BIAB Dunkelweizen

[gunner65]

I use voile for the mash and also for the hops during the boil there is ZERO sediment in the bottom after I drain. The yeast take care of any trub.

PS you dont have to sqeeze the bag there are great debates about wether or not to sqeeze I am in the sqeeze camp. The Ausies prefer squeezing and they are the founding fathers of BIAB so I do as they do.

 

[kable]

I use voile for the mash and also for the hops during the boil there is ZERO sediment in the bottom after I drain. The yeast take care of any trub.

I am also using voile (single layer) but I am getting pretty 'cloudy wort' (which I am not sure why that matters) and considerably more trub into my fermenter.

The wort seems to clear up and the trub at the bottom looks like it is compacting down (but way more than usual). I would say my yield will be a bit smaller than usual and I may account for that in the future (quart?).

I do not siphon, I pretty much dump my kettle through a strainer into my fermenter.

Is this similar to your experience or is yours much clearer?

 

[RM-MN]

I guess I sifted out the flour to keep it from collecting in the bottom of the keggle. I didn't even think about what I might be getting rid of.

As far as a protein rest and mash out, I was just going by what the recipe called for. I'm not sure if it was because of the wheat malt. This is my first hef ever, so I was just following the recipe.

I also thought if I just hung the grain bag over the keggle during the boil, I wouldn't have to squeeze anything. It seemed pretty dry at the end of the 60 minute boil.

So for the next brew I am going to have to do some other calculations for my water volume, so I can hit my 5+ gallons into the fermenter, and not worry about the sediment in the bottom of the keggle. I also must have had a higher boil off rate than initally calculated, so I will increase that number too.

BTW, I sewed my bag from a cotton/polyester blend voile. It turned out great, and is strong as heck.

I'm really just trying to make your brew day easier, not picking a fight about your methods. With the wheat malt, your protein rest might be a good idea as it might reduce the haze in your beer. On the other hand, it might not or you might not care about a little haze in your beer if it cuts an hour out of your brew day.

I squeeze the bag as much as I can to get all the wort possible out but that bag of grains just came out of 150 degree water and it's HOT! to squeeze. I really suspect that I'm getting as much proteins out of it as I am sugary wort.

 

[RM-MN]

Do you know how to do the iodine test for starch to sugar conversion? You might want to pull a small sample after about 15 minutes to see if you have starch left. I have heard that if you have your grain milled fine you could have completed conversion in as little as 15 minutes. If true, eliminating the protein rest and mash out (when you remove the grain from the kettle, that is a mash out) and only having to mash for a short time sure would shorten a brew day.

I've tasted the mash when I first stirred the grain into the water and it tastes like cereal that isn't cooked and the liquid is hazy from the starch. After a short time, the liquid clears up and it tastes sweet but I haven't tested for starch that might be remaining. I'd test it myself but I probably won't get a chance to brew another all grain for 3 to 4 weeks.

 

[EllisTX]

I was doing more of a modified BIAB.

I'm certainly no expert so take my advice lightly. Maybe doing the classic full water volume BIAB would help your efficiency. I've listened to a few podcasts and read up on it a bit and the better efficiencies come from the high water to grain ratio. Take a little time and listen to this latest Beersmith podcast http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2011/02/24/brew-in-a-bag-biab-down-under-beersmith-podcast-10/

 

[duffman2]

I gotta try this out. Will start with a double lined paint strainer bag this weekend and go from there. It just looks.......way too easy!

Cheers

 

[RM-MN]

I gotta try this out. Will start with a double lined paint strainer bag this weekend and go from there. It just looks.......way too easy!

Cheers

It is WAY too easy. I feel sorry for the guys with their brew sculptures and stuck sparges and dealing with 6 to 8 hour days when I am in the final cleanup in less than 3.

If you can get a fine grind (not flour fine, more like corn meal) or crush and can bring a set volume of water to a specific temperature and then keep it there, you can do it. If you miss the temperature by a couple degrees, you can adjust or just roll with it. It still makes beer as long as you don't miss by a lot.

 

[duffman2]

Yeah, I am definitely in the 6-8 hour camp. And while I love brew day, there can be a lot of distractions in 8 hours that can make it difficult to stay with your process. The only thing I care about is making good beer, and if you guys think that your beer comes out basically the same in almost half the amount of time, then count me in. I'm not afraid to try something new

Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

Yeah, I am definitely in the 6-8 hour camp. And while I love brew day, there can be a lot of distractions in 8 hours that can make it difficult to stay with your process. The only thing I care about is making good beer, and if you guys think that your beer comes out basically the same in almost half the amount of time, then count me in. I'm not afraid to try something new

Cheers!

Come on up and sample one of mine to see if it's as good. It only about 2000 miles and 120 degree air temperature difference.

 

[gunner65]

Yeah, I am definitely in the 6-8 hour camp. And while I love brew day, there can be a lot of distractions in 8 hours that can make it difficult to stay with your process. The only thing I care about is making good beer, and if you guys think that your beer comes out basically the same in almost half the amount of time, then count me in. I'm not afraid to try something new

Cheers!

It is all about your process. You can make crappy beer on the finest system out available. You can make an award winning extract. I have only been BIAB long enough to tast one of my BIAB beers and it was everything I had hoped for. I am pleased and I have tried HERMS and batch sparging. I am BIAB until otherwise convinced.

 

[JeepDiver]

I gotta try this out. Will start with a double lined paint strainer bag this weekend and go from there. It just looks.......way too easy!

Cheers

You’re probably going to find the paint strainer bag to be too small for a decent size beer. It will work, but you will get better efficiency with

 

[gunner65]

You’re probably going to find the paint strainer bag to be too small for a decent size beer. It will work, but you will get better efficiency with

You can use two strainer bags and most places sell them in two packs anyway. Put half your grain in each.

 

[duffman2]

For right now, the plan is to make my first 2.5 gallon batch. I'm looking at a light cream beer so hopefully this will fit fine in my 7 g kettle with the full volume of water. And hopefully the 2 bags are big enough for this small batch in my kettle

 

[gunner65]

For right now, the plan is to make my first 2.5 gallon batch. I'm looking at a light cream beer so hopefully this will fit fine in my 7 g kettle with the full volume of water. And hopefully the 2 bags are big enough for this small batch in my kettle

1 strainer bag will hold 7-9 lbs.

 

[starrfish]

I've pushed a 5gallon strainer bag to 10lbs in a uninsulated bucket with a false bottom I've been using as a mash tun and fly sparging over that. works well if mash gets stuck just lift the bag and restart flow. I got the larger 18x24 size for my new mash tun and cpvc manifold.

 

[ultravista]

With a larger grist bill, the single bag would be very full and not free flowing. Two bags however would offer more space during the mashing process.

Is there a disadvantage with using two paint strainer bags vs. one?

 

[EllisTX]

With a larger grist bill, the single bag would be very full and not free flowing. Two bags however would offer more space during the mashing process.

Is there a disadvantage with using two paint strainer bags vs. one?

I wouldn't think using two bags over one would be bad. As long as the grain can flow around freely you should be fine.

 

[JeepDiver]

I wouldn't think using two bags over one would be bad. As long as the grain can flow around freely you should be fine.

This is the problem I see with 2 bags. Seems with two bags the bag would have to be tied, making the grain a lot more compact. With a homemade bag that is as big as your kettle, you have plenty of room for lots of water/grain contact.

The 2 bags will work, you just probably won't get as high of effeciancy.

 

[eastoak]

i started with two extract beers, read about BIAB, saw the light and have 5 all grain batches in the bottle. for me getting a barley crusher crushed any efficiency problems i may have had. (my LHBS is really a wholesaler who started selling retail because they got tired of homebrewers beating on the door wanting to buy sacks of grain. they don't advertise so as not to compete with their real customers; other HBS. sacks are 30% cheaper than buying by the pound for me.) as far as my no0b eyes can tell the only difference between BIAB and traditional MLT setups is just that, tradition.

 

[starrfish]

So I tried the single vessel brew in a bag method this weekend, I got an 81% efficiency. ended up with 2 gallons over my target volume but there was tons of gunk I left in kettle so that higher volume was probably correct.

Squeezed the bag pretty hard which is part of where extra volume came from.
I had conversion in 30 min (by the iodine test) but mashed an extra 15 at 152 to be sure. Wrapped kettle in sleeping bag to insulate, seems to have held the heat ok.


I had about 8lbs of grain for a mild. Next weekend I'm doing a hefe the same way. 81% was pretty darn good. I like this method for smaller beers

 

[ultravista]

So what do you think drove such high efficiency? 81 is great.

Did you do anything special?

 

[jfr1111]

I don't squeeze the bag, maybe I should start... The only downside to BIAB is the higher amount of trub in the fermentor. Higher gravity brews are also harder to pull off due to bag size, but I'm talking about barleywine gravity here. Sub 1.065 brews are very feasible.

 

[starrfish]

Same grind I usually do (which is pretty fine) It was a mild so my mash temp was pretty high... 156-154 over 45min (conversion seemed to be done in 30). I did squeeze the bag pretty good. doing another hefe exactly the same way with slightly lower mash temps... just slightly. hopefully I'll hit similar again. Hope it wasn't a fluke...

I was glad I got more than I needed, there was a fair amount of grain particulate in the last 2 gallons I left in the pot.

Should be interesting how much trub in fermenter.

 

[jeffmeh]

Yes, you do indeed end up with much more kettle trub with BIAB. I also no-chill, and as long as it does not clog my valve when I am draining into the Winpak I do not really care about it. It all settles out during fermentation and cold crash, and a paint strainer bag over the input end of the autosiphon keeps it out of the keg.

 

[starrfish]

I got my temps down to 90 using immersion chiller, racked off to a fermenter, and pitched a few hours later (left sealed bucket outside to finish chilling)

 

[gunner65]

I get very little trub in the boil kettle. I do bag my hops but I get no trub left behind from the mash at all. Again I use Nylon voile and I did notice that my paint strainer that I use for the hops is not as fine a mesh as the voile.

 

[jeffmeh]

I get very little trub in the boil kettle. I do bag my hops but I get no trub left behind from the mash at all. Again I use Nylon voile and I did notice that my paint strainer that I use for the hops is not as fine a mesh as the voile.

I use the voile also, but do get some kettle trub, sometimes quite a bit depending upon the recipe. Not a problem by any means, though.

 

[starrfish]

my 18 x 36 bag is a courser mesh than the paint strainers... mild is bubbling down. may be putting this on tap in as little as 10 days.

 

[EllisTX]

I cracked open one of these yesterday after being in the fridge for about 24 hours. It is better than I expected! Great weizen flavor. I bottled it and it's only been carbing for little over a week. The carbonation seemed almost perfect.

I'm glad this thread took off discussing the BIAB. It's perfect for brewers like me who really don't have the funds to invest in their dream setup. The results of this beer make me think that even with money to spend there would be no reason to change.

 

[cricky101]

Doing my first all-grain batch this weekend as a BIAB. Got ingredients for a three-gallon Bell's Two-Hearted clone and will be using a paint-strainer bag.

Can't wait to give it a try!

 

[kable]

Doing my first all-grain batch this weekend as a BIAB. Got ingredients for a three-gallon Bell's Two-Hearted clone and will be using a paint-strainer bag.

Can't wait to give it a try!

Just bottled my BIAB 2 hearted clone last night. Tasted great but since they don't distribute to WA can't do a side by side.

Because I had to travel and was worried about sitting on the yeast past 4 weeks I ended up racking to a secondary. It was the most clear beer I have done to date.

 

[gunner65]

I am drinking one of my SNPA clones that I did as my first BIAB (first of many) I cannot tell the difference between mine and Sierra Nevada. Maybe a little darker but that is about it. I would totally enter this into a competition.

 

[JeepDiver]

I get very little trub in the boil kettle. I do bag my hops but I get no trub left behind from the mash at all. Again I use Nylon voile and I did notice that my paint strainer that I use for the hops is not as fine a mesh as the voile.

Same here, the voile is a lot finner and doesn't leave much at all. The one down side, is it's a lot slower to drain, so you have to ease it out of the pot and hold it a while, unless you have a pully of some kind.

 

[JeepDiver]

I cracked open one of these yesterday after being in the fridge for about 24 hours. It is better than I expected! Great weizen flavor. I bottled it and it's only been carbing for little over a week. The carbonation seemed almost perfect.

I'm glad this thread took off discussing the BIAB. It's perfect for brewers like me who really don't have the funds to invest in their dream setup. The results of this beer make me think that even with money to spend there would be no reason to change.

I'm thinking of getting another kettle, but will still use the Brew in a bag method for the mash. I mainly want the other kettle for 10 gallon batches, so I don't have to fool with lifiting the bag. Do my mash, then gravity feed (or maybe a pump ) the wort to the second kettle for the boil.

 

[DaveT]

Question for you guys, would it be considered sparging to rinse the grains after removing them from the boil pot?

I did my first brew in a bag in a 7.75 gallon sanke keggle, Midwest supplies Irish Red started with 6 gallons of water, brought up to strike. added bag and grains. adjusted temp few degrees too low. stirred in, covered with moving blanket stirred @ 15, 30, 45 for about 2 minutes. burner on for 2 mins at 30. brought to mash out temp @ 60. burner set to high removed bag let drain for 5 mins, moved to bottling bucket while hanging rinsed down grains with 1/2 gallon 120*F tap water let drain, squeeze and spin, and added to kettle. after 1 hour boil I was about 1/2 gallon shy of 5. added tap water and tested gravity .004 high, pitched a smack pack and everything seemed to go well. End result, BEST BEER I HAVE MADE!

next time around I will start with a little more total water to avoid adding top off water. Anyone have opinions on my sparge/rinse technique?

 

[gunner65]

You can sparge or not sparge that is totally up to you. There are those that do and those that do not. I do not but have a 15 gallon vessel so water volume is not an issue for me. It will not hurt your finished product if that is what you want to know. There is a camp that says sparging makes it better YMMV.