BIAB Brewing (with pics)

[Bmooreskier]

Long story short, I did a slow cool of my wort over night in the fermenter, my mom pitched the yeast the next night. I came back 5 days later to a dried-out airlock. Am I screwed?

 

[Brewitt]

Possibly but probably not. It is possible that there was a layer of CO2 over the beer the whole time and, if you didn't get contamination by the time it fermented out, you might be fine. Take a hydrometer sample, measure the specific gravity and, while you are at it, take a taste and put something in that airlock. I'm gonna guess your ok as long as mom didn't contaminate it on the way in and your carboy is not sitting somewhere really scummy.

 

[Bmooreskier]

Filled the airlock with vodka. Unfortunately I will be away from it for another month and a half as I am at school, and they are not too fond of students having fermenters in their closets :/ Its in a fairly clean basement. Guess I'll just have to wait and see. What would the gravity reading indicate? Extra fermentation? It's a sweet stout so I doubt the alcohol content would help kill anything

 

[Brewitt]

The gravity reading would just tell you whether your fermentation is done. Once you fill the airlock, nothing much will happen if it wasn't already contaminated. Its also correct that if there is a lot of alcohol, many, but not all, bugs will grow poorly, if at all. That is, if they got in after fermentation was well under way. However, if you use vodka in the airlock, it will be evaporated well before a month. I would use water or, if you really want to make sure it wont evaporate, make a blow off tube that goes into a big bottle of water.

 

[Hayseed]

I used this tutorial yesterday afternoon , pitching yeast at 7 pm . Worked super for my first shot in new territory coming off without a hitch ! Blow off was bubbling like a motor boat this morn :rockin:

 

[Nompton]

Followed tutorial to a point for a Christmas Red Ale. Ended up with 79.X% efficiency. Really impressed.

 

[ggriffi]

Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

 

[wilserbrewer]

Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

1) Sparge water temperature is not that critical, 180 is a good place to be, you basicly want to keep the mash below 170. You can even sparge with room temp sparge water if it's easier, but then it will take longer to heat to boil.

2) Yes, you can squeeze the bag to extract more liquid, both from the mash and sparge.

 

[MMJfan]

Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

I use a 2 kettle system as my boil kettle is only 7.5 gal. I mash my grains in my boil kettle for 60 min. at whatever the mash temp calls for. Once the 60 minutes is up, I then add heat to my boil kettle and do a mash out (usually I heat up to around 170F). I then let the grains rest for another 10 minutes or so and while they are resting, I heat up some water in a smaller kettle to 170F for my sparge. Once the sparge water is up to temp, I pull the grains and let them drain in my boil kettle and then place them in my sparge kettle and let them rest for an additional 20 minutes. I then pull the bag and let it drain and then add the liquid from the sparge kettle to my boil kettle and that usually gets me to my desired pre-boil volume. If I'm a little short I do squeeze the bag to get more liquid to add.

I've used this system since about my 2nd or 3rd BIAB batches and have had great success using it with efficiencies consistently in the mid to upper 70's...

 

[Grimster]

Since my pot is going to be too small for my grain bill after checking rackers I have a couple of questions about dunk sparging. I apologize if these have been answered in the thread earlier.

1) When I sparge should the water in my second pot be the same temp as my boil kettle?

2) Can I/ Should I squeeze the bag for both kettles?

tia,

g

#1 I shoot for 180F for the sparge water.

#2 Sure, I squeeze the crap out of my bag. I put it in my stock basket then I put a bucket on top of the grain bag nearly full of water, then I press down on it hard, squeezes a LOT of water out of the grain.

I had to improvise this weekend because my 42qt pot has two small pinholes in it (damnit) and had to use my turkey fryer pot (I think it's 28 maybe 34 quarts) so I did a 4 gallon mash @149 for 90 minutes and a 3 gallon sparge @170 for a Tripel with a 12 lb grain bill. The recipe called for 1.081 OG I measured at 1.080 so I was happy with my outcome. And the wort tasted heavenly I can't wait for it to be ready to keg.

 

[mtnagel]

Is there a target efficiency that I should be trying to achieve? I generally get around 73%. Should I be trying to improve that?

 

[seefish]

Not in my opinion, that's pretty good for BIAB. Your efficiency only affects how much grain you need to achieve your target OG, not how good the beer tastes.

 

[eulipion2]

Is there a target efficiency that I should be trying to achieve? I generally get around 73%. Should I be trying to improve that?

If I'm doing a "regular" beer I tend to get 72-75%. Higher gravity gives me lower efficiency, and session beers usually give me 83-85%. Figure out efficiency at various levels and strive to keep it consistent.

 

[mtnagel]

Awesome. Thanks guys!

 

[ggriffi]

Thanks guys for all the help. The long story is that I am using a 44qt Bayou fryer bucket and I have a 14 1/2 lb grain bill and rackers says that it will take up 5 gallons of space, so I will be using your info to do my first biab

 

[ClemTiger0408]

While the bag is dripping after Mash Out, can I be heating the wort up to boil temp? Or do I need to wait for the bag to finish dripping?

 

[sikkingj]

Heat away, no need to wait until it finishes dripping.

 

[mrgstiffler]

While the bag is dripping after Mash Out, can I be heating the wort up to boil temp? Or do I need to wait for the bag to finish dripping?

No need to wait. Bring the heat!

 

[ClemTiger0408]

I attempted BIAB for the first time today, going from extract brewing. It did NOT go well. I was trying to make this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f78/holly-christmas-ale-145580/

My pre-boil efficiency came out to be around 57%, unfortunately. I have two theories based on what I observed today.

1. Bag Size: I used a 5 gallon paint strainer from Lowe's, which seems to be the norm around here. I think this brew was a little too big for this bag. First of all, I discovered that bag's mouth does not cover the opening of the kettle. In fact, I could only stretch it across about half way. So because of this, I added the grain to the bad OUTSIDE of the kettle. In hindsight, this prevented me from adding a little bit slowly and stirring as I pour in the grain. Also, because the bag was so full I think it was packed a little too tightly. This prevented the water from really getting in there.

2. Mash Temp: Because I added all the grain at once, the water didn't slowly get to the right temp. I got the strike temp to about 160 and tried to stir as best I could. But 30 minutes into the mash, I checked and the temp was around 142. I immediately heated back up and I added some time to the mash. I did wrap the kettle in blankets. I don't think I necessarily LOST that much heat, but my strike temp wasn't initially high enough and after I added the grain it was packed so tightly that it didn't immediately drop the temp down a lot, but as water got into the grain it brought it down more than expected.

I think overall 1 was more of an issue than 2, but both definitely played a part.

I added some DME and my actual OG wasn't too terribly off the target for this beer. 1.066, which is what some people in the thread for that recipe have reported when doing BIAB.

I am disappointed but I think I learned a lot. Do my guesses as to what went wrong seem possible? My biggest takeaway is that I need a larger bag (hello, http://biabbags.webs.com/). I really should have done a smaller beer for my first...

 

[mtnagel]

Did you have clumps because of issue number 1? I can definitely see that affecting efficiency.

I can highly recommend the bags from Wilserbrewer. The site is http://biabbags.webs.com/ (not sure if that's what you meant with the link).

 

[Brewitt]

I don't think 142 is a problem in terms of efficiency. But if the temperature and wetting of the grain were uneven that could definitely be a problem. this is not a huge amount of grain for a BIAB but it is a pretty big grain bill. When I do big stouts, and especially If I am doing over 5 gallons at a time, I use two bags, each of which fill about half of my keggle. That way I can actually lift the damn thing when it is time to pull the grain. Also helps with wetting and stirring. I definitely think you are better off adding the grain to the bag in the pot. Much better wetting. I didn't notice whether you did a sparge or a mash out but both of those things help, especially with a big beer.

Hope that helps.

 

[Grimster]

I attempted BIAB for the first time today, going from extract brewing. It did NOT go well. I was trying to make this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f78/holly-christmas-ale-145580/

My pre-boil efficiency came out to be around 57%, unfortunately. I have two theories based on what I observed today.

1. Bag Size: I used a 5 gallon paint strainer from Lowe's

2. Mash Temp

I did this recipe a few weeks ago: http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shop/red-beaver/three-sheets-belgian-tripel-kit/ it says it has a 1.081 OG and my OG was 1.080 so I feel satisfied with my BIAB.

However that brew day my 10.5 gallon stock pot was found to have a couple pin holes in it so I had to use my smaller 7 gallon turkey pot. So I did a 2 pot method, in my turkey pot I heated 4 gallons to strike temp (162 I believe was what I went for) and I did a pretty solid 90 minute mash at 149F with the temps staying pretty good. Stirred the mash up real good about 3 times during the 90 minutes, I did give it a little heat about 2/3 of the way through as it was dipping towards 145 so I heated it to 150F and let the mash finish.

At the end of the mash I heated up another 3 gallons in my 4 gallon pot to 180. At the end of the mash I pulled my bag out, put it over a bucket while I poured the mashed wort into another bucket, then I put the bag back into the 7 gallon pot and poured the 180F sparge over it, and stirred it up good and let it rest about 10 minutes. I started a boil of about 2 gallons of the wort in the kitchen since no way would the 7 gallon pot hold it all without a massive boilover. I then pulled my bag out, and squeezed the everliving bejeesus out of it (I used my stock pot with basket for this, the pinhole was 4" off the bottom so it was fine for this). Luckily a 5 gallon bucket just fits into the basket for the stock pot so I put the bag in the basket, put a bucket of water on the bag, then I pushed down till my palms hurt, really squeezing the bag.

Then I boiled what I guess was about 4 gallons of wort in the 7 gallon turkey pot, doing the hop schedule as the recipe called, ended with just a hair over 5 gallons, just over the line on the bucket, and 1.080. It wasn't pretty but it worked.

 

[ClemTiger0408]

When I do big stouts, and especially If I am doing over 5 gallons at a time, I use two bags, each of which fill about half of my keggle. That way I can actually lift the damn thing when it is time to pull the grain. Also helps with wetting and stirring. I definitely think you are better off adding the grain to the bag in the pot. Much better wetting. I didn't notice whether you did a sparge or a mash out but both of those things help, especially with a big beer.

Hope that helps.

Does help, thanks. When you use two bags, do you clip the bags to the side of the pot and just have them sort of side by side? Even though I have a 10 gallon kettle, I still worry it will get cramped when I have a 14# grain bill.

Additionally, does it make it harder having two bags with a pulley system? It took me like twenty damn minutes yesterday just trying to tie a knot to be used by the pulley.

 

[mtnagel]

My first BIAB was 17 lb grain bill in a 10 gallon pot. It was a couple inches from the top, but it worked fine. I didn't use a pulley, but I suspended it over the pot with a rope tied to a ladder. Now I use a metal grate from a grill and just lift it up until some of the wort drains out and then stick the grate under the bag/on top of the top to drain the rest. Works well.

 

[Brewitt]

Lots of ways to skin a cat, so to speak. I used to do the rope routine. Used the grate approach as well. Then I started doing 10 gallon batches in my keggle so I had two problems: volume and weight. That's when I started doing a sparge and using two bags. I do my mash with the two bags each clipped around half the pot. Then I can lift them one at a time by hand into a bucket with holes nested in another bucket. I pour a gallon or so of sparge water over each and press to squeeze. The squeezate (my word) goes back in the pot and the boil is on.

Now when I do five gallon brews I use one bag except for a big 9% stout or something similar. Either way I hand transfer into the sparge bucket.

The message here is look at all the suggestions then do what works for you.

 

[shuckit]

I have a confession. I've never washed my bag.

 

[mtnagel]

Like not even hosed it off? It's getting boiled in the next batch, but why not rinse it off?

I usually throw mine in a load with the towels I used during brewing with Tide Free.

 

[shuckit]

I just give it a little cold water hose off. Never been in the wash.

 

[MMJfan]

I just give it a little cold water hose off. Never been in the wash.

You're not alone. I too have never put my bag in the wash. I rinse the heck out of it to get all the grains off, but that's it...

 

[241]

Do any of you recirculate with a pump without a RIMS setup?