Grain bag squeezing

[DKershner]

I don't squeeze my sack because I don't feel the process is all that repeatable. If I want to make the beer again, it would be difficult to make sure I grabbed my sack with the proper grip and strength.

All puns aside, this might be why the big breweries don't either.

 

[Revvy]

All puns aside, this might be why the big breweries don't either.

Big breweries don't do steeping grains in sacks, nor do they do brew in a bag, so that's really not a good argument againts it, is it?

Could you imagine how big a sack they'd need for 5bbl of beer? They'd prolly need something like this to dunk it if they did.

 

[remilard]

From that page it sounds like they dry the grains just so they can ship them to farms. Seems like a big waste of time and money to send grain to farms.

What do you propose they do with the spent grains?

 

[Revvy]

I can't believe I'm actually gonna agree with Remmy on something. Hell must be frigid today.

This is really interesting from Sierra Nevada;

Sierra Nevada has received the WRAP Award (Waste Reduction Awards Program) from the State of California yearly since 2001, and in 2002 was named one of the top ten recipients of the WRAP of the Year Award for the company's extraordinary waste reduction awareness programs.

Most of our spent brewing materials find a beneficial secondary use in our local agricultural community. Many local dairy cows also enjoy our brews (although without the alcohol). In conjunction with the Agricultural Department at California State University, Chico, Sierra Nevada provides feed for dairy and beef cows through the spent grain, hops, and yeast it has collected. Spent trub produced from the wort boiling process is almost pure protein, and is added to the spent grain.

The surplus spent yeast from fermentation is used as a nutritional supplement for cows, and the compost from the cow manure is used as fertilizer for Sierra Nevada’s onsite 9-acre experimental hop field.

Really, how many pounds of grain does a commercial brewery go through in a year? What esle should they do with it? I have enough trouble getting rid of the 15 pounds I may use on a given brew day. I live in a loft, so I don't even have a yard to compost in.

 

[Revvy]

You do a web search on this and end up about 50/50 either way. http://search.netzero.net/search?ac...urce=hybrid_zerobar&query=Grain bag squeezing

This would make an interesting side-by side comparison test.

OTOH: I don't squeeze my mash out, and a rinse of it (sparging) is sufficient to get the flavor from the grains--so, what's wrong w/ a rinse of the grains and no risk of tannin extraction?

You have to realize, that just like the whole long primary discussion, some of the thoughts in favor of bag squeezing are new, and are coming about because of thfact that BIAB brewers DO squeeze. BIAB is old to Aussie brewers, but is relatively new to us Americans. I mean we really first heard about it a little over a year ago, when John Palmer wrote about it in BYO, along with No chill brewing. You should see some of the flame war threads on here about No chill. It got nasty.

And then many Aussie brewers jumped in laughing at us about some of the arguments folks were making about it, and reminded us that they've been doing no chill for decades and no one died from Botchulism or any of the other stuff folks on here were bringing up.

So of course you're going to find mixed info on the webs. Folks have been mindlessly repeating the "Don't squeeze you'll extract tannins" line verbatum for years. Hell, I can be accused of doing it too. But it wasn't until I started reading and seeing the info on BIAB, where people were indeed squeezing their bags, that I started questioning that "conventional wisdom," and looking at the info on tannin extractions. And eveidently other folks were doing the same thing.

You can't go by the statistics of the web search to give you a valid answer, try this do a google on Autolysis annd long primaries. You will see there are more hits on autolysis, because for the same reason; folks online have been repeating the same info about that verbatum as well. But it's only been in the last couple years, especially this last year that folks like palmer, and Jamil, and Basic Brewing, and BYO have seriously started doing what we've been doing, and getting beaten for, for the last 4 years, re-examining their beliefs on the role of yeast post fermentation, and the de-emphasis on autolysis.

Ideas change, info changes, science changes, and that's why I get down on the "old info" being repeated nearly verbatum over and over and over. Just look at all the treads in the similar threads box below and see how many times the answered is phrased exactly like ths "Don't squeeze you'll extract tannins" as the entire answer to the post.

With no change in phraseology, and no more information provided, just what they were told, by someone who was told it, by someone who had it repeated verbatum to them. With no questioning of it, no bothering to look at actual info on tannin production in beer, (Like the articles in BYO, and Aussie Braft brewer.) We just keep repeating over and over what we've been told, like a broken record.

But you can't do that, you gotta look beyond the rote, and especially look at the NEW ideas, NEW information, and NEW answers.

Heck, how many of you have actually read the HARD COPY version of "How to Brew" or only have read the first edition, the online one? How many of you even know there's a hard copy edition, actually by now more than one, iirc?

Do you know that Palmers, CHANGED some of them things he's written since the online version?

Palmer has since made some changes in the book since the online versions, including his explanation of Ibus, and his ideas about using a secondary.

Just like any book, things change with the time. The problem has been, since the online edition is so readily available and we recommend it so often here, people think the info is "gospel" and don't know that it's been changed in later editions in light of new knowledge and science.

It's a great start, but forums like this and on podcasts are where you hear the most state of the art info on brewing. If someone like papazian or palmer so much as farts new info, more than likely one of us has heard the podcast and will post before the gas even clears in the studio. Plus many of our brewers on here are in the forefront of beer knowlege, and have appeared on podcasts or in Byo or Zymurgy magazine.

Here's the stuff on IBU's that pretty much contradict what he originally wrote.

Basic Brewing Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:30 PM
John Palmer, author of How to Brew, shares information from a conference that challenged his concept of what defines an International Bitterness Unit (IBU). Click to listen, MP-3

And here's a thread with his changing of his views on secondaries, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/ though as you can see, STILL some old dogs can't be taught new tricks.

But if you don't KNOW that Palmer's changed his views, and ideas since the online, and all you quote verbatum is the online edition, then who's right, and who's wrong? WHat info is truly valid or not?

That's all I wanted you to do, to think about it before you simply epeat the just repeat the "don't squeeze you'll extract tannins" line that you you've heard......It may no longer be the ONLY answer....Nor may be the "correct" one.

 

[DKershner]

Big breweries don't do steeping grains in sacks, nor do they do brew in a bag, so that's really not a good argument againts it, is it?

Could you imagine how big a sack they'd need for 5bbl of beer? They'd prolly need something like this to dunk it if they did.

Maybe I should've been more specific, but just because there is no gigantic 20bbl sized grain bag, doesn't mean you can't squeeze the grain after draining. Alaska apparently does, but I haven't heard of any others, although it is probably not all that publicized.

 

[RCCOLA]

you have to realize, that just like the whole long primary discussion, some of the thoughts in favor of bag squeezing are new,

tldr.

 

[wyzazz]

I just squeeze my bag because it feels good...

 

[jjones17]

I think that with all of our well thought out conversation on the topic, I think some folks are missing the main point Revvy, and others, are really trying to make: Who cares if there is/is not much benefit in squeezing the grain bag - the point is, why spread unfounded rumours as fact (such as Tannin extraction from squeezing - OoOOoooOOooOo) which give people unreasonable fears, which in turn give way to unnessecary brewing habits/practices that take away from the relaxing hobby that is brewing?

I mean really? The sky is falling chicken little - squeeze or don't squeeze who cares. Fact is, it won't hurt you much either way. And you will not go blind

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

I mean really? The sky is falling chicken little

Is that the sort of thing you really read into other people's posts?

The guy asked a question, and everyone answered to the best of their knowledge. That's why it's called a forum. The OP got his answers, but to suggest that people are getting all bent out of shape about it is just silly, and somewhat disrespectful.

 

[Revvy]

I think that with all of our well thought out conversation on the topic, I think some folks are missing the main point Revvy, and others, are really trying to make: Who cares if there is/is not much benefit in squeezing the grain bag - the point is, why spread unfounded rumours as fact (such as Tannin extraction from squeezing - OoOOoooOOooOo) which give people unreasonable fears, which in turn give way to unnessecary brewing habits/practices that take away from the relaxing hobby that is brewing?

I mean really? The sky is falling chicken little - squeeze or don't squeeze who cares. Fact is, it won't hurt you much either way. And you will not go blind

+1,000,000,000

 

[Pezman1]

I think that with all of our well thought out conversation on the topic, I think some folks are missing the main point Revvy, and others, are really trying to make: Who cares if there is/is not much benefit in squeezing the grain bag - the point is, why spread unfounded rumours as fact (such as Tannin extraction from squeezing - OoOOoooOOooOo) which give people unreasonable fears, which in turn give way to unnessecary brewing habits/practices that take away from the relaxing hobby that is brewing?

I mean really? The sky is falling chicken little - squeeze or don't squeeze who cares. Fact is, it won't hurt you much either way. And you will not go blind

I don't read that level of fear, doom, unreasonableness, or mindlessness in any of the posts, for or against. This is just a very minor issue at best. Most of us try to keep up with the latest in brewing science.

Just trying to make the best beer possible......

Pez.

PS, I'm still gonna rinse, not squeeze.

 

[RCCOLA]

This is just a very minor issue at best.

Just trying to make the best beer possible......PS, I'm still gonna rinse, not squeeze.
.

THIS.
It's not like squeezing saves a ton of time over rinsing, or makes better beer.
And no one is totally right or wrong about how they do it. Just a matter of preferance in the end.

Personally : I like the odds of rinsing to give my beer the best chance of being as good as it can be.

 

[erkwist]

just my .02, if people are doing BIAB and squeezing a gallon or so out and have been doing it for years, it would have been dead by now if it did extract tannins or lead to off flavors. I don't really see how you could gain anything from squeezing or rinsing steeped grains but I can see where you would make a difference with partial mash to BIAB sized stuff.

If large groups are doing it, and have been for a good while, in general its safe to do, otherwise they would have stopped or it wouldn't still be going on.

To each his/her own.

 

[triethylborane]

On my next batch I will make 20 satellite samples plus a few standards and run it through a gas chromatography unit for polyphenols and other various compounds. Any suggestion as to what I should make that would be *allegedly* susceptible to whatever *allegedly* happens when you squeeze?

As an aside, I squeeze. Squeezing a cooling mass of grain versus heating a mass of grain with the universal solvent to the point where the solvent enters gas phase . . .

 

[ArkhamAsylum]

I was introducing a buddy to the art of homebrewing, and he noted that the rinse water ran clear after only a few cups. Using his experience with rice cooking, he filled a bowl with warm water and gently massaged the bag. After about 5 bowls full of glorious dark rich-smelling wort, we called it quits because the boil volume was getting too high.

Moral of the story: I'm done with the rinse. It's all warm-water massages for this guy from now on.

 

[Clayton]

after reading the thread cover to cover my bag could use a gentle warm water massage.
For some people there is no logic only feelings, there is no point useing intellect on them. Revvy you are the man, the man of logical and critical thinking.
Brew on Brother.