Do you squeeze the bag -BIAB

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Parkinson1963

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After hanging the bag to drain in BIAB do you squeeze the bag?

I do as every drop is more wort, but am I wrong?
 
Yes you squeeze. In fact read this, and watch the basic brewing video I linked in this post. The thread is a discussion of the myth that squeezing the grain bag in extract w/ grains extracts tannins, but I reference the fact that in biab we do squeeze. In fact James at Basic Brewing is squeezing in the video.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/squeezing-grain-bag-bad-175179/#post2029310

I also cite the pioneers of BIAB, the Australians saying to go ahead and squeeze the bag later in the discussion.
 
Here's hoping that we get some more discussion about this.

Today. After mash, before sparge, there was 2.5 gallons of water left out of 4.5 in the grain bag, and this was with about a 15 minute drip dry. Sparge over, and I spun the bag while holding the top tightly. About 2 quarts magically reappeared. A little scared of the tannin extraction boogeyman, I admit. But would I have been better to do this post-mash rather than post-sparge?

Sorry, Revvy, but I have lots of trouble viewing videos and such, with dialup, or I promise I would watch what you posted. But I did read the linked thread, and it gave some useful insight.
 
Since I have done a whopping 2 BIABs (one still in primary, other in secondary), I will share my vast knowledge on the BIAB technique.

I have mashed the grains in all but 2 gallons of the water for 60-75 mins. I pull, hold till my arms get tired, kinda move the grains from side to side in the bag, and then dunk sparge (~15 mins) at about 170 in the two extra gallons. Then I pull, put a strainer in the bottom of my bucket, and place the bag on that for 5-10 mins, then dump that extra stuff in the kettle. Efficiencies were 71.7, and 73 for the two batches. Good enough for now, I might try a bit longer mash. I cant say how they taste in the bottle yet, but, I tasted the wort, and it was delicious! :mug:

My vast knowledge didnt take that long.
 
I also cite the pioneers of BIAB, the Australians saying to go ahead and squeeze the bag later in the discussion.

Fair dinkum. Simple here cobbers. In simple terms,tannins are likely to be extracted when you apply too much heat in the mash. BIAB is no different.

When you BIAB, are you applying too much heat when you squeeze the bag? If you are, your body temperature is too high (you are on fire) or there is an unusual amount of heat still in your bag (ie you mashed too high). If you stick with the right temperatures, I can't see anyway that squeezing the bag can somehow extract tannins from the grain.

I'll be buggered if someone in the good ol' USA can convince me I'm wrong about that!
 
I'll be buggered if someone in the good ol' USA can convince me I'm wrong about that!

Seem to have a bit of a hangup on Americans. I haven't seen anyone in the "good ol' USA' trying to single you out and convince you that it was bad. On the contrary.

I had brewed this way a number of years ago, but was unaware that is had a name and was actually being employed. And I didn't squeeze because all of the literature at the time advised against it. I'm not a scientist so I had no means of measuring the amount of tannins extracted. But it seems as if someone has.
 
if squeezing the bag has no I'll effects, wold squeezing the grain in a non BiaB situation be feasible? I have a round cooler and a rectangular cooler. I'd imagine putting a sheet pan over the grain, or a round pie tin and squeezing it down would have the same effect as squeezing the bag. I'm sure someone has tried this and there's a reason we don't do it. Just wondering is all
 
suprchunk;2051308]Seem to have a bit of a hangup on Americans. I haven't seen anyone in the "good ol' USA' trying to single you out and convince you that it was bad. On the contrary.

A while ago when the "no chill" (or hot wort straight to a sealed air tight container" was in session on this site I remember the ballywhoo coming about botulism and other maniac suggestions. The American public know all about pre-emptive strikes, so I reckon what's good for the goose is good for the gander.


I had brewed this way a number of years ago, but was unaware that is had a name and was actually being employed. And I didn't squeeze because all of the literature at the time advised against it. I'm not a scientist so I had no means of measuring the amount of tannins extracted. But it seems as if someone has.

Yes, it has been around for a long time in a few different countries, but has been popularised and championed by one Aussie brewer in particular who has taken the concept back to the masses. When squeezing your grain bag you are putting minimum pressure on the bag. Most BIAB bags are capable of being suspended in the air and spun around and therefore squeezed to allow the wort trapped betwen grains to be pushed out. It would need a fantastic (and unlikely) amount of pressure to be further placed on the bag of grains to squeeze tannins out of the spent grain. As we shed brewers are warned, mash/sparge out at no hotter than 80 degrees celcius (do your own conversion) as hotter temps will extract the tannins from the grain. It is the temperature that causes tannins to be released, not the squeezing.

In simple truth, you can't get every bit of wort out of the bag no matter what, and the small amount you have left after you have taken the vast majority of the sugars in the wort will have minimal impact on the final outcome.

Simple solution, get your runnings, hang you bag and squeeze it for the small amount of wort that gravity alone is having trouble extracting.
 
I had to re-read this a couple of times because I couldn't believe it. Did the original poster from Australia somehow make the jump from brewing to bashing Americans? Wow.

I'm sure he/she will defend the comment somehow, but I really don't get how "pre-emptive" strikes and the political connotations of that statement has anything to do with brewing or the discussion.

:confused:

A while ago when the "no chill" (or hot wort straight to a sealed air tight container" was in session on this site I remember the ballywhoo coming about botulism and other maniac suggestions. The American public know all about pre-emptive strikes, so I reckon what's good for the goose is good for the gander.




Yes, it has been around for a long time in a few different countries, but has been popularised and championed by one Aussie brewer in particular who has taken the concept back to the masses. When squeezing your grain bag you are putting minimum pressure on the bag. Most BIAB bags are capable of being suspended in the air and spun around and therefore squeezed to allow the wort trapped betwen grains to be pushed out. It would need a fantastic (and unlikely) amount of pressure to be further placed on the bag of grains to squeeze tannins out of the spent grain. As we shed brewers are warned, mash/sparge out at no hotter than 80 degrees celcius (do your own conversion) as hotter temps will extract the tannins from the grain. It is the temperature that causes tannins to be released, not the squeezing.

In simple truth, you can't get every bit of wort out of the bag no matter what, and the small amount you have left after you have taken the vast majority of the sugars in the wort will have minimal impact on the final outcome.

Simple solution, get your runnings, hang you bag and squeeze it for the small amount of wort that gravity alone is having trouble extracting.
 
stupid american pig-dogs. i fart in your general direction.

Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious. intended or not. just enjoy it from an objective perspective.

In all honesty, i don't see anything anti american here. and if there is, i personally invite fatgodzilla over to my house for a fight and a beer. oi oi oi!
 
I enjoy all of that stuff too. I just don't want to see on the brew forum. There are plently of other forums that would love that kind of stuff. But, maybe you're right and it's no big deal. I've already wasted enough mental energy on this that could have been applied towards drinking or thinking about beer. :)

cheers!

stupid american pig-dogs. i fart in your general direction.

Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious. intended or not. just enjoy it from an objective perspective.

In all honesty, i don't see anything anti american here. and if there is, i personally invite fatgodzilla over to my house for a fight and a beer. oi oi oi!
 
i just don't thing that there was any intentional bashing. Lighthearted ribbing, maybe, but it's hard to convey exact connotation with text. Either way, turn the other cheek, we're all hbt'ers here.
 
"Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious"

Not to those on the receiving end of Racism or Sexism. Maybe the continental crap gets a pass IMO.
 
I reread my post. When I said "I enjoy that stuff too it" sounds like I enjoy the "Racial/continental discrim...". Thats not what I meant. I meant I enjoy a good debate about political stuff. See, the earlier post was right , sometimes it is hard to get the exact connnotation with text. :)

My apologies to all, as now I have really derailed the topic. Lets get back to beer talk!

Brew-on!

"Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious"

Not to those on the receiving end of Racism or Sexism. Maybe the continental crap gets a pass IMO.
 
stupid american pig-dogs. i fart in your general direction.

Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious. intended or not. just enjoy it from an objective perspective. In all honesty, i don't see anything anti american here. and if there is, i personally invite fatgodzilla over to my house for a fight and a beer. oi oi oi!

Thanks for the invite but I'm unlikely to find the money to visit the USA probably any time in my lifetime. I'll drink your beer, but avoid the fight. Anti American .. who me ... don't you know us Aussie love/hate everybody .. we don't discriminate.

skidaddytn --I resisted the urge to squeeze the bag today... however, I was definitely thinking about it!!!


Now that's a good line.


howdo ------
I reread my post. When I said "I enjoy that stuff too it" sounds like I enjoy the "Racial/continental discrim...". Thats not what I meant. I meant I enjoy a good debate about political stuff. See, the earlier post was right , sometimes it is hard to get the exact connnotation with text.

My apologies to all, as now I have really derailed the topic. Lets get back to beer talk!


Yes, I can't work out how you got to here from my comments, but its good you are willing to get back on track. I actually think that apart from a comment that shows some people really have no sense of humour, my answers were beer related and actually relevant to the original post. I have been waiting for people to attack my arguments, or raise issues such as pH of the wort that also leads to leaching of tannins from the husks, or the concern about the too fine crush. But clearly that is for another audience.

My apologies if anyone found offence in my comments.

Loves you all long time:mug:
 
Yes, I can't work out how you got to here from my comments, but its good you are willing to get back on track. I actually think that apart from a comment that shows some people really have no sense of humour, my answers were beer related and actually relevant to the original post. I have been waiting for people to attack my arguments, or raise issues such as pH of the wort that also leads to leaching of tannins from the husks, or the concern about the too fine crush. But clearly that is for another audience.

My apologies if anyone found offence in my comments.

Loves you all long time:mug:

I can see how he got there. Because that is not the only time you have done it, berated Americans that is. I don't think it is humorous to generalize a whole continent based on your very limited interaction with people from there. I would hate to have to stereotype all Australians based on your comments. Fortunately I've met many friendly people from down under to not have to use you as a sole example. That and I might be at fault for not thinking one person represents an entire continent.

And the question was specifically about squeezing the bag. If you wanted to introduce pH or any other factors that would increase tannin extraction, you could very well have done so - without again berating people with a comments such as "But clearly that is for another audience".

Might be time to climb down from that high horse and start slumming it with the audience you signed up to participate with. Unless we are too lowly for the likes of you.

Sorry to vent. But when I see back to back posts from you assuming that a whole continent does the same thing, and perpetuates it, it just rubs me wrong. You may have meant it as humorous, but I really don't see how it could be taken as anywhere near funny.
 
"Racism/continental discrimination/sexism is hilarious"

Not to those on the receiving end of Racism or Sexism. Maybe the continental crap gets a pass IMO.

racism and sexism=stupid

stupid=funny,

but i agree, you need distance from the situation. Although, you can discriminate against me all day and it doesn't bother me.
 
i believe that it's been argued to death and the overall outcome was no. go ahead and squeeze away.
 
I can see how he got there. Because that is not the only time you have done it, berated Americans that is. I don't think it is humorous to generalize a whole continent based on your very limited interaction with people from there. I would hate to have to stereotype all Australians based on your comments. Fortunately I've met many friendly people from down under to not have to use you as a sole example. That and I might be at fault for not thinking one person represents an entire continent.

And the question was specifically about squeezing the bag. If you wanted to introduce pH or any other factors that would increase tannin extraction, you could very well have done so - without again berating people with a comments such as "But clearly that is for another audience".

Might be time to climb down from that high horse and start slumming it with the audience you signed up to participate with. Unless we are too lowly for the likes of you.

Sorry to vent. But when I see back to back posts from you assuming that a whole continent does the same thing, and perpetuates it, it just rubs me wrong. You may have meant it as humorous, but I really don't see how it could be taken as anywhere near funny.

I think you're overreacting. And I think your earlier post was too. I didn't interpret any of Fatgodzilla's posts to be discriminatory, only informative and hilarious. Since when do people not joke around on hbt? That's one of my favorite things about this forum.
 
I think you're overreacting. And I think your earlier post was too. I didn't interpret any of Fatgodzilla's posts to be discriminatory, only informative and hilarious. Since when do people not joke around on hbt? That's one of my favorite things about this forum.

I didn't either. I was part of that idiotic No-chill thread,( In fact I may have been the one who started it) when the fools started talking nonsense about botchulism and other crap. I kept saying that the Aussies have been doing it forever (I heard about it years before on craftbrewer radio). And Palmer just wrote about it in BYO.....It was silly, and Fatgodzilla's post on here was purely tongue in cheek, and based on that previous thread.
 
:off:

Australian's are known to be insensitive to emotional strangers. Fact.

We'd wear our hearts on our sleeves, if only we'd had sleeves.

Buggered if I know what Suprchunk's problem is .. if anyone can find him please give him a hug - pretend he's (or she's since its best be accurate for their sake) just like a BIAB aand squeeze the last of the goodness out of him (or her).

No, just re-read his (or her) last diatribe and its too late, only bitter tannins are coming out.

Cheers and good brewing all:mug:


I didn't either. I was part of that idiotic No-chill thread,( In fact I may have been the one who started it)

I have not forgotten you Revvy :tank:
 
Australian's are known to be insensitive to emotional strangers. Fact.

I guess you're right. Never thought about clumping a whole people by the actions of one, but if you're providing the empirical evidence, and I think you are, then I can only concede that this is, indeed, absolutely true.
 
I guess you're right. Never thought about clumping a whole people by the actions of one, but if you're providing the empirical evidence, and I think you are, then I can only concede that this is, indeed, absolutely true.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

- Will Rogers


Give up being a grump, have a home brew and we'll all live to argue another day.:mug:
 
Here is the method I use to squeeze my bag. First I open up Firefox in Private Browsing mode... oh wait, we're talking beer.

Seriously though, I picked this method up from the Aussie BIAB forums. I lift my bag out of the kettle and put it in my fermenting bucket (you can use any bucket or container). At the bottom of the bucket I place a pasta colandar pot up side down. While holding the bag over the bucket, I twist the bag so as to compress the grains. I then lower the bag inside the bucket, and set it on top of the colandar while holding the twisted portion of the bag. I then use a pot lid to squeeze down on the bag. I wear heavy duty rubber gloves while doing this. I'll do this a few times before dumping the collected wort into the kettle.

I also sparge in the fermenter bucket because my second kettle is not that big. I heat up my sparge water in the smaller kettle, then dump it onto my grain bag in the bucket. I let that sit for 15 minutes. I'll do a twist on the bag to drain it a little, but by that time I usually have enough wort.
 
Here is the method I use to squeeze my bag. First I open up Firefox in Private Browsing mode... oh wait, we're talking beer.

Seriously though, I picked this method up from the Aussie BIAB forums. I lift my bag out of the kettle and put it in my fermenting bucket (you can use any bucket or container). At the bottom of the bucket I place a pasta colandar pot up side down. While holding the bag over the bucket, I twist the bag so as to compress the grains. I then lower the bag inside the bucket, and set it on top of the colandar while holding the twisted portion of the bag. I then use a pot lid to squeeze down on the bag. I wear heavy duty rubber gloves while doing this. I'll do this a few times before dumping the collected wort into the kettle.

I also sparge in the fermenter bucket because my second kettle is not that big. I heat up my sparge water in the smaller kettle, then dump it onto my grain bag in the bucket. I let that sit for 15 minutes. I'll do a twist on the bag to drain it a little, but by that time I usually have enough wort.

nice... Ive been using my fermenting bucket as a place to put the bag of grain while I t/f wort and heat my sparge water (I dont have a HLT, I just use one 10gal kettle for mash, sparge, and boil). But, I like the collander idea, great stuff.

do you have a link to the aussie BIAB forum you referenced?
 
I'll have to try that method, I usually put my bag in a bucket after letting it drip for a few minutes, I then use my hands and squeeze the bag against the bottom and side of the bucket. I guess I should get gloves lol. Squeezing a bag that's in the 150 degree range kind of hurts after more than 10 seconds, but I'm persistent.
 
I mash in with a grain bag and the steamer basket that came with my kettle. I hoist the basket out after mash-out and rest it wedged in the opening of the kettle, let the grains drip for a few minutes, then squeeze between my hand and the steamer basket. No second vessel or transfer of liquids required.
 
thanks man... hows the discussion?

The discussion is really good. The guys over there are very friendly and more than willing to offer you advice. There is no void of detailed information. In fact, the post that I gave me the idea on how to squeeze my bag was quite in depth, along with efficiency numbers and gravity readings that compared before and after the squeezing.

It isn't as active over there as it is on HBT, but there is a lot less... bickering. :)

Oh, another thing the Aussies like to do is get a pulley system to lift their bag. I haven't read up on how that system really works and the methods they use, but these guys are really hardcore about their BIAB techniques!
 

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