its usually full to within a couple inches. I heat 4 gallons sparge water outdoors in my 10 gal kettle when the hour-long mash is nearly up and transfer the bag across. I then get the first runnings heating on the stove. When it's nearing a boil, I pull the bag from the kettle, fire it up and dump in first runnings. Saves me some time and propane.

I use a cooler for BIAB. I explained my process earlier in the thread. The first time I tried BIAB in my pot, wrapped in a blanket like most suggest I dropped about 6 degrees in a 60 minute mash. Not sure exactly the reason, but I wasn't happy about that. I use coolers at work and had an extra 7.5 gallon cooler laying around, I figured why not grab the cooler to hold temp. I already had the bag so I didn't need to worry about a manifold or filter system. I mash in my cooler, towards the end of my mash I heat whatever water I need to hit my 6.5 gallon boil volume to 170 in my boil kettle. I have read this is unnecessary, but it's what works for me, plus I'm a little closer to boil temp than if I sparge/rinse with cold water. I pull the bag and dump in the 170 degree water in the brew pot. Stir well and pull the bag, let the bag drain into the boil kettle while it comes to a boil and dump the cooler wort into the boil kettle and continue as normal. I understand this might be an unconventional method. I'm hitting between 75-85% efficiency with double crushed grain so it works for me

JONNYROTTEN said:

I'm having trouble understanding why anyone is using a cooler or mash tun with BIAB. Is it just because their pot is to small to hold the grain for a full volume mash? Its just another step and thing to clean

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Thanks for all of the replies. On the strike temp, wrapping the kettle holds in the heat. I'm wondering if I could use my cool brew bag that I ferment in to keep the heat? If I put frozen 2 liters bottles in the bag with a fermenting bucket or carboy, it holds the temp as cold as I need or want it to. Wonder if it will hold heat? Anyone ever use one of these to hold heat?

Nope - but I bet it will