Just to start a ***** fest!

[kh54s10]

Not completely a drunken mumbling, but a day off and a couple IPAs with lunch.....

I for one DO NOT prefer BIAB. If you mash 60 minutes and boil 60 minutes there is virtually no time savings. Clean up of my water cooler mash tun is MUCH easier than cleaning out the BIAB bag.

The only real difference is one vessel.

My HLT does not need to be cleaned, my mash tun just takes a quick rinse and the BK is the same as with BIAB.

No hot wet sticky heavy messy bag or pulley system to contend with.

 

[tmendick]

Someone's Jealous...

For me it's more that I only needed to buy one pot.

 

[Homercidal]

Relax, Sandy, there's a brewing method for everyone!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

The only real difference is one vessel.

I already had a single tier 3 vessel system when BIAB became popular. I see no reason to downsize. I don't see any way it will improve the final product or my brew day experience. I'm not saying it'll make it worse, of course, but I don't see an upside in changing.

But I can understand new AG brewers seeing the allure in cost savings using a single vessel.

 

[normonster]

I have a nice 10 gallon, three vessel system, but lately I have really enjoyed 1 gallon BIAB. I'm brewing 1.25 gallon batches in a 3 gallon pot from a yardsale and fermenting in a 5L wine bottle, then filling two 2L growlers and priming. I won't be selling my behemoth anytime soon but I sure do like to brew these little batches in my boxer shorts in the kitchen, especially when I have kid duty and my wife is a goner for the weekend, time during which I'd typically spend not tending the beastly 3V outside. Plus I just drank half of one of those and I feelz real good, so you know, it must be good.

***** festival invitation accepted.

 

[kh54s10]

I have a nice 10 gallon, three vessel system, but lately I have really enjoyed 1 gallon BIAB. I'm brewing 1.25 gallon batches in a 3 gallon pot from a yardsale and fermenting in a 5L wine bottle, then filling two 2L growlers and priming. I won't be selling my behemoth anytime soon but I sure do like to brew these little batches in my boxer shorts in the kitchen, especially when I have kid duty and my wife is a goner for the weekend, time during which I'd typically spend not tending the beastly 3V outside. Plus I just drank half of one of those and I feelz real good, so you know, it must be good.

***** festival invitation accepted.

This sounds like a great method. I have only done 3-4 gallon BIAB. I am planning on getting some small fermenters and experiment more, maybe try to capture some wild yeast.

If I spent the time to build a rig to handle the grain bag maybe I would feel a little differently about the larger BIAB brews.

Someone mentioned carrying the mash tun full of grain or scooping it out. I have to do that anyway. If BIAB I have to take the bag, put it in a bucket and carry it to the compost pile, so there is no difference. My water cooler mash tun is actually easier to carry because of the 2 handles on it. And as I said it takes maybe 2 minutes to rinse it out.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Not completely a drunken mumbling, but a day off and a couple IPAs with lunch.....

I for one DO NOT prefer BIAB. If you mash 60 minutes and boil 60 minutes there is virtually no time savings. Clean up of my water cooler mash tun is MUCH easier than cleaning out the BIAB bag.

The only real difference is one vessel.

My HLT does not need to be cleaned, my mash tun just takes a quick rinse and the BK is the same as with BIAB.

No hot wet sticky heavy messy bag or pulley system to contend with.

Uh I dump my bag in the time to walk to the trash can. You scoop out your mash tun or design tippy dumps that take decades to pay off if I only use my BIAB bag once. It really isn't hard to clean out a BIAB bag when you use hot water from your chilling. There may not be time savings because you still boil for 60 minutes however throwing away grains takes 1 minute. Cleaning a mash tun takes 5. It's 500% more efficient to BIAB.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]It's 500% more efficient to BIAB.

Seems legit...

Cheers!

 

[Murphys_Law]

I've cleaned my bag twice while posting this message. It's that easy.

 

[passedpawn]

I've cleaned my bag twice while posting this message. It's that easy.

I'd say more than once a day and you need to find a girlfriend.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I'd say more than once a day and you need to find a girlfriend.

I'd counter that and say you found a keeper.

 

[normonster]

This sounds like a great method. I have only done 3-4 gallon BIAB. I am planning on getting some small fermenters and experiment more, maybe try to capture some wild yeast.

If I spent the time to build a rig to handle the grain bag maybe I would feel a little differently about the larger BIAB brews.

Someone mentioned carrying the mash tun full of grain or scooping it out. I have to do that anyway. If BIAB I have to take the bag, put it in a bucket and carry it to the compost pile, so there is no difference. My water cooler mash tun is actually easier to carry because of the 2 handles on it. And as I said it takes maybe 2 minutes to rinse it out.

After the good fun I've had with my 1 gallon stove batches, I intend to build that pulley system you describe for one of my 15 gallon HD morebeer kettles (or maybe no pulley...maybe just a bag and my false bottom), for 5 gallon BIAB batches.

I think that is the answer to it all actually. If you have a three vessel, 10 gallon brewhouse your BIAB rig is easy to spin off, so why not have both?

I'm looking forward to my first "big" BIAB myself...I'll still have to clean one pump and the therminator/lines, but not waiting out a god damn sparge and trying to balance two pumps on a 3V single tier sounds like a good time to drink a bunch of beer. Not to mention I won't have to boil 14 gallons of wort in a 15 gallon kettle for once.

Also, if I'd known I could have started brewing for a total cost of like $500 the wait between wanting to brew and actually brewing would have been much shorter....and $500 can make a pretty complete 1 gallon BIAB rig in my estimation - from pH meter to scale to kettle, bag, grain mill, mini fridge with inkbird, glass fermenter, syphon, etc.

Next time I do it I should take note of the parts I actually use to make a 1 gallon batch and post it up for people just getting started. At that size it's really easy to use distilled water which makes sharing recipes and their water additions simple, which would be helpful to someone starting out.

Because, beer.

 

[Diamonddave74]

Grainfather.....bamb!

 

[brewbama]

Aren't you missing a step? 60 min mash + 60 min boil = no difference. The time difference comes from the sparge. BIAB is far less time required than fly sparging. Probably not as much time saving when compared to batch sparge

 

[casualbrewer]

Biab no sparge here.... don't think it can be faster to do AG. Full volume, wilser bag and pulley make things easy. Only thing that may be "hard" is squeezing the hot bag. However I am a big strong guy and wear gloves. Grain bag doesn't stand a chance lol.

 

[Inkleg]

Full volume BIABer here.
If I wanted to save time I'd just buy beer at the store.

 

[CU_tony]

I started doing BIAB with a $45 kit and although I would have to tabulate what Ive spent total Its WAY less than $500 including ingredients for all 6 batches Ive brewed for a total of 9 gallons of beer (I quickly upped to ~2gal batches to better match my 4 gal stock pot I already had)

The best part about BIAB is that my initial investment was a kit, and I didnt HAVE to (though I soon will) buy a 7gal pot (or two). Its super easy and I quickly started doing a cold sparge to up my boil volume and cool the grain down for a healthy squeeze!

 

[kh54s10]

Uh I dump my bag in the time to walk to the trash can. You scoop out your mash tun or design tippy dumps that take decades to pay off if I only use my BIAB bag once. It really isn't hard to clean out a BIAB bag when you use hot water from your chilling. There may not be time savings because you still boil for 60 minutes however throwing away grains takes 1 minute. Cleaning a mash tun takes 5. It's 500% more efficient to BIAB.

But more costly to do BIAB that way. It costs a penny or less for water to rinse out my mash tun. It costs at least a couple dollars if you throw out the bag. And very few would do this.

 

[Cyclman]

I have a 3-vessel, and use a BIAB also, I enjoy cleaning so much.

 

[ChelisHubby]

Correct me if I am wrong but a 3 vessel set up should be better at getting more sugar out of the grain than a brew bag set up.

 

[Zuljin]

But the tanins! You get all those tanins from the bag squeezing the grains!

 

[normonster]

I started doing BIAB with a $45 kit and although I would have to tabulate what Ive spent total Its WAY less than $500 including ingredients for all 6 batches Ive brewed for a total of 9 gallons of beer (I quickly upped to ~2gal batches to better match my 4 gal stock pot I already had)

The best part about BIAB is that my initial investment was a kit, and I didnt HAVE to (though I soon will) buy a 7gal pot (or two). Its super easy and I quickly started doing a cold sparge to up my boil volume and cool the grain down for a healthy squeeze!

Not sure if you're responding to my post about getting it all done for $500, but if you are I think maybe you're missing some of the components I was thinking.

I had in mind a nice pot, a mini fridge with controller (couple hundred right there), a pH meter and chemicals (another $100), hydrometer, refractometer, chiller, thermometer (another couple hundred), etc. I was thinking a complete, dialed in, small scale BIAB system.