Replacing the braid in my mash tun cooler with a brew bag, and have a question

[Silver_Is_Money]

Do I simply remove the braid and install the bag, or is some sort of false bottom required in conjunction with the bag? I have a 52 quart Coleman Extreme cooler.

 

[jpakstis]

I biab in a round cooler and I don’t have any braid or false bottom. I also squeeze the bag within an inch of its life and at most I get a minute amount of hydrated flour in the wort. I think if you didn’t squeeze the bag you wouldn’t get that flour. Irregardless you would probably get that flour even with a braid or false bottom. I’ve never gotten any hulls or grain in my wort with just the bag.

In my experience having both a bag and a braid or false bottom would be duplicative. Removing the braid or false bottom would also make cleanup easier on my opinion and these days I’m all about making my brew day as simplified as possible.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

With the bag will I still need to add rice hulls to my grist when I use fairly large amounts of things such as flaked oats, or does the bag eliminate the need for rice hulls?

 

[Big Monk]

I use a bag but I also have a regular crush and use no-sparge. No bag squeezing (I'd steer clear of squeezing the bag if wort clarity and quality are something you care about) but I do recirculate the mash the entire time and use a false bottom simply to raise the bag off my kettle bottom as I direct fire with a standalone electric burner. The bag is basically a mash filter.

 

[Kee]

My last 25 batches I've mashed in a round cooler with a mesh bag, no false bottom. I do have to lift the bag up to completely drain, but it's just a small inconvenience for me.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I use a bag but I also have a regular crush and use no-sparge. No bag squeezing (I'd steer clear of squeezing the bag if wort clarity and quality are something you care about) but I do recirculate the mash the entire time and use a false bottom simply to raise the bag off my kettle bottom as I direct fire with a standalone electric burner. The bag is basically a mash filter.

By "regular crush" do you mean in the vicinity of a 0.035" gap?

 

[Big Monk]

By "regular crush" do you mean in the vicinity of a 0.035" gap?

I don't measure my gap but I go for husks intact. Kernels get crushed into 4-5 pieces and there is some flour in there as well. Light conditioning makes it look and feel fluffy in your hand.

 

[jpakstis]

With the bag will I still need to add rice hulls to my grist when I use fairly large amounts of things such as flaked oats, or does the bag eliminate the need for rice hulls?

I don't know but I'd be willing to guess you don't. I've done BIAB in the cooler with grain bills with around 10% flaked oats and it hasn't been an issue. Last summer I made a wheat beer with 50% wheat malt and my false bottom got stuck (actually not from the wheat but from a few grain husks that happened to get under the false bottom and jam it up) and had to transfer to a BIAB and there were no issues. I didn't have any rice hulls.

I don't have my own grain mill because our local store has a good mill set at a "normal" gap, but I've double-crushed them for one batch and single-crushed another batch and haven't noticed much of a difference in efficiency.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I use a rectangular cooler and just switched from bazooka screen to a bag. I crush finer now and I have to pull the bag away from the drain hole to get it to drain. I just bungie it over to the other side similar to a process I saw posted here. It works very well. I've raised my efficiency and I no longer need to vorlauf.

Next up is to try underletting.

 

[myndflyte]

With the bag will I still need to add rice hulls to my grist when I use fairly large amounts of things such as flaked oats, or does the bag eliminate the need for rice hulls?

No. The whole point of rice hulls is to prevent oats from gumming up and causing a stuck sparge. Since you're using a bag, there is nothing to block your outlet.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Excellent! I thank all of you!!!

 

[EtchyLives]

I'll second these voices: crush it until you're scared and don't worry about rice hulls. I have to lift the bag slightly when draining, otherwise it got stuck in my valve outlet on my old setup. Now with my infussion mash tun that has a false bottom and center drain I don't have to lift it, but do so just to get at more of the sweet wort.

 

[RM-MN]

I use a bag but I also have a regular crush and use no-sparge. No bag squeezing (I'd steer clear of squeezing the bag if wort clarity and quality are something you care about) but I do recirculate the mash the entire time and use a false bottom simply to raise the bag off my kettle bottom as I direct fire with a standalone electric burner. The bag is basically a mash filter.

Don't confuse clear wort with clear beer. They really aren't related. You can have some awfully murky wort and still get clear beer.

 

[jalc6927]

Don’t stress about squeezing the daylights out of your bag, especially with no sparging, the “myth” about tannins is not true

Get a pair of heat resistant rubber gloves though

 

[wilserbrewer]

Cooler will likely drain a little easier with the braid and the bag, with just the bag you will likely have to lift the bag away from the drain a bit....

Not a big deal, try it both ways....

 

[Big Monk]

Don't confuse clear wort with clear beer. They really aren't related. You can have some awfully murky wort and still get clear beer.

I’m not. I get what you are trying to say but they are very much related: clearer wort into the kettle, coupled with clearer wort into the fermenter typically means you’ve left behind undesirable compounds from the mash, hot break and cold break effectively enough to be able to see through your wort at preboil, postboil and in your FV. It will clear faster and have more long term stability.

 

[Sadu]

I don't really find that clear wort makes for clearer beer. If I leave anything behind in the kettle its because the trub clogs up the valve on my conical. With a bucket fermentor I haven't noticed any difference. None of that stuff ends up in the keg or bottle.

 

[teesherv]

Chiming in. I made the same move a couple of years ago, added bag to cooler. I left the braid and was using rice hulls. Then I wondered what would happen, took out the braid and stopped using hulls. Many brews later, this still cool. Did decide to add hook so grains could 'drip dry' between sparges. Not really, just hang for ten minutes

 

[seatazzz]

I use a rectangular cooler and just switched from bazooka screen to a bag. I crush finer now and I have to pull the bag away from the drain hole to get it to drain. I just bungie it over to the other side similar to a process I saw posted here. It works very well. I've raised my efficiency and I no longer need to vorlauf.

Next up is to try underletting.

Underletting is great, I've been doing it the last few batches and have pretty much eliminated any dough balls. One thing you need to watch, however, is your strike temp, unless you are preheating your mash tun. I've found that upping my strike temp to 176 instead of my usual 170-172 does the trick. I also have my IC set up as a heat exchanger in my old 12 gallon kettle in case the temperature falls too low during the mash.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I just received my Brew Bag. The instructions say to wash it by hand in a mild soap solution. Is this advice only for subsequent uses, or must this also be done prior to the very first use?

 

[JDXX1971]

I just received my Brew Bag. The instructions say to wash it by hand in a mild soap solution. Is this advice only for subsequent uses, or must this also be done prior to the very first use?

I have never even done that. I just rinse the heck out of it, shake it out and brew on, even from new. Still here, not dead.

 

[EtchyLives]

I just received my Brew Bag. The instructions say to wash it by hand in a mild soap solution. Is this advice only for subsequent uses, or must this also be done prior to the very first use?

I imagine that the first wash is to get any manufacturing leftovers out of the bag. I dip my bag into an oxyclean-based washing solution, lightly scrub it, and rinse it after I first purchase it. After that it's only a hot rinse to get the leftover grains out, a quick spritz from the sanitizer bottle, and then I hang it to dry over my mash tun until the next time I use it.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

To be safe I'll give it a wash in 'One Step', followed by a good rinse.