BIAB Brewing (with pics)

[Possum55]

Love the use of the patient lift for multiple purposes. Gotta find myself one of those.

Brew on

Yeah doug, it really is versatile. Easy to let your mash drain and move those heavy carboys around. You can get them in electric battery or manual pump versions. Both would work well.

 

[k-os]

Did my first all grain brew (Columbus IPA) on my new to me eBIAB system this last Saturday. Everything went relatively well. Efficiency was a little lower than what was planned for the in the recipe so my starting gravity came in about 5 points low. Made sure to take lots of notes so I can adjust my equipment profile in Brewfather. Will be doing another brew of a Blonde Ale this coming weekend and really looking forward to it.

Video of boil with Steam Slayer

 

[wsmith1625]

STEP 10: Transfer, Aerate, Pitch, Ferment

Transfer wort to fermentor.

View attachment 22054

Aerate wort using the aeration method of your choice. Splashing the wort while siphoning, rocking or shaking the fermentor, or using an aquarium pump or pure O2 all work great.

Pitch yeast and ferment.

View attachment 22055

Just curious why your fermenters are in a storage bin? Is it just for keeping them out of the light or do you do use if for temperature control? Interested because I was using my kegerator as a fermenter, but I started kegging my old beer and lost that space. Thanks!

 

[ba-brewer]

Looks like an aquarium heater in the bottom of the bin.

 

[BandonBrewingCo]

3500W induction plate but my balcony socket is only 12A so keep it at 2600W. Downsized to a 25L kettle and batch sparge in a plastic fermenting bucket while the first runnings heat up.

 

[BasementArtie]

Seeing at this has been rebooted here is my very arbitrary methods for BIAB. Plus other make shift
methodology.

 

[cvbrewer]

I'm getting ready for my first all-grain BIAB and wonder if anyone is JUST using a mesh (voile) bag and not the added strength of a metal basket. Am I asking for trouble in trusting a cloth bag to hold all that wet grain? Also, what's the average batch size folks brew when using this method and a keggle?

wrench - I went for a stainless steel false bottom from brewhardware.com

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/biabbottom13.htm
Kept my bag off of my electric heating element. Have to figure out your dead volume though.

 

[orgenomescii]

Last year my FIL gifted me a crappy 5L all grain kit of malt that had been barely milled god knows when and some ancient hops. I rigged a very simple BIAB setup and decided that this year, I would improve my setup and brew something before it got too cold.

Fortunately, 2 weeks ago there was a period of warm weather perfect for getting my fermentation started. I had ordered a cheap stock pot on Amazon and cancelled the order when I saw that a nearby shop was selling paella cauldrons. I bought a 25L one to make 10-15L batches, a stainless steel tray for deep frying and some Lidl reusable mesh fruit & veg bags to make an oatmeal Stout.

My recipe was:
-74.3% pale ale
-14.9% flaked oats
-5.9% roasted barley
-5% chocolate malt
Small quantities of EKG hops at 60, 30 & 5mins & US05 yeast

The mash went well and I managed to hold the temperature consistently. Extraction was much better than the last time but because my kitchen only has a tiny flat glass top hob, I couldn't bring the wort to a rolling boil. In fact, it overheated and shut off for 10 mins giving me a heart attack as I had promised my wife that nothing would go wrong. Maybe next time I'll try to use a wood fire rig used to paella that I found in my woodshed to get a nice rolling boil.

I had read horror stories on here of oatmeal stouts stalling out at 1.020 due to the proteins & unfermentables but I took a reading today on day 11 and the yeast has gobbled down my wort from about 1.041 to 1.010 today, despite the cool weather.

I'm very happy with the progress that the batch has made and also that my weird paella cauldron setup worked pretty well!

 

[doug293cz]

Last year my FIL gifted me a crappy 5L all grain kit of malt that had been barely milled god knows when and some ancient hops. I rigged a very simple BIAB setup and decided that this year, I would improve my setup and brew something before it got too cold.

Fortunately, 2 weeks ago there was a period of warm weather perfect for getting my fermentation started. I had ordered a cheap stock pot on Amazon and cancelled the order when I saw that a nearby shop was selling paella cauldrons. I bought a 25L one to make 10-15L batches, a stainless steel tray for deep frying and some Lidl reusable mesh fruit & veg bags to make an oatmeal Stout.

My recipe was:
-74.3% pale ale
-14.9% flaked oats
-5.9% roasted barley
-5% chocolate malt
Small quantities of EKG hops at 60, 30 & 5mins & US05 yeast

The mash went well and I managed to hold the temperature consistently. Extraction was much better than the last time but because my kitchen only has a tiny flat glass top hob, I couldn't bring the wort to a rolling boil. In fact, it overheated and shut off for 10 mins giving me a heart attack as I had promised my wife that nothing would go wrong. Maybe next time I'll try to use a wood fire rig used to paella that I found in my woodshed to get a nice rolling boil.

I had read horror stories on here of oatmeal stouts stalling out at 1.020 due to the proteins & unfermentables but I took a reading today on day 11 and the yeast has gobbled down my wort from about 1.041 to 1.010 today, despite the cool weather.

I'm very happy with the progress that the batch has made and also that my weird paella cauldron setup worked pretty well!

A rolling boil is not necessary. Both hop alpha acid isomerization, and SMM conversion to DMS with subsequent dissipation of the DMS, depend only on temperature and time. If you get within a degree or two of 100°C that is good enough (i.e. simmering.) A rolling boil (more heat to the kettle while boiling) only increases the rate of water evaporation (boil-off.)

Brew on

 

[orgenomescii]

A rolling boil is not necessary. Both hop alpha acid isomerization, and SMM conversion to DMS with subsequent dissipation of the DMS, depend only on temperature and time. If you get within a degree or two of 100°C that is good enough (i.e. simmering.) A rolling boil (more heat to the kettle while boiling) only increases the rate of water evaporation (boil-off.)

Brew on

Good to know! I was just hovering around a boil but not quite. I've also done some research on historical brewing (in early medieval Ireland, pre hops) and it doesn't seem ale was brought to boil til relatively recently. My brew wasn't meant to be heavily hopped so I wasn't too concerned if it came out a bit under hopped.

 

[Kornssj]

Man I used the hell out of this post today!

Great instructions. Words that will echo through time lol.

 

[pwiens]

Saturday the 6th I had a friend over to brew something like a Czech Pilsner. I didn't want to scary him so I kept stuff at minimum: no temperature steps, no sparge, no starter (of course respecting OG and volume for one pack of yeast), not even a squeeze in the bag. I have to say, it was much more pleasant to brew and it took 3h to do so, when usually I spend all day. Here are the pictures for it: very simple equipment, with the exception of my counter flow chiller, boy, how have I lived without it so far, my old immersion chiller now is a pre-chiller for warmer days as you can see.