BIAB Mash recirculation

[ZmannR2]

So I wanna get my efficiency up. I bought a false bottom from Bobby for my 10 gal kettle. My thoughts are using my chugger pump along with a sparge arm and the false bottom with the bag in there. Watching the temp of course but constant recirculation should help with efficiency right?

Before I used to just add grains, stir, cover and insulate (usually with several towels) and wait an hour.

Thoughts? Tips?

 

[C-Rider]

I get 75 to 80 percent eff with just a normal BIAB mash stirring maybe twice. I pre heat cooler for about 30 min then add the grain. I cover the cooler w/about 4 flannel shirts. Works pretty well like that.

 

[RM-MN]

Efficiency is more related to the quality of the crush than to any other method of working the mash. With BIAB and a good bag you can use very finely milled grain. Get out your wallet and blow a bunch of money on a Corona style mill. Tighten it as far as it will go.

 

[ZmannR2]

OK so is there any advantage to keeping it recirculationg? I guess I'll have the equipment already once I build my eBIAB if I decide not to use this

 

[trav77]

OK so is there any advantage to keeping it recirculationg? I guess I'll have the equipment already once I build my eBIAB if I decide not to use this

I don't think you'll see an efficiency jump by recirculating vs. not.

To me recirculating has...

Pros: easy to step mash with a controller, no need for insulation
Cons: more complex/more equipment, some people have reported issues with air bubbles getting trapped under a bag causing dry firing of the element. YMMV. I don't have any issues.

I crush at a 1.030 gap, use a wilser bag with brewhardware false bottom and recirculate back into the top with a locline sparge ring. I get a consistent ~73% mash eff.

 

[ZmannR2]

I wish I could see a vid of that locline sparge ring he has for sale. I have a hard time picturing it

 

[Nmnbrewer]

Watch any "half empty brewing" videos on you tube.

 

[Nmnbrewer]

He uses the Locline for a continuous recirculation.

 

[PsychoBiter]

I tried it with a pump and it didn't increase the efficiency at all. I thought the same as you. I did manage to suck too much water out from under my poor flowing bag and crush my false bottom.

You would be better off using a finer crush. Either adjust your mill finer, buy a mill so you can grind finer or ask you LHBS if they can crush if finer.

I will say that the pump really helped decrease our chill time with our immersion chiller. Eventually will be adding a rims set up for more constant mash temp/step mashes.

 

[thekraken]

I just recently 'upgraded' to biab from a 2 vessel rims system. My perfectly functional RIMS tube is now collecting dust and I hope I can keep it that way and just rely on sleeping bags or whatever to keep the mash warm enough. I'm trying to simplify. But when I did originaly make the switch from regular batch sparging in a cooler to recirculation with the RIMS tube I saw no improvement in efficiency at that time.

 

[Morrey]

You would be better off using a finer crush. Either adjust your mill finer, buy a mill so you can grind finer or ask you LHBS if they can crush if finer.

Good advice per PsychoBiter. Lots of folks chase efficiency and spend on various equipment (inc recirc pumps, etc) but overlook owning their own grain mill. To me, grain grind is the key to BIAB efficiency AND consistency. If you buy premilled grains from multiple sources, chances are there will be quite a variation in crush size. With your own mill you can set the mill for your brewing style and pretty much leave it alone providing your process stays the same. When you dial in your grind, efficiency and consistency dial right in as well.

 

[trav77]

I wish I could see a vid of that locline sparge ring he has for sale. I have a hard time picturing it

I'm brewing tomorrow... I'll take a vid for you.

 

[RM-MN]

I just recently 'upgraded' to biab from a 2 vessel rims system. My perfectly functional RIMS tube is now collecting dust and I hope I can keep it that way and just rely on sleeping bags or whatever to keep the mash warm enough. I'm trying to simplify. But when I did originaly make the switch from regular batch sparging in a cooler to recirculation with the RIMS tube I saw no improvement in efficiency at that time.

The temperature you keep the mash only concerns the conversion. Get some iodine and check you mash at various times for conversion so you know how long you have to maintain the temperature. That time will vary according to the quality of the grain milling. Once all the starch converts, the temperature doesn't matter as much.

 

[berndawg84]

I tried it with a pump and it didn't increase the efficiency at all. I thought the same as you. I did manage to suck too much water out from under my poor flowing bag and crush my false bottom.

You would be better off using a finer crush. Either adjust your mill finer, buy a mill so you can grind finer or ask you LHBS if they can crush if finer.

I will say that the pump really helped decrease our chill time with our immersion chiller. Eventually will be adding a rims set up for more constant mash temp/step mashes.

Has anyone ever dared to ask their LBHS if they would crush their grain finer for them? I've used the double crush method at the LBHS, but at least visually it doesn't make much of a difference. I may just ask my LBHS next time. I hear it can be a pain to adjust the rollers though. And yes, getting my own mill is best, but need to wait til I have more space...

 

[Morrey]

Has anyone ever dared to ask their LBHS if they would crush their grain finer for them? I've used the double crush method at the LBHS, but at least visually it doesn't make much of a difference. I may just ask my LBHS next time. I hear it can be a pain to adjust the rollers though. And yes, getting my own mill is best, but need to wait til I have more space...

I asked my LHBS to grind finer. Their reply, as expected, was they cannot continually adjust the roller gap for every single customer for custom grinds. I then asked if they could double grind which they agreed. I usually got them to put all the grains I needed for a certain recipe (minus flaked of course) in the same bag and grind together. When I got home I looked at my receipt and they had added a surcharge to my bill for the double grind. Ok, that got my attention. Or call it pissed....may be a better term.

I ordered a 3 roller mill the next week. Oh, I changed LHBS too. I hope that small surcharge was worth it to lose my business.

(Even a $35 portable hand crank Corona Mill on your countertop is an improvement over being at the mercy of someone else's grind)

 

[trav77]

I asked my LHBS to grind finer. Their reply, as expected, was they cannot continually adjust the roller gap for every single customer for custom grinds. I then asked if they could double grind which they agreed. I usually got them to put all the grains I needed for a certain recipe (minus flaked of course) in the same bag and grind together. When I got home I looked at my receipt and they had added a surcharge to my bill for the double grind. Ok, that got my attention. Or call it pissed....may be a better term.

I ordered a 3 roller mill the next week. Oh, I changed LHBS too. I hope that small surcharge was worth it to lose my business.

(Even a $35 portable hand crank Corona Mill on your countertop is an improvement over being at the mercy of someone else's grind)

Why shouldn't your LHBS add a surcharge for double grind? It's more work for them... theoretically more cost incurred if you assume the employees aren't sitting around on their asses otherwise.

My LHBS charges $0.15 per lb for single crush and $0.25 for double. I have my own mill so don't use the service but that seems reasonable to me. Even at double crush that's 500-1000 lbs of grain milling before you get to recover the cost of a mill.

 

[thekraken]

An extra $0.25 is reasonable, an extra $0.25/lb seems ridiculous to me. But none of my lhbs charge for milling (or double milling) so maybe I'm spoiled.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Some might not like my boldness but....
Recirculation makes zero difference on efficiency and a false bottom is a waste of good beer...If you suck up every ounce of cold break it will settle out in the fermenter and make zero difference in the final product.

Do as you will for the fun factor but your wasting money and beer

 

[trav77]

Some might not like my boldness but....
Recirculation makes zero difference on efficiency and a false bottom is a waste of good beer...If you suck up every ounce of cold break it will settle out in the fermenter and make zero difference in the final product.

Do as you will for the fun factor but your wasting money and beer

The false bottom has nothing to do with keeping break in the kettle. I'm not even sure how that would work.

The false bottom is to keep the bag from coming into contact with the element while the element is firing.

For sure lots of people make great beer with a simple BIAB system. For me I like the fine degree of control and not having to insulate. Recirculating facilitates this but it's by no means necessary and as a lot of people have said, will not increase your efficiency.

 

[Morrey]

Why shouldn't your LHBS add a surcharge for double grind? It's more work for them... theoretically more cost incurred if you assume the employees aren't sitting around on their asses otherwise.

My LHBS charges $0.15 per lb for single crush and $0.25 for double. I have my own mill so don't use the service but that seems reasonable to me. Even at double crush that's 500-1000 lbs of grain milling before you get to recover the cost of a mill.

Understood, maybe it just caught me off-guard since they didn't mention the charge. The previous owner didn't charge anything for milling, again just a surprise.

BUT, it got me motivated to buy my own mill. Best move I ever made regarding being able to adjust my grind custom to my system. I played with the roller gap and watched my efficiency improve until I hit a plateau and consistency. Looking back he did me a big favor.

 

[trav77]

Yep having your own mill is a great thing.

 

[wilserbrewer]

.



BUT, it got me motivated to buy my own mill. Best move I ever made regarding being able to adjust my grind custom to my system. I played with the roller gap and watched my efficiency improve until I hit a plateau and consistency. Looking back he did me a big favor.

Sure did get you motivated Morrey w the 3 roll mill and the AAW motor. Beautiful work btw!

Never heard of a shop charging 10 cents more per pound for a double (decent) crush.

You can spend big bucks on a mill or $25 on a hand crank corona, but at the end of the day if you don't have the starchy inner portion of the grain well exposed to the strike water you're just spinning wheels and going nowhere fast.

 

[yourlastchance89]

Yeah one of the big advantages to BIAB is the fine crush, and that this is easily accomplished with a cheap corona mill which is already naturally suited for the job. I bought one for $30 when I started brewing in anticipation for brewing all-grain in the future, and out of ignorance of how ill-suited it would be for traditional all-grain brewing. After discovering BIAB I used it for both my all-grain brews so far. First I hit 78% totally brand new to trying the BIAB process, and second time I hit 80%

 

[ZmannR2]

Dammit guys now you got me looking at mills. Is their a disadvantage to crushing too fine?

 

[RM-MN]

Dammit guys now you got me looking at mills. Is their a disadvantage to crushing too fine?

Yes. If you mill the grain too fine you get awesome efficiency which gives you a much higher OG than most recipes will be written for so you end up having to drink beer with more alcohol than anticipated until you adjust the recipe for the efficiency you will be getting.

Oh yeah, the other things you have problems with once you figure out to use less grain per batch is what to do with all the leftover base malt and what to do with all the extra time when you discover that your mash may be done in 30 minutes instead of an hour.:rockin:

 

[bajaedition]

charging for a double crush, I guess I am never going ***** that my store shows you where the mill is and it has directions posted on it.

 

[yourlastchance89]

Dammit guys now you got me looking at mills. Is their a disadvantage to crushing too fine?

There is. You don't want to create a flour, but you want it to be more flour like versus traditional crushing of predominantly cracking the grains. The first time I used my corona mill was a partial mash with the oven and stovetop. To crush the grains then I had to use watchers under the mill's wing nuts to guage the appropriate gap. Now I use no washers and keep the wing nuts tight enough to seat, but slightly loose from being full on finger tight. This creates a slight swerve in the grinders whilst grinding through which most grain gets ground finely, and a small amount crushed. There's comparison pics of grain grinds if you Google it for biab. With traditional all-grain it's important not to crush too finely because the husks act like a natural filter, in biab the bag takes on that role. Of course you could grind it into flour and get virtually a 100%efficiency, but the off-flavors associated with complete grain extraction would probably compare to alcoholic *****ewater. 80% is pretty good for biab and it would be extremely difficult to get more than 95% in general with traditional homebrew methods. Another factor of consideration for efficiency in biab is PH. Make sure you calculate the water used with your malt profile to ensure your mash is acidic enough to help extract those sugars

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Dammit guys now you got me looking at mills. Is their a disadvantage to crushing too fine?

If you get a 2 roller mill there is a trick many use. Stick a gift card between the rollers.It forms the perfect gap and takes any guess work out of it. No double crush needed and always hit projected OG

 

[drunami]

Two things:
1. I do BIAB and regularly get 80-85% efficiency without much trouble. My two tricks: I do a mash rest and a "batch sparge" (dunk the bag in second pot, combine runnings from both for the boil). Also, I squeeze the bag after every rest. Well, my wife does, I hold it up. I'm convinced that the tannin thing is a lie, and squeezing before sparging helps dry out the grain, which then re-soaks up clean water to pull more sugars out during the sparge rest, which then get squeezed out. My setup is a waaaay simple stove-top apartment thing, so how you integrate a good squeeze into your system may be different, but I think it helps efficiency a lot.
2. Why do you need higher efficiency? I get the idea that it's fun to try and get your system working at its peak, so if that's the goal then go for it. Still, at a homebrew scale you're likely not saving much $$ by increasing efficiency. Much more important IMO is getting a consistent efficiency. As I was dialing in my current method, I saw efficiencies ranging from 60% - 85%. As you can imagine, that makes it difficult to write a recipe. A swing like that is enough to make a session beer come out at just over 7.5% abv... If you know what the efficiency of your system is and you can hit it within a few points regularly, I'd leave it alone and just brew.

 

[bajaedition]

Two things:
1. I do BIAB and regularly get 80-85% efficiency without much trouble. My two tricks: I do a mash rest and a "batch sparge" (dunk the bag in second pot, combine runnings from both for the boil). Also, I squeeze the bag after every rest. Well, my wife does, I hold it up. I'm convinced that the tannin thing is a lie, and squeezing before sparging helps dry out the grain, which then re-soaks up clean water to pull more sugars out during the sparge rest, which then get squeezed out. My setup is a waaaay simple stove-top apartment thing, so how you integrate a good squeeze into your system may be different, but I think it helps efficiency a lot.
2. Why do you need higher efficiency? I get the idea that it's fun to try and get your system working at its peak, so if that's the goal then go for it. Still, at a homebrew scale you're likely not saving much $$ by increasing efficiency. Much more important IMO is getting a consistent efficiency. As I was dialing in my current method, I saw efficiencies ranging from 60% - 85%. As you can imagine, that makes it difficult to write a recipe. A swing like that is enough to make a session beer come out at just over 7.5% abv... If you know what the efficiency of your system is and you can hit it within a few points regularly, I'd leave it alone and just brew.

some how I am confused by your post

first you tell how you got yours to be consistent and a nice conversion rate

then you suggest that they do not worry about getting the efficiency up

could you splain Lucy

 

[davemattb]

My last 2 batches I conditioned my grain before milling. I also have decided to do away with full volume mash and batch/dunk sparge instead. I don't calculate efficiency % but my og was higher using the same mill gap. It's a entry level 2 roller mill so I'm thinking the crush is more consistent with the grain conditioned. I'm now going to dial back my grain bills as I prefer sessions beers. I was planning to recirc but I can't justify at this point.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I would buy a pump tonight and start recirculating tomorrow if I believed it would truly improve my beer.

So far no pump, cheers!

My process is plenty efficient due to a good crush, even full volume mash

 

[drunami]

some how I am confused by your post

first you tell how you got yours to be consistent and a nice conversion rate

then you suggest that they do not worry about getting the efficiency up

could you splain Lucy

Sorry. What I meant was - getting your efficiency is t that important and doesn't save you a ton, but if you're like me you try to do it anyhow just to prove that you can!

Trying to get it up is how I learned how frustrating inconsistent efficiency is for hitting a specific recipe.

 

[TexasWine]

I started out with a simple BIAB stove top set up. Then I graduated to an eBIAB. Currently I'm using two vessels, and I'll probably​ never look back.

I really like circulating the mash. There has been no improvement in efficiency, but I enjoy employing a step mash, holding a consistent temperature with no effort or concern about ambient temperatures, not needing to drag out my sleeping bag and bungee cords, allowing my system to clean itself at the end of the brew day, and I'm sure there are other things.

It fits my style of brewing.

Also, I'll throw in there that you do not want to take the advice of grinding really tight if you go the recirculating route. Instead, a normal crush of around 0.040 should work just fine.

 

[bajaedition]

The entire BIAB method started out by someone wanting to experiment with doing a mash without all the equipment of a full blown all grain setup. That started a revolution in brewing

Now we have so many ways to BIAB it has gotten to start a bit if friction in the community.

I think if some of the guys saw my BIAB system they would scream heresy. It is more of a Brew In A Steamer Basket and Sparge.

But it is all good and if we can brew better beer doing a recirculation, by all means do a recirculation.

 

[jpmess]

Watch any "half empty brewing" videos on you tube.

Any idea where he went? His channel is gone!

 

[jalc6927]

Getting good consistency is far more important the efficiency. The definition of efficiency is in a nutshell, a monetary issue. Being effective on the other hand means getting the desired results, which is what we’re really after, isn’t it?

Many companies go out of business by getting “too” efficient because they lose focus on what’s important which is getting results

BIAB systems with recirculation helps us become more consistent with makes our process more effective and great beer results

Which is why I left the propane burners, the hlt and the mash tun behind

 

[ABI Brewery]

I don't think you'll see an efficiency jump by recirculating vs. not.

To me recirculating has...

Pros: easy to step mash with a controller, no need for insulation
Cons: more complex/more equipment, some people have reported issues with air bubbles getting trapped under a bag causing dry firing of the element. YMMV. I don't have any issues.

I crush at a 1.030 gap, use a wilser bag with brewhardware false bottom and recirculate back into the top with a locline sparge ring. I get a consistent ~73% mash eff.

I really like that setup, i actually just got done building that same rig, my usual setup is a 10 gallon recirculation, but I figured that if I add a tri clamp to mash tun and get a false bottom I can BIAB for the really short brew days, I also use the loc-line for sparging, really like this setup, just nice to see someone else have the exact same thing

 

[fendersrule]

I finally got rid of my corona mill.....only because it's a messy mill to work with and requires having to move the grain into another location from the tray after every couple pounds or so. Plus, the hopper size sucks for milling over 8 lbs of grain.

Now I have a cereal killer that sits on-top of my bottling bucket. I set the gap to .023". I haven't milled with it yet, but upon research, people either go "tight as it will go" (which is around .017" or the credit card method at .030". I just put mine right in the middle at .023". I do expect lots of flour, but when you are B.I.A.B with an appropriate bag, flour is OK! There's no such thing as a "stuck splarge" with B.I.A.B. method.

 

[carpathia]

Just to chime in:

I use a cereal killer (great mill) with a cheap harbor freight D-handle drill. Mills perfectly, though make sure you have ear pro.

I have a 2 vessel K-Rims setup, with a BIAB in the mash tun, with constant recirculation to allow for step mashes (I like the German Hochkurz for my lagers, and use a mash schedule lovingly pilfered from Rochefort for my Belgians). I mill fine, so the bag is needed. I don't need to worry about stuck mashes because I can just lift the bag. After squeezing the bag, allowing it to drain in a bucket, and up-ending the mashtun for the remaining runnings, I typically got 80+ efficiency, and can make batches bigger than my bottling bucket can easily handle OR that would be conveniently made in just a single vessel setup.