BIAG in mash tun? Works great!

[Silverbullet]

So I was having SWMBO sew me up some hop bags and one for the boil kettle if I ever wanted a nice easy BIAB setup....when I got to thinking (sometimes good, sometimes bad)....
It's a PITA cleaning out he mash tun at the end of the brew day and I learned my lesson the hard way not to dump the spent grains in the flowerbeds right outside the house (smell of death!). BIAB is very easy to clean because you simply pull the grains and dump wherever you like, with the potential drawback of lower efficiency than batch or fly sparging in a mash tun. Why not take the best of both?!
So I had her sew me up a bag that fits like a glove inside my mash tun and still allows me to close the lid with a nice seal. I still brew and sparge the same as always, with the added benefit of being able to crush my grains just ever so slightly finer (shot efficiency through the roof) and cleanup is now a breeze! I have done this for the past 5-6 batches to make sure it was consistent and I'm now dialed in and completely sold. Watch your temps, ph, and other basic steps you should be watching out for anyway, and I see nothing but great things coming from this.
However, this seems too obvious and surely I'm not the first one to think of this. Doing a quick search doesn't turn up anyone else doing this...that has me slightly concerned. Is there a reason everyone (AG brewers at least) isn't doing this??

 

[watersr]

I do this every time.

 

[Voodoo_Child]

I was thinking of doing this with my swamp cooler, it's a 60 qt rolling cooler. Much more room than my 9 gallon kettle. Do you just use the stock spigot on the cooler?

Mash in the cooler, heat mashout/dunk sparge on burner, combine and boil. I don't see why not.

 

[badlee]

Yup, been doing this for about 18 months and 10 brews. Works like a bloody treat!

 

[Catawampus]

This is how I brew as well. BIAB in a cylindrical cooler fitted with stainless steel valve. For me, its much easier to control the temperature in a cooler than messing with the burner. I also do no-sparge, so I just lift the bag out, drain, and boil.

 

[Yooper]

Doing a quick search doesn't turn up anyone else doing this...that has me slightly concerned. Is there a reason everyone (AG brewers at least) isn't doing this??

The only reason I don't do something like this is because I simply can't lift a big heavy bag full of grain out of my MLT. I typically use 23-27 pounds of grain per batch (I do 10 gallon batches) and I can't lift 25 pounds of grain plus the 20 pounds of water it would have absorbed that high to get it out of my MLT from the stand it is on.

I've seen some people use pulleys/winch type set ups in their garage from the rafters, and if I could do something like that then I'd definitely use a bag for my grains!

I'm a weakling, though- I weigh maybe 135 pounds and just can't lift 40- 50 pounds routinely up that high.