big tea bag

[akd200]

When I make tea, I squeeze the liquid out of the bag, how do, or should I do the same for this big tea bag? Or should I not do it and RDWHAHB?

 

[DrinkinSurfer]

You can squeeze, people used to have a stigma about it. But there was no evidence to prove it. I personally like to pour a bit of 170* water over my grain bag then press it against the side of the pot until the liquid starts lightening. And yes you should RDWHAHB.

 

[akd200]

Thanx for the comeback beer surfer! Interesting, why 170 water, and does that not add to the quantity to make the five gallons. How does that 170 water affect the rapid cooling?

 

[DrinkinSurfer]

I use 170* water because that is what all grain guys seem to use a bit when they batch sparge. I just use it to make sure to get all the good stuff out of the grains. I am assuming you are doing extract? The water does add to the amount you are going to boil, so take that into consideration. AG folks seem to use around 1.5 qts of water per pound of grain to get peak efficiency in their mash, so I usually don't steep my grains in the full amount of water I am going to boil. So I end up adding the rest of the water at 170 over the grain bag. This all occurs before the boil so it has no effect on cooling, but does help it get to a boil a little faster. Did I answer what you were asking?

 

[Nurmey]

You get the same results squeezing a tea bag that you do when you squeeze a grain bag, lots of tannins.

I don't squeeze a grain bag for the same reason I don't squeeze my tea bag, undesirable flavors.

 

[akd200]

I love brewing beer!

Beersurfer, I live in Alaska, and I got frostbite of the brain a few times so bear with me. You boil your grains in a smaller kettle, then add the remaining water through the grain and then heat that water up, add your malts. So you are not extracting water by compression which Numery says addes excesive tannins to the wort.

I looked up tannens in beer and got this quote from wikiweedia: Beer

In addition to the alpha acids extracted from hops to provide bitterness in beer, condensed tannins are also present. These originate both from the malt and hops. Especially in Germany, trained brewmasters consider the presence of tannins as a flaw. However, in some styles, the presence of this astringency is acceptable or even desired, as, for example, in a Flanders red ale. In lager type beers the tannins can form a precipitate with specific haze forming proteins in the beer resulting in turbidity at low temperature. This chill haze can be prevented by removing part of the tannins or part of the haze forming proteins. Tannins are removed using PVPP, haze forming proteins by using silica or tannic acid.

How cool is that! I was kidding about the brain freeze thing, but I wanted to learn the why as well as the how. I brewed up a Sierra Nevada IPA clone today "Father Solstice IPA" and it seemed to go really well, one thing I did different was I grabbed the grain bag top with tongs and let it drain back into the wort every five minutes of the hour long boil. My thinking was you do not get too much current through the bag as it is boiling After I pitched the yeast, I went to dinner, and when I came back I had lots of foam, and lots of bubbles coming out of the large tube!

Thanx guys for the comeback

 

[frazier]

Do not boil your grains.

 

[Revvy]

You get the same results squeezing a tea bag that you do when you squeeze a grain bag, lots of tannins.

I don't squeeze a grain bag for the same reason I don't squeeze my tea bag, undesirable flavors.

Nurmey, darling, thats' that old wives tale that has been disproven.

There's no reason not to squeeze.....that's another old brewer's myth that has been misunderstood...and has been shot down..But if often just get's repeated as ROTE without anyone stopping to look beyond the just repeating the warning...

Read this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/do-you-squeeze-bag-biab-177051/?highlight=squeeze

And this.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/squeezing-grain-bag-bad-175179/?highlight=squeeze

From Aussie Homebrewer.com

Tannins And Astringency

If you are worried about squeezing your bag too much or crushing too fine, relax! Astringent beers do not come from finely crushed or squeezed husks but come rather from a combination of high temperatures and high pH. These conditions pull the polyhenols out of the husk. The higher your pH and the higher temperature you expose your grain to, the worse the problem becomes. Any brewer, traditional or BIAB, should never let these conditions arrive. If you do allow these conditions to arrive, then you will find yourself in exactly the same position as a traditional brewer. Many commercial breweries actually hammer mill their grain to powder for use in mash filter systems because they have control of their pH and temperatures. This control (and obviously expensive complex equipment) allows them non-astringent beers and “into kettle,” efficiencies of over 100%.

As long as you keep your steeping temps below 170, you won't be producing those supposed tannins that folks blindly say you would be squeezing out.

To summerize;

1) If your PH is off, or your steeping/mashing temp is above 170, your beer will extract tanins from the husks whether you squeeze or not

2) If your PH is ok, and your temps were below 170, squeeze away! (hey that rhymes!

It's funny, we've been told over and over not to squeeze for years, and yet in the last year or so that brew in a bag has come to the US, suddenly we're SUPPOSED to squeeze.

They even showed it on basic brewing recently, the took a ladder with a hook attached, hung the grain bag, and twisted the hell out of it to drain every ounce of precious wort out of bag of grain.

This should launch as an mp-4

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbv01-16-10cornpils.mp4

So is that's the case, that it is "OK" to do in AG Brew in the bag, then why would it really be bad in extract with grains brewing?

I tend to think this whole "don't squeeze the bag" thing was another "extrapolation" that someone once made as a comparison to tea bags, and like so many other things that turn out to be busted myths (Like Hot Side Aeration) it keeps getting passed around with very little actually validity.

I think that Basic Brewing/BYO may be due to doing another one of their joint experiments. There was some comments on youtube where James posted the basic brewin BIAB episode I referenced above.

Personally if you want to avoid it, do so...obviously it can't hurt NOT to squeeze the bag (though when I BIAB I am going to continue to squeeze the heck out of mine till I am proved wrong in my own experience.)

But, if you do squeeze, then don't panic, there is enough cases mentioned in ALL the "squeeze" threads of folks doing it and having no issues, to assume that you have a 50/50 shot or more of your beer turing out OK.

I've said it a million times, our beer is hardier than must new brewers give it credit. It tends to turn out OK, no matter what we do to it.