Please Help an old hand understand BIAB

[brewguyver]

What sort of issues?



Brew on

I brewed on new equipment last weekend, ended up cutting grain bill and mashed around 2.5 qt/lb in my tun. So mash was too thin and water too hot (comedy of errors) - I got a whopping 40% efficiency. Crush is the same as usual.

Has nothing to do with BIAB tho.

I spent the money and got my lhbs's biggest grain bag - fits a 9 gallon pot. I don't mess with non food grade stuff, even if it's just marketing dif betw paint strainer bags and other options.

 

[doug293cz]

I brewed on new equipment last weekend, ended up cutting grain bill and mashed around 2.5 qt/lb in my tun. So mash was too thin and water too hot (comedy of errors) - I got a whopping 40% efficiency. Crush is the same as usual.

Has nothing to do with BIAB tho.

I spent the money and got my lhbs's biggest grain bag - fits a 9 gallon pot. I don't mess with non food grade stuff, even if it's just marketing dif betw paint strainer bags and other options.

Given the over temp mash, the low efficiency cannot be attributed to a thin mash.

Brew on

 

[gbx]

I started BIABing 4 years ago. I had done a few partial mashes and all grain using a mash tun I bought at the LHBS. After 1 attempt at BIAB I gave up mash tuns entirely and have done 80+ batches since.

And efficiency. STOP CARING ABOUT IT. unless your efficiency is wildly unpredictable don't worry if its 90% or if its 50%. Grain is cheap! you will spend way more money on propane and hops and yeast than you will on the few extra lbs needed to compensate for a crappy 50%. And how much is your time worth? You are going to spend minimum of 5 hours labour on a 5gal batch of homebrew and you are concerned with a little bit of grain? If you are a commercial brewery, sure but I've talked to people who won't try BIAB because they might get a lower efficiency and then later you find out their burner eats through a tank of propane every 2.5 batches. Thats something you should be concerned about as it costs way more and much bigger hassle to refill your tanks than it is to grind a couple of extra pounds.