BIAB Techniques?? Help

Looking to try to use the BIAB method to all grain. Can someone give me some pointers on grain crush (here it can be much finer), water volumes, and if you bought the bag or made it.

Thanks
HB

 

All your questions and more are answered here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing-pics-90132/

 

see if this helps. Its not the site I was looking for, but I am having trouble finding the one I wanted.

http://www.biabrewer.info/viewforum.php?f=25

 

Hey mate, I recommend www.biabrewer.info as well. There's some top gents on there that know much about the process (be sure to douse an Aussie slang like this when you're talking there )

I'm still new to BIAB but I'll answer it the best I can.

How fine you can crush depends entirely on your bag. I use a nylon bag so I just crush normally, but what seems to be ideal is Swiss Voille which has such close threads that you can crush extremely fine, which helps with efficiency. I bought a nylon bag online, but if you have a sewing machine then you could pick up some material meant for curtains and make an extremely nice bag.

Water volumes depends on your boil pot. If you can manage a full-volume mash (strike + sparge water) then go with that, you'll get the best results. If not, you can go various sparge routes, but then you're really getting into the complexities that BIAB is trying to avoid.

Check out that BIAB forum though, they're great guys that don't mind answering even the noobiest of questions that I seem to ask. There's also plenty of guys that can attest that BIAB produces equally as great beer as traditional multi-vessel AG setups. Some of them have awards, etc.

 

I made a bag (actually my daughter sewed it), from this material: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EWZWAU/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 This is enough for 2 bags.
In addition to the biabbrewer info website; I used this site when I first started: http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2009/04/14/brew-in-a-bag-biab-all-grain-beer-brewing/ which also links to a couple great articles on BIAB. I am brewing my 15th BIAB batch this Sat., I am not sure I will ever be making a mash tun.

 

Nice. I need to make a nice voile bag. Need to find someone that can sew first!

 

I don't BIAB, but I do LIAB. I use a 5 gallon paint strainer in a 5 gallon cooler and batch sparge. I don't know if it's any better than the SS braid and cooler as a mash tun, I've never used one. I do know that I can hit and hold my temps and have hit gravities dead on. I don't need to adjust the receipe per the beersmith article. Clean-up is a breeze, I just rinse the bag and use it again.

 

I've seen one photo of someone using a large piece of voile bunched up (didn't make a bag, just dumped the grain in the middle, gathered it up and dropped in the pot. Lots of extra fabric up top, but still worked-)

The easy way to get the fabric is go to walmart and buy a sheer white or off white voile curtain (single curtain, about $7). There is more than enough fabric there to make 2 bags.

If you are going to heat the water with the grain bag in the pot, walk a couple aisles over in wally world to the kitchen section, and buy a 2 pack of grease splatter screens (round fine mesh screen with a handle normally put over a frying pan http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006IQ2NA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20) also <$10. Every one I've seen has been stainless.

Break (or cut) the handle off the grease screen, use it to keep the bag off the bottom of your pot. (if you are using a normal pot, you may have to put 3 stainless bolts through it to keep if off the bottom. If you are using a keg conversion, the slope of the bottom will keep the screen and bag off).

Figure out where you are going to put the 12+ pounds of dripping grain (150+ F) before you are standing over your wort and boil pot. Its really hard to hold the bag of grain dripping hot wort up with one hand and bend down to pick up the colander off the floor to put on the pot without making a mess.

If you can, weigh the wet grain (or accurately measure your wort) after the brew session, and figure out exactly how much water the grain absorbed. Then you can figure out the water your system needs. its a little different for each system.

Mash volume=(final volume)+(boiling loss)+(water in grain)+(system loss). In my system the grain absorbs 0.1 gal/pound. so for a 5 gallon final volume and 10 pounds of grain, I need to start with 7.5 gallons of water

Use the "can I mash it calculator" here http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml to see if your grain bill and water will fit in your boil kettle.

You have to calculate the mash ratio to make it work. In the example above, 7.5 gallons is 30 quarts, with 10 pounds grain that is 3 quarts/pound---this gives a total volume of 8.3 gallons not including any space under the screen

tim

 

Is the voile material nylon, polyester, or cotton? Is one material superior to the other?

 

Voile is a type of polyester I do believe.

 

I just picked up 2 panels from Wally-World.. These are polyester 59x84. I am going to cut them in half and try a bag in about a week.

Any gotcha's I should be aware of?

 

I did not make my own bag so cannot help there.

I did use BIAB a few times before going AG, it is a great for making the transition. What size pots are you using? Do you have a good thermometer? Are you going to insulate the pot while mashing?

 

BIAB is AG.

 

Your right, technically it is. I think people know what I mean though, using a tun built specifically for mashing

 

I have a 10gal pot. Plan on using insulation on the pot to help hold the temp. I have a cooler that I converted, but I have had several problems with temp and volume control with the cooler. I expect to use both BIAB and MLTcooler, but I need get something working.