29"x29" MoreBeer BIAB Bag $5.50

[Cider123]

Well, I was sitting at home today with a huge piece of voile, an old sewing machine with a missing bobber and no instruction manual. and I said to myself "Self, are you going to really spend your MLK day trying to work through this Murphy's Law domino effect?" I still have the $5 receipt for the voile from Target.
So I threw the voile back in the car to return tomorrow, then I went to morebeer.com and bought 2 bags with shipping for 17 bucks. Now I can just drink beer the rest of the day.

Has anyone actually had their bag melt at the bottom of their pot? A three ply SS pot?

 

[KurtB]

Points if you can name the character on my pajamas

Stewie from Family Guy?

 

[241]

Stewie from Family Guy?

Ding ding! Repped

So I threw the voile back in the car to return tomorrow, then I went to morebeer.com and bought 2 bags with shipping for 17 bucks. Now I can just drink beer the rest of the day.

Has anyone actually had their bag melt at the bottom of their pot? A three ply SS pot?

And you just scored major man points for not sitting in front of the sewing machine all day :rockin:

Last brew day my bag was in contact with the bottom of the kettle for strike water temp raise (propane burner on), mash, and mash out (burner on again) with no scorching or even discoloring. It was fine.

 

[241]

Forgot I was supposed to post a finished beer pic in response to the question on trub/ending clarity. Here's the beer that was in progress from my first pics

 

[cgeorg]

Well mine arrived on Friday. I'm very impressed with the shipping time. I ordered Wednesday, it shipped Thursday, and I had it in my hands Friday. Not bad considering I'm in Virginia and it came from California. Good work usps.

Anyways, this bag fits my polarware 15 gal kettle perfectly. It definetly won't fit a wider kettle as the bag is maxed width wise. I'll be brewing tomorrow with it and will report back with my thoughts.

I'm not an expert but I've been brewing BIAB for three years now (smaller kettle, 8.5 gal, and a smaller bag to fit) and know what I expect out of a BIAB brew day (at least from my system). Here is hoping for a glowing review tomorrow *fingers crossed*

How'd brew day go?

 

[Vellum]

How'd brew day go?

Brew day went very well, thank you for asking. My mexican lager is bubbling away in the fermentation chamber.

This bag is excellent. I like the finer weave that it has versus my last one (Austin Homebrew's jumbo course nylon). The addition of the drawstring is nice although kind of pointless as it doesn't not provide a very secure anchor to the top of the pot. Really this bag is a the perfect fit for my new pot and I could not be happier with it. My only possible concern is the seams. They appear strong but my grain bill was only 8.5 lbs dry. I might reinforce them, or just test them out on a bigger beer, I have a barley wine coming up that is 18 lbs of grain.

Anybody test this bag out with a large (greater than 15 lbs) grain bill?

 

[cupido76]

Brew day went very well, thank you for asking. My mexican lager is bubbling away in the fermentation chamber.

This bag is excellent. I like the finer weave that it has versus my last one (Austin Homebrew's jumbo course nylon). The addition of the drawstring is nice although kind of pointless as it doesn't not provide a very secure anchor to the top of the pot. Really this bag is a the perfect fit for my new pot and I could not be happier with it. My only possible concern is the seams. They appear strong but my grain bill was only 8.5 lbs dry. I might reinforce them, or just test them out on a bigger beer, I have a barley wine coming up that is 18 lbs of grain.

Anybody test this bag out with a large (greater than 15 lbs) grain bill?

Maybe just double bag it to be safe?

 

[WileECoyote]

Subscribed

 

[241]

My last batch was 14 lbs.


I didn't even think about the weight. I held it while it dripped out for about 5 mins over a bucket. I think 15 or so would be OK

 

[Vellum]

Sweet I won't even worry about it then. Really a great bag for the price. I've been using the Austin homebrew one for three years without problem and I expect to use this one the same. Thank you for posting this otherwise I would have spent a lot more on a custom one.

 

[241]

Just a little update here, I made a pale ale using this bag with 14.5 lbs of grain, and got some really amazing clarity going into the fermenter after getting wort temp under 80 degrees in 30 minutes. Target OG 1.060, hit it on the dot.

14.5 lbs is no problem for the bag. I will be doing a bigger beer in a couple of weeks and plan to up grain bill to 15 or 16. Bag is holding up very well

 

[NivekD]

Picked up this bag last week based on this thread and used Friday for a Blue Moon clone (only 10 lb.), worked great. Love this thing.

 

[241]

Picked up this bag last week based on this thread and used Friday for a Blue Moon clone (only 10 lb.), worked great. Love this thing.

^ excellent. Didn't see this reply, glad to hear it's working out for most everyone who has tried it

 

[bbHop]

Love this bag - fits perfectly around my 15g heavy duty kettle from morebeer. Thanks for posting re: weights - I've had it up to ~12, but good to know it will handle more (I've got a barleywine a'comin as well).

 

[241]

Fits on some 15g kettles! Awesome

 

[ThatGeekGuy]

Fits a 15 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker perfectly.

 

[SFGiantsFan925]

I think Ill have to swing by MoreBeer and grab one. I have been using curtain voile for my BIAB and it seems to work perfectly. This might be a better "fit" for my 11 gallon pot. Its hard to drape a whole curtain into a pot and pour grain into it haha. Just brewed today with my method using the voile and it works great. The convenience of the MB bag might be worth a few bucks though.

 

[Cider123]

I am enjoying this bag. In fact I bought 2, for a total of around $15 including shipping. Can't beat that.

One tip is that I noticed those black metal clamps that folks use to hold the bag in place on the rim, well they begin to tear the bag. I now use bungee cord and it works much better.

 

[241]

I think Ill have to swing by MoreBeer and grab one. I have been using curtain voile for my BIAB and it seems to work perfectly. This might be a better "fit" for my 11 gallon pot. Its hard to drape a whole curtain into a pot and pour grain into it haha. Just brewed today with my method using the voile and it works great. The convenience of the MB bag might be worth a few bucks though.

Can't beat the price. You could buy and see if you like it and if not, not have to worry too much because in the end you didn't spend that much :rockin:

I am enjoying this bag. In fact I bought 2, for a total of around $15 including shipping. Can't beat that.

One tip is that I noticed those black metal clamps that folks use to hold the bag in place on the rim, well they begin to tear the bag. I now use bungee cord and it works much better.

Good tip. I switched to the bungee too, very happy with it.

Side note, MoreBeer.com shared this thread on their Facebook page today. Awesome.

 

[BrewHunter42]

If you can add a RIMS tube with a march pump to circulate you'll get into the 90s on your efficiency. Borrowed a tube on a few batches and haven't gone back since. Went from the mid 60s and 70s to high 80s and 90s on efficiency. Have fun. Any problems with the larger bag coming unthreaded? No issues with the 24x24 but the 29x29 seems a bit less in quality

 

[241]

If you can add a RIMS tube with a march pump to circulate you'll get into the 90s on your efficiency. Borrowed a tube on a few batches and haven't gone back since. Went from the mid 60s and 70s to high 80s and 90s on efficiency. Have fun. Any problems with the larger bag coming unthreaded? No issues with the 24x24 but the 29x29 seems a bit less in quality

I've been dreaming of a RIMS tube for a while. Not "there" yet though, still getting my head around it and debating whether to go Auber sous vide controller or PID.

On the 29x29, no issues with mine other than some beige tinge from multiple mashes. Quality is fine

 

[bbHop]

Used our beloved bag for an american red ale last night that looks like it may approach imperial territory once things are said and done .

First time using my new Barley Crusher - set the gap to 0.030 for a finer crush than what I get at LHBS - and landed at 79% brewhouse efficiency in beersmith (87% mash efficiency at pre-boil volume)! I had been getting upper 60's for brewhouse figures prior...

I mash in a 10g Rubbermaid with the bag, sparge at 165 in my boil kettle for about 15 minutes (intermittent stirring / dunking of grain in bag), then rack concentrated wort from cooler tun into kettle (calc'd to collect full pre-boil volume)...

love that bag, especially with the better crush i'm getting now...

 

[241]

Used our beloved bag for an american red ale last night that looks like it may approach imperial territory once things are said and done .

First time using my new Barley Crusher - set the gap to 0.030 for a finer crush than what I get at LHBS - and landed at 79% brewhouse efficiency in beersmith (87% mash efficiency at pre-boil volume)! I had been getting upper 60's for brewhouse figures prior...

I mash in a 10g Rubbermaid with the bag, sparge at 165 in my boil kettle for about 15 minutes (intermittent stirring / dunking of grain in bag), then rack concentrated wort from cooler tun into kettle (calc'd to collect full pre-boil volume)...

love that bag, especially with the better crush i'm getting now...

Right on. Any issues with trub on the finer crush?

 

[bbHop]

Right on. Any issues with trub on the finer crush?

Not that I could tell. Racking from boil kettle looked pretty standard for the beer i was making (bit of hop matter due to 6oz of pellets). No stray floaters from the grain or elevated sludge.

I will say that the finer crush lead to a higher amount of water absorption... I had been consistently avg about 0.68 fl oz/oz of grain with the bag, and that shot all the way to 0.82 for this brew using the new mill.

 

[241]

Interesting. Good to know.

So today I had the bag stretched over the handles of my kettle while mashing out and the bag cinged away in those areas. Next time I won't stretch it over the handles, just before it with bungee. No worries I have another back up.

 

[bbHop]

So I used the bag last night for the third time on a Summit / 2-row SMaSH (grain bill was only 8.25lb), and noticed when pulling the bag up to drain after the mash that there was a 1-inch or so hole on the side where the stitching had come undone... crap

I'm lucky enough to live close to the Concord showroom, and as always, David the showroom manager was super awesome about it and swapped me out for a new bag... he was pretty surprised / bummed that the bag had broke that soon. I actually ended up buying an extra one as well - thinking about some of the larger grain bills I have coming up (~15lb Hog Heaven clone in a few weeks), and that a double-bag treatment may be best.

Here's to hoping that I just happened to get a faulty one... though I can't say the stitching looks much different on the two new ones I just picked up. I'll post back with updates after the barleywine.

 

[MagicSmoker]

What's stumping me about this BIAB stuff is how you hold the bag over the kettle when draining it? Some of the custom bags I've seen have a reinforced fabric loop sewn on to the top of the bag so you can suspend the bag from an overhead pulley. That seems like a really worthwhile feature, even if it does bump the price up a bit... okay, more than a bit. Like 6x more, but, well... Seems worth it.

 

[Larso]

What's stumping me about this BIAB stuff is how you hold the bag over the kettle when draining it? Some of the custom bags I've seen have a reinforced fabric loop sewn on to the top of the bag so you can suspend the bag from an overhead pulley. That seems like a really worthwhile feature, even if it does bump the price up a bit... okay, more than a bit. Like 6x more, but, well... Seems worth it.

I pull the bag, squeeze it, and then hang it over an empty fermentor or bucket off a brush handle across 2 chairs. If you've no loops just put a sieve or collander in the bottom of the bucket and sit the bag on top

 

[241]

So I used the bag last night for the third time on a Summit / 2-row SMaSH (grain bill was only 8.25lb), and noticed when pulling the bag up to drain after the mash that there was a 1-inch or so hole on the side where the stitching had come undone... crap

I'm lucky enough to live close to the Concord showroom, and as always, David the showroom manager was super awesome about it and swapped me out for a new bag... he was pretty surprised / bummed that the bag had broke that soon. I actually ended up buying an extra one as well - thinking about some of the larger grain bills I have coming up (~15lb Hog Heaven clone in a few weeks), and that a double-bag treatment may be best.

Here's to hoping that I just happened to get a faulty one... though I can't say the stitching looks much different on the two new ones I just picked up. I'll post back with updates after the barleywine.

That's too bad about the ripped bag. That wasn't that big of a grain bill either. Hoping it was just a fluke.

What's stumping me about this BIAB stuff is how you hold the bag over the kettle when draining it? Some of the custom bags I've seen have a reinforced fabric loop sewn on to the top of the bag so you can suspend the bag from an overhead pulley. That seems like a really worthwhile feature, even if it does bump the price up a bit... okay, more than a bit. Like 6x more, but, well... Seems worth it.

I use a $6 BBQ grate from Walmart on top of my kettle and let the grains sit o n that and drain out as I get to a boil. By that time they're pretty well drained especially if you mash out.

 

[MagicSmoker]

I pull the bag, squeeze it, and then hang it over an empty fermentor or bucket off a brush handle across 2 chairs. If you've no loops just put a sieve or collander in the bottom of the bucket and sit the bag on top

Hmm... I suspect I should have bought a colander before I started mashing today, eh?