I squeezed the bag. Did I ruin my beer?

I've been brewing for about a year now. Ever since my first batch, I've done it right and made good beer. I recently moved to all grain brewing and was using a mash tun. That's when I read about brew in a bag (BIAB). My first BIAB was a Hefeweizen. It tastes HORRIBLE. I've given it a few weeks to age in the keg, but it still tastes really bad. One thing I did on that BIAB, was when I pulled the bag out of the wort after mashing, I put it in a colander on top of a bucket and squeezed all of the remaining wort out of it. I mean, I really squeezed it. Then, I poured that into my boil. I'm thinking that is why my beer tastes so bad. I don't think it's a sanitation issue. I'm pretty anal about sanitation. I have since brewed a couple other batches with the BIAB method and I squeezed the hell out of those too. It was only after brewing those two batches that I heard that I should NEVER squeeze the bag. Do you guys think that I ruined my next two batches of beer? I could do them over. What would you guys do? Pour them out and start over? If they're going to suck, then I would like to just start over right now and not wait a few more weeks only to find out that my beer sucks.

First, you should never dump your beer before tasting it. Ever.
Second, What does " It tastes HORRIBLE" mean?
There are so many factors that effect the flavor of beer that not one person on this site can begin to help without a considerable increase in information from you.

That sucks, why did you squeezed the bag anyways? its not like the sugars embedded in the husks. most likely you have a bunch of tannins in your beer, just have a big party to get rid of your beer, then make more beer and don't squeeze the bag.

I found these posts very helpful with dealing with these kinds of issues:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/revvy/99-time-heals-all-things-even-beer.html

And the 2nd and 4th posts here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/specialty-grains-what-do-when-hits-boil-225229/

I haven't done biab yet but plan to soon. Don't dump your beer!! From what I've read, you are supposed to squeeze the bag.

From the website biabrewer; '... twist and squeeze the bag as much as possible without tiring yourself out. Industrial rubber gloves will help you out here. You can squeeze as much as you like. There are only positives in doing this (more beer) and absolutely no negatives. For example, it is impossible to extract tannins from grains at this temperature...'

I've always gently squeezed my bag, and I always seem to forget how hot 150F actually is. I feel bad about not squeezing; more liquid = more beer. I haven't had a noticeable offtaste though. Yours may be coming from somewhere else.

I've heard squeezing the bag releases unwanted tannins. I set my grain bags in a colander over a pot and let them sit there a while, than dump the goodness into the kettle. no squeezing

If you extracted tannins, you should be able to taste that. Tannins have this strong puckering sensation. It reminds me of a dry red wine. What do you mean when you say it taste "horrible..?"

I squeezed the bag! OK Beavis.

KC10Chief said:

... My first BIAB was a Hefeweizen. It tastes HORRIBLE.

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What yeast did you use? Is it sour? I've made some wheat beers that have a sour that I don't care for but my wife and some of my friends do like.

.... I really squeezed it. Then, I poured that into my boil. I'm thinking that is why my beer tastes so bad. I don't think it's a sanitation issue.

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The boild would have sterilized anything up to that point.

What would you guys do? Pour them out and start over?

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NO! Wait and see how it turns out. If you want to free up your equipment go get some HDPE buckets for $3.00 at Menard's or Home Depot and use them as fermenters.

You dumped your beer because of a MYTH????

We really need to quit perpetuating this answer that is reptead rotely with very little understand..."I heard somewhere" is not a good enough reason to keep repeating something if you have no real understanding of what you're talking about.

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%.

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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.

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!

There's been some tests that have disproved the whole "don't squeeze the grain bag, because you will leech tannins" idea. I think there's even been a couple experiments on here detailed in threads. I think it's been pretty well shot down as one of those "old school" beliefs, that turn out to have little effect.

In fact if you are doing AG "Brew in a Bag" you are encouraged to squeeze the grain bag. 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 wouldn't worry about it.

From BYO, MR Wizard;

The two most influential factors affecting the extraction of tannins from malt into wort are pH and temperature. All-grain brewers are very careful not to allow wort pH to reach more than about pH 6 during sparging because tannin extraction increases with pH. In all-grain brewing wort pH typically rises during the last stages of wort collection and is one of the factors letting the brewer know that wort collection should be stopped.....

Temperature also affects tannin extraction. This relationship is pretty simple. If you don’t want to run the risk of getting too much tannin in your wort, keep the temperature just below 170° F.

This is where the answer to your last question begins. You ask whether steeping and sparging released "unwanted tannins" in your beer. For starters, all beer contains tannins. Some tannins are implicated in haze and some lend astringent flavors to beer.

The type most homebrewers are concerned about are those affecting flavor. In any case, it is up to the brewer to decide if the level of tannins in their beer is too high. The (in)famous decoction mash is frequently recommended when a brewer is in search of more malt flavor. Decoction mashes boil malt and — among analytical brewers who are not afraid of rocking the boat with unpopular ideas — are known to increase the astringent character associated with tannins. In general I wouldn’t consider 170° F dangerously high with respect to tannin extraction. However, if you believe your beers may suffer because of too much astringency, consider adjusting your steep pH and lowering the temperature a few degrees.

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They are often repeated ad nauseum by, especially new brewers, with little know understanding of the context behind them...or even a basic thinking like, "how come it says not to boil your grains, yet people doing decotion mashing do it all the time?" or "They say not to squeeze their grain bag, but in Brew in a Bag- they are encouraged to squeeze them...so what's going on here?."


It's the same with boiling your grains... posted a detailed discussion of the "chestnut" here; https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/less-than-satisfied-my-first-brew-224679/#post2639410

(There are actually a number of instances where what's been told about that is actually done in all grain brewing....)

In fact I'm boiling my grains right here (It's called decocting)



I think this should be hung and posted in Every new brewers brew closet.

Since nothing pathogenic can grow in beer, that's a really silly worry and would be a waste of potentially excellent beer.

That's why I've been collecting success stories like this, to hopefully teach you overly worried new brewers the folly of your ways.


Most of the time a new brewer (and it's usually new brewers who do) is because they think something like that, though, and are actually tasting their beer usually when it is really green. Or they make a mistake and because of all the worst case scenarions they've come upon in books, they dump it thinking in their naievty that their beer will instantly go bad.

I wrote this awhile ago...it should be committed to memory...

You don't dump your beer, for making a minor little mistake. Your beer is hardier than that.

And you don't dump something because you think it's going to turn out bad. You only dump a beer that you KNOW is bad, and you give it at least a couple of months in the bottle before you even make THAT decision.

Read theses two threads that were compiled for nervous new brewers to realize that your beers are not a weak baby that is going to die if you look at it wrong.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

Read this one especially

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

Our beer is really resilient despite the boneheaded things we do to it. And even if something appears to be wrong, often time and the yeasties go along way to correct itself.

And if everyone dumped their beer just because of a common thing like an airlock suckback, no one would be brewing. We ALL have had sanitizer from our airlock get into our beer at one time or another. There's a ton of panic threads on here about that, and the answer is always the same, RELAX.

I think about it in terms of my time and money, I'm not going to dump 30 or more dollars worth of ingredients, 6 hours of brewing time, and at least 2 months from yeast pitch to cracking the first bottle, on what could be a minor mistake (that may not even harm the beer anyway,) until I have exhausted all probability that the beer won't improve. And even then that means at least walking away from the bottles for maybe 6 months or more.

And so far I have never beer wrong.

After all these years of brewing I still haven't had a dumper.

And I've made some big mistakes.

But I have never had a beer that wasn't at least palatable, after all that time.

They may have not been stellar beers, but they were still better than BMC or Skunky Beers in green bottles that people actually pay money for.

So just read those threads and next time, relax, and give your beer a chance to prove how strong it really is.

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Listen to Revvy.

Revvy said:

We really need to quit perpetuating this answer that is reptead rotely with very little understand..."I heard somewhere" is not a good enough reason to keep repeating something if you have no real understanding of what you're talking about.

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Thus the nature of Internet forums. Beer is easy to make, it has been made for years, in caves, before anyone knew what yeast was. I find it almost interesting to watch the trends as far as what information gets regurgitated on the forums.

Revvy, He hasn't dumped his beer yet. Do you keep these long responses in files, or do you access them often enough where you can just zip 'em out? I think zepolmot got most of your reply (minus the new edit) in post #4. Maybe you could get everyone together for a "fire and brimstone" sermon on brewing.

petey_c said:

Revvy, He hasn't dumped his beer yet. Do you keep these long responses in files, or do you access them often enough where you can just zip 'em out? I think zepolmot got most of your reply (minus the new edit) in post #4. Maybe you could get everyone together for a "fire and brimstone" sermon on brewing.

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He actually just types it from scratch every time.

Wow! Thanks for all of the advice! I haven't dumped the beer and I won't now. I don't know what's up with the Hefeweizen. It is pretty sour tasting. I'm not real good at describing taste for some reason. But I wouldn't say it's a puckering taste or anything. It just seems kind of sour. Maybe it's supposed to taste that way. Who knows. The beer is EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Hefeweizen. I got it off of this site.

KC10Chief said:

Wow! Thanks for all of the advice! I haven't dumped the beer and I won't now. I don't know what's up with the Hefeweizen. It is pretty sour tasting. I'm not real good at describing taste for some reason. But I wouldn't say it's a puckering taste or anything. It just seems kind of sour. Maybe it's supposed to taste that way. Who knows. The beer is EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Hefeweizen. I got it off of this site.

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Tastes are subjective! What is sour to you, might be perfect for somebody else. If you dont like the beer, dump it or age it. I've made myself sick reading this forum trying to figure out what tastes good, but untill I brew it for myself, I'll never know