BIAB Brewing (with pics)

[Mysticmead]

final batch size + absorption + trub loss + boil off = water needed

that's for a full volume no sparge BIAB
*absorption is grain weight x .075 (or x .05 depending on how hard you squeeze the bag)

 

[Wingfan13]

Perfect...thanks for the help !

 

[oldtrucker]

Mysticmead thanks for the calculator. This biab has almost got me ready to try electric biab.

oldtrucker

 

[Brewitt]

Hi all,

I did my first BIAB today, my first all grain and my third brew ever. It was a mixed experience. The brew was a clone of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, a great blonde 7% ABV hop bomb. I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour. I couldn't do a full volume since my pot is 7 gal. This all seemed to go well despite missing my temp by a couple degrees, but that was corrected with a little heat and stirring. I gave the bag a good squeeze and then transferred to a batch sparge at 168 (missed my 175 target temp again but didn't correct it this time). I combined the sparge and mash and took a sample to cool for SG. I then did my boil but I felt my volume was about .75 gal lower than I predicted with 0.08/lb absorbed by grain. So, about 30 min into the boil I added .5 gal water. Finished my boil and cooled and then remembered to take my preboil SG and my OG. Those came out at 1.060 and 1.064 respectively, a ways from the expected of 1.068 and 1.076. At 60% efficiency I was pretty disappointed.

I had two other problems. My wort has a huge amount of trub that didn't want to settle out. I didn't use the finest bag, probably should have been finer. I also came out about 0.5 gal short of my target volume. I thought I started with 6.3 gal to end at 5.4 gal (with 0.4 gal yeast starter). I guess I may have missed one of my 0.75 gal water additions when measuring. I ended up with 4.7 gal even after about .9 gal of additions.

Anyway, I should be fine but I sure would like to know where the water went and why the low efficiency.

Curt

 

[C-Rider]

Curt your first went off a bit like mine. I did a 1 gallon batch yesterday and used the wrong end of my "dip stick" to measure my water and was 1/2 gallon short when I poured it all into the fermenter. I looked at the scale on the fermenter and it read only 1/2 gal. WTF, then I figured out what went wrong and added 1/2 gal to the wort, pitched the dry yeast and now I'm waiting, and waiting. Gee only 6 more weeks till I can drink my new Porter. Good think I have at least 60 bottles in the pipe line.

 

[Mysticmead]

Hi all,

I did my first BIAB today, my first all grain and my third brew ever. It was a mixed experience. The brew was a clone of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, a great blonde 7% ABV hop bomb. I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour. I couldn't do a full volume since my pot is 7 gal. This all seemed to go well despite missing my temp by a couple degrees, but that was corrected with a little heat and stirring. I gave the bag a good squeeze and then transferred to a batch sparge at 168 (missed my 175 target temp again but didn't correct it this time). I combined the sparge and mash and took a sample to cool for SG. I then did my boil but I felt my volume was about .75 gal lower than I predicted with 0.08/lb absorbed by grain. So, about 30 min into the boil I added .5 gal water. Finished my boil and cooled and then remembered to take my preboil SG and my OG. Those came out at 1.060 and 1.064 respectively, a ways from the expected of 1.068 and 1.076. At 60% efficiency I was pretty disappointed.

I had two other problems. My wort has a huge amount of trub that didn't want to settle out. I didn't use the finest bag, probably should have been finer. I also came out about 0.5 gal short of my target volume. I thought I started with 6.3 gal to end at 5.4 gal (with 0.4 gal yeast starter). I guess I may have missed one of my 0.75 gal water additions when measuring. I ended up with 4.7 gal even after about .9 gal of additions.

Anyway, I should be fine but I sure would like to know where the water went and why the low efficiency.

Curt

first... Congrats on your first BIAB. You just made beer and I bet it tastes better than anything you've made before. now, why the poor efficiency..

The main cause of low efficiency in BIAB is the crush. use a voile bag and crush the grain finer. if you buy them pre crushed, have them double crushed. You'll also find that with bigger grain bills the efficiency goes down a little as well. The biggest thing is crush. here's what my crush looks like.. every kernel crushed. most are crushed very fine the rest are flour

for the water problem. squeeze the bag as hard as you can. I use this formula. batch size + boil off + absorption + trub loss = water needed. for absorption I use grain weight x .07. learn the boil off rate for your equipment.

 

[Horace]

I started with a 14 lb grain bill and mashed out in 4.3 gal 151 degree water for an hour.

Curt

I'm preparing to do my first BIAB and from what I am reading a 90min Mash is common. Was there a reason for the 60min or am I misinformed?

 

[Brewitt]

MysticMead, Thanks for the suggestions. I will make a finer bag and get a better crush of my grain. I invested in a really nice 7 gal stainless pot about a month ago which works great for a partial mash but I'm now wishing I had a 10 gal one. I don't want to invest the cash so I guess I will try to go with smaller batches or lower ABV brews. This one was supposed to be 7.5 and I don't think it will pass 6.0. I'm going to loose a gal to trub, I imagine. Maybe I will put my fine bag over my siphon tube when I transfer to secondary.

I noticed you are using a modified pasta machine for your crush. What is the modification. I have a pasta machine that seldom gets used.

I have a pretty active ferment going right now, in fact I am trying to cool it down a little as my fermentation closet is getting up the 71 and the wort seems to be about 73. I'm trying to hold it at 68 with a little cool water.

Let's see where I end up.

Curt

 

[Great_Neck_Brewer]

I'm sold, sign me up

 

[Mysticmead]

I noticed you are using a modified pasta machine for your crush. What is the modification. I have a pasta machine that seldom gets used.

here's a thread on converting the pasta maker. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-pasta-maker-mill-grain-75784/

I basically took a drill bit and roughed the hell out of the rollers. they looked like they had been a chew toy for a pit bull for a week. then using a 3/8th spade bit in place of the hand crank I use my cordless drill to power it. my hopper is made out a Wii box along with tape (both gorilla tape and blue painters tape cause that's what I had on hand.) with any DIY project the options are endless.. get creative.

 

[Wingfan13]

Working on my first BIAB right now. Everything has gone pretty smoothly besides my thermometers being out of whack. The one with the probe kept jumping around so I grabbed my CDN to get a middle ground. I was paranoid checking my temps.

It looks like I only lost about 2 degrees in the 60 minute mash with my cheap equipment.

I have a couple of questions

1. How much are you supposed to squeeze the bag ? I really went to town on it. I squeezed until the last drop.

2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.

 

[Mysticmead]

Working on my first BIAB right now. Everything has gone pretty smoothly besides my thermometers being out of whack. The one with the probe kept jumping around so I grabbed my CDN to get a middle ground. I was paranoid checking my temps.

It looks like I only lost about 2 degrees in the 60 minute mash with my cheap equipment.

I have a couple of questions

1. How much are you supposed to squeeze the bag ? I really went to town on it. I squeezed until the last drop.

2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.

congrats on your first BIAB!!

1. Squeeze the heck out of that bag. or not.. it's all up the each brewer to decide that. I squeeze for every drop I can get.

2. sprinkle it on and you'll be fine.

 

[Brewitt]

2. I am doing 2.5 gallons and the Nottingham yeast I am using says to rehydrate. Is this really necessary since it is only a 2.5 gallon batch ? I am thinking I will have plenty of yeast.

FYI: I was reading Chris White's yeast book from White Labs last night. He said something interesting regarding rehydration of dry yeast. His claim, and I presume established by experiment in his case, is that dry yeast dropped on or into wort leads to death of about half of the cells whereas rehydrating in 10 ml of sterile filtered water/gm of yeast at ~100F is much better. IIRC (I don't have the book with me) about 10 min there and cool to within about 10 deg of the temp of your wort before adding. He suggests that the sugars and salts of the wort get through the membrane when it is not rehydrated and shock the yeast. The water apparently hydrates the membrane without allowing toxic materials in. I would have thought the osmotic shock of the water would have been worse but, to be honest I have never understood yeast dehydration well.

I should say, with even half of the yeast you are probably fine but I thought it was knowledge worth relaying.

 

[Wingfan13]

FYI: I was reading Chris White's yeast book from White Labs last night. He said something interesting regarding rehydration of dry yeast. His claim, and I presume established by experiment in his case, is that dry yeast dropped on or into wort leads to death of about half of the cells whereas rehydrating in 10 ml of sterile filtered water/gm of yeast at ~100F is much better. IIRC (I don't have the book with me) about 10 min there and cool to within about 10 deg of the temp of your wort before adding. He suggests that the sugars and salts of the wort get through the membrane when it is not rehydrated and shock the yeast. The water apparently hydrates the membrane without allowing toxic materials in. I would have thought the osmotic shock of the water would have been worse but, to be honest I have never understood yeast dehydration well.

I should say, with even half of the yeast you are probably fine but I thought it was knowledge worth relaying.

Thanks. I actually read the same thing online and figure that since it was just a 2.5 gallon batch it probably wouldnt matter. I am glad to report that it is bubbling away. Fermentation started really quick on this one.

 

[Seven]

I just stumbled upon this little beauty while reading another thread here at HBT: Rope Ratchet

I just ordered one to replace the pulley that I rigged up previously from spare parts. Thought I would post this here in case anyone else needed a simple and inexpensive pulley for their BIAB adventures.

 

[Great_Neck_Brewer]

Seven- This is what I was looking for,thanks

 

[bovinejony]

I've used this method 4x now, and have had very positive results. To ensure the efficiency stays at least 70% I usually Mash for 90mins (just cover pot with blankets, etc), and then do a mash-out, followed by a batch sparge for 15-20mins. I usually get between 70-80%. The clean-up is so nice for this method, and as long as you whirlpool you don't collect too much more trub for your fermenter.

Thanks for all the advice on this convenient method.

 

[Seven]

I've used this method 4x now, and have had very positive results. To ensure the efficiency stays at least 70% I usually Mash for 90mins (just cover pot with blankets, etc), and then do a mash-out, followed by a batch sparge for 15-20mins. I usually get between 70-80%. The clean-up is so nice for this method, and as long as you whirlpool you don't collect too much more trub for your fermenter.

Thanks for all the advice on this convenient method.

I'm glad to hear that you and others are getting good results with BIAB. I also love the easier cleanup and I've been improving my technique and getting my equipment dialed in so well that I recently had to update all of my recipes to account for the increased brewhouse efficiency.

 

[teamhzrdpball]

Just finished my first AG brew day using the BIAB method and everything went surprisingly smooth! Big thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, as it convinced me to stop working on my MLT cooler and just give AG a try with the bag.

Anyone who is hesitant to get into AG (or even those like me who have limited space) should certainly read up on this method.

If I took my measurements properly, my efficiency was incredible. BIAB may have just turned my Mild into a full blown American Brown!

 

[wilserbrewer]

I have been using the BIAB method quite fequently, and love the simple efficient approach. BIAB is a great method. I have started making BIAB bags for sale If anyone is interested in purchasing a bag, visit my web site linked here...
http://biabbags.webs.com/
I can make bags for just about any kettle, keggle or cooler. Handy ratchet pulleys, hop boil bags and hop socks available.

Thanks!

 

[MrZ2U]

So far I have done just partial mash brews and had some mixed results I think based on Ph and water volumes and was thinking I should work those out before going AG but this seems easy enough to jump to so a few questions and I might just do this next time.

They have a 10gallon Rubbermaid water cooler at HomeDepot for only $39.95. I know the idea of this is to do it all in one pot but wouldn’t involving this cooler work just as well, perhaps a little better? Get the strike water up to temp, move it to the cooler with the grain bag. Move it back to the kettle and mash out?

Am I missing something with that process? Logic seems to dictate the temp would be more solid like this right?

Also, I am looking at it like this, I have to buy a strainer basket (not comfortable with just the bag) or could just buy the cooler.

Thoughts?

 

[Kaz]

.

They have a 10gallon Rubbermaid water cooler at HomeDepot for only $39.95. I know the idea of this is to do it all in one pot but wouldn’t involving this cooler work just as well, perhaps a little better? Get the strike water up to temp, move it to the cooler with the grain bag. Move it back to the kettle and mash out?

Am I missing something with that process? Logic seems to dictate the temp would be more solid like this right?

One of the main draws of BIAB is the simplicity of it, while your method would work, if you have a 10 gallon kettle, mashing with 8 gallons of water is going to be pretty temperature stable. While you can buy a basket, I use a $5 steamer screen that fits in the bottom of my kettle and keeps the bag off the bottom. I've used a voile curtain that I butchered as my bag and it is very strong. When it comes time to mash out, I fire up my burner, get up to about 172F and then pull out the bag and lay a grill grate across my pot. Let the bag drain and then I'll press as much liquid as possible out of it using my kettle lid. IMO adding the cooler is adding a few unneeded steps and complicating the process more than it needs to be.

 

[MrZ2U]

I hear ya...and defer to your experience on the temp thing. Plus, I am in Austin so its hotter than necessary these days so I may be worried about nothing really. I have a keggle so volume is not an issue. I guess I was just thinking that it is about the same cost for that cooler or a basket so explore the pros and cons of the options as such.

I will do one or the other, I don’t feel comfortable with the bag only. Now the basket, aluminum or stainless and what size? Seems like 24qt ought to do it? The hole in my keggel is just shy of 13 inches and it is not a perfect circle so I don’t know how much if any that limits me. I do have room to open it up to about 15 inches or so if needed and I might do that anyway…no good way to cover that hole though, at least not at the moment.

 

[Seven]

I also have a keggle but so far I haven't used it for BIAB. I think that keggles retain heat very well because they have such a large thermal mass. All that hot water and grain and steel retains heat for a long time. One problem I've run into with my keggle is the narrow opening at the top. When I cut the top from the keg I could only get a 12-inch diameter cut. I haven't found any baskets that are large enough to be useful that would fit into a 12-inch diameter opening.

I've been contemplating using the keggle for BIAB using only a voile bag but I haven't tried it yet. I've got my process down so well with my other kettle and metal basket that I just haven't been able to push myself to try something new...

So for now my keggle sits in the corner, unused and lonely. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it. I'm sure one day I'll come up with something.

 

[Kaz]

I hear ya...and defer to your experience on the temp thing. Plus, I am in Austin so its hotter than necessary these days so I may be worried about nothing really. .

Its 100F here in South Central PA today, so we're getting a dose of Austin weather. I would actually worry about the sun and the heat actually heating my mash higher that 155 right now lol.

 

[bartbert]

So far I have done just partial mash brews and had some mixed results I think based on Ph and water volumes and was thinking I should work those out before going AG but this seems easy enough to jump to so a few questions and I might just do this next time.

They have a 10gallon Rubbermaid water cooler at HomeDepot for only $39.95. I know the idea of this is to do it all in one pot but wouldn’t involving this cooler work just as well, perhaps a little better? Get the strike water up to temp, move it to the cooler with the grain bag. Move it back to the kettle and mash out?

Am I missing something with that process? Logic seems to dictate the temp would be more solid like this right?

Also, I am looking at it like this, I have to buy a strainer basket (not comfortable with just the bag) or could just buy the cooler.

Thoughts?

I use the bag in a cooler method and it works great. I tried doing the one pot BIAB method and I just couldn't maintain stable temps. I guess there is one more thing to clean up, but I haven't found that to be a big deal.

 

[Paulgs3]

So I really want to try this. I love extract brewing for its simplicity but I want to add more complexity to my beers that I just can't get without using grains. This might be what I'm looking for (I'm ultimately lazy and I love home brew).

Basically, if I want to do 5 gal >1.060 batches I will need at least a 15 gal pot?

 

[Seven]

Basically, if I want to do 5 gal >1.060 batches I will need at least a 15 gal pot?

I successfully brewed a 5-gallon Hopslam clone (OG 1.098) using a 10-gal kettle. It turned out to be one of my best beers to date.

If you want to brew batches larger than 5-gallons then you'll need a 15 to 20 gallon kettle.

 

[The_Dog_42]

I will do one or the other, I don’t feel comfortable with the bag only. Now the basket, aluminum or stainless and what size? Seems like 24qt ought to do it?

I bought a 42 qt pot with a basket from Academy for $50 for my BIAB. They seemed to have quite a selection of pots and baskets. If you're set on the basket, you may want to check them out. And the bigger the better, if you go too small you may not be able to do big beers.

Oh and I'm in Pville too. :rockin:

I fire up my burner, get up to about 172F and then pull out the bag and lay a grill grate across my pot. Let the bag drain and then I'll press as much liquid as possible out of it using my kettle lid.

The grill grate is an awesome idea. I think I may have to steal it. I was looking for a way to get the runnings without holding the bag up.

 

[Paulgs3]

I successfully brewed a 5-gallon Hopslam clone (OG 1.098) using a 10-gal kettle. It turned out to be one of my best beers to date.

If you want to brew batches larger than 5-gallons then you'll need a 15 to 20 gallon kettle.

Thanks Seven, I saw that. I was a bit concerned as I had thought you mentioned it was tight but do-able.

I'd rather have more than enough room then not enough. My present BK is a 7.5g and I've been cursing the day I didn't buy a 10 gal instead, just didn't want to make the same mistake.