Sooooo.....What do the experts at BIAB think is a better way to go? Plate chiller with pump or cfc with a pump for chilling the wort?
No-chill FTW.
Sooooo.....What do the experts at BIAB think is a better way to go? Plate chiller with pump or cfc with a pump for chilling the wort?
Worth a try. I think if you lift the bag a bit, the grains will get compacted on the bottom of the bag and the sparge water won't run through them and wash out the sugars. But heck if I know for sure.
Latest BIAB success - an American Pale Ale:
Ground fine and mashed @150 for 45 mins (pre-boil 2.6G @ SG 1.075 adjusted for 71.7% eff)
Boiled for 45 min
Some people claim aluminum is not good to brew in due to things leaching from the metal into the beer. Many people use aluminum pots, though. Personally, I see no issue with it but personal taste, I guess. If they're being sold to cook food in, why would brewing be any different? Also, how many things to we cook in aluminum foil & pans? We'd all be in trouble if things leached out of the metal when heated.
Not an expert by any means, but a deal is a deal....
wormraper said:hmmm, one last thought. could I do biab by splitting the grain and stuff into two bags and doing 2.5 gallon full boils in two seperate pots (one on each burner since I'm not sure how my glasstop stove would do with a 6.5 gallon boil to get a 5 gallon batch of wort on one burner). then combine the two in the fermenter ????
Yes I did 5 BIAB batches this way until I got my 13 gallon pot and large burner. It works fine. Just split everything equally.
is using an aluminum pot ok for doing a BIAB batch??? the reason I ask is that I have a 5 gallon pot and I found a 7.5 gallon alminum turkey fryer with the burner for $40 on craigslist
Aluminum is fine for making beer.
sweet, picked up the turkey fryer today . $40 for it wasn't a bad deal IMO. took an hour and 15 minutes to reach boil with the lid ON with my glass top stove and it's doing a mild boiling with the lid off with 6.5 gallons. looks like I'll have to do the 1/2 and half thing with to pots unless I can keep the lid 1/2 way covering the pot so as to keep some heat in and increase the boiling
EDIT: I found a couple of guys selling a couple empty propane tanks for $6-$10 each so I might grab a couple to use with the fryer's burner.....
out of curiosity how many brew periods do you get out of a 20 lb propane tank?
sweet, picked up the turkey fryer today . $40 for it wasn't a bad deal IMO. took an hour and 15 minutes to reach boil with the lid ON with my glass top stove and it's doing a mild boiling with the lid off with 6.5 gallons. looks like I'll have to do the 1/2 and half thing with to pots unless I can keep the lid 1/2 way covering the pot so as to keep some heat in and increase the boiling
EDIT: I found a couple of guys selling a couple empty propane tanks for $6-$10 each so I might grab a couple to use with the fryer's burner.....
out of curiosity how many brew periods do you get out of a 20 lb propane tank?
I have used a thermometer like that without issue - just make sure it's in your boil for > 15 mins so that it won't contaminate anything. Thermometers vary.... some are very accurate, some are less so - but that will be enough to get you started.
If you are getting used propane tanks, make sure someone checks them out who knows what they're doing. You don't want something that's been tampered with or is past it's prime.
I always use two tanks so that I have one standing by. Nothing is worse than losing your boil half way through!
Best of luck, and enjoy!
Jay
I have used a thermometer like that without issue - just make sure it's in your boil for > 15 mins so that it won't contaminate anything. Thermometers vary.... some are very accurate, some are less so - but that will be enough to get you started.
Took a hit in the chops today. First BIAB went well with 68% efficiency and when I went to make my first saison today I was pretty confident. I was very disappointed after a hour at 154F and 10 min @168F I ended up at a extremely low 60% efficiency with the grain bill below. I'll ramp up the sugar I was going to add from a pound to a pound and a half to partially cover my ass, but I'm really sad and concerned with this result. Won't be doing any more BIAB's unless I can figure this out.
#'s 0z.
4 0 Belgian Pilsner Malt
2 0 Belgian Pale
1 8 Briess Munich Malt
1 0 Wheat, Red
0 8 Honey Malt
0 6 Flaked Oats
Thanks fellows. I added 1.5#'s table sugar (up from a pound) and 6oz. turbinado and hit 1.058 OG. It may be a little thin, but the oats and wheat ought to help, and the fact it has lemon peel, rosemary, and a saison yeast going for it might cover my butt on this one.crush crush crush... you want those grains damn near pulverized. If you get your grains pre-crushed, have them double crushed. if you crush them yourself, adjust and crush finer.
with previous experience, i am finding that stirring is the key.
stir at dough in. for two minutes.
stir at mash out. for two minutes.
efficiency = way up.
without it? 60 is what you are looking at, or less...
mrgstiffler said:Yup, I have exactly the same experience.
I have two kettles and am considering a igloo cooler with a false bottom. Is there any reason I couldn't mash in the cooler, drain the wort into one of my kettles and then put my sparge water in on top of the grains still in the cooler for the ten minutes and then combine that wort with the initial mash wort by draining and pressing the sparge and grains? Process would look like this.
1. Bring water to strike temp in kettle 1.
2. Mash in cooler.
3. Bring sparge water to temp in kettle 2.
4. Drain wort from mash back into kettle 1.
5. Add sparge water to grains in cooler.
6. Let stand for the 10 minutes.
7. Drain new wort into kettle 1 with original wort and press grains.
8. Start boil.
Seems like it would work well to me and no lifting of grains and the like.
Thats what alot of us do for our all grain batches. At that point you obviously aren't doing a BIAB... you're mashing using a mash tun (your cooler) and then collecting your runnings into your boil kettle. The sparge method you're describing is called batch sparging. The only thing that I would recommend is not pressing the grains after your sparge. The reason that most people who press or squeeze their grains using the BIAB method is because its more difficult to ensure that your sparge water is rinsing all of the good stuff out of the grains when they're in the form of a big ball in a grain bag. You should end up getting pretty solid efficiency by batch sparging with no need of pressing anything out of the grains. I brewed one all grain BIAB batch and got about 63% efficiency. I'm sure if I would have stuck to it and adjusted some of my processes I could have squeaked out some better results but I was itcing to buy some more brewing gear anyways . Using a cooler with a false bottom and batch sparging (no pressing) my efficiency percentage is in the mid to upper 70's.
McBrewskie said:I have two kettles and am considering a igloo cooler with a false bottom. Is there any reason I couldn't mash in the cooler, drain the wort into one of my kettles and then put my sparge water in on top of the grains still in the cooler for the ten minutes and then combine that wort with the initial mash wort by draining and pressing the sparge and grains? Process would look like this.
1. Bring water to strike temp in kettle 1.
2. Mash in cooler.
3. Bring sparge water to temp in kettle 2.
4. Drain wort from mash back into kettle 1.
5. Add sparge water to grains in cooler.
6. Let stand for the 10 minutes.
7. Drain new wort into kettle 1 with original wort and press grains.
8. Start boil.
Seems like it would work well to me and no lifting of grains and the like.
I thought the whole point to BIAB was to not have to sparge. At least thats what makes it really appealing to me.
I thought the whole point to BIAB was to not have to sparge. At least thats what makes it really appealing to me.
the whole point of BIAB is to not spend a small fortune on buying and converting coolers, having a HLT, building a brew stand.. etc.. there are many different ways to BIAB and all of them are just as valid as the next. Me personally I do full volume when I can.. but if I were to make a HUGE beer and need to fit 25lbs of grain it would require a sparge of some sort.
the point is.. there's nothing truly written in stone about BIAB or any type of brewing for that matter. if everyone did it the same way we'd have no reason to talk about it on forums like these.
sparge or no sparge, BIAB or 3 vessel, RIMS, HERMS, step mashing, decoction, or single infusion.. in the end we're all making beer and that's all the really matters
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