What to do... BIAB or build a Mash Tun?

[wilserbrewer]

BIAB or cooler mash tun?

I do both, and find both work very well! I would be concerned that the 70 qt cooler the OP has proposed will be too large for medium to smallish five gallon batches?

The mesh bags sold by many retailers are a fairly coarse mesh type fabric and will let a lot of flour through the bag, polyester voile material is a much better choice IMHO. Making a bag is not that difficult if you have the skillset, and a sewing machine, hell one poster hand sewed a bag and reported good results.

To stitch a bag, simply emulate the shaping shown in my avatar, make the bag plenty large to line the entire kettle interior with enough to overlap the top rim of the kettle by several inches. Hemming the top of the bag will allow a drawstring if you choose. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific bag making questions, happy to help if I can...

Also, IMO a ratchet pulley greatly simplifies the BIAB process, allowing the bag to easily and neatly be removed from the kettle, and then allowing the bag to drain as it is suspended over the kettle. This greatly removes a lot of the downsides of BIAB brewing. I brew in a finished carpeted basement, and can easily BIAB large batches without spilling a drop by hoisting the bag above the kettle and allowing it to drain fully while the wort comes to boil, and then swinging the bag over and down to a rubbermaid tub placed directly adjacent and below the kettle.

My first MT was a cheap 28 qt cooler that I already owned, I drilled a hole and fitted it with a stainless braid and a length of tubing and it worked great!
Almost any cooler in the appropriate size will work as a MT.

Link below to a very simple, yet extremely effective and low cost batch sparge or full volume MT....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/ten-minute-cooler-mash-tun-conversion-125108/

Cheers and hope this helps!
Many many simple ways to get this done, don't overthink it....
wilser

My apologies to the OP, shipping to Canada is expensive and requires a trip to my local post office.
However, I will extend a limited time offer to ship to Canada at the actual USPS charges, with a refund via paypal for any slight overage incurred.
Thanks for listening!
wilser

 

[Darwin18]

There are pros and "cons" to either method. Both will make great beer.

I've used a 10-gallon round Igloo cooler with bazooka tube and ball valve assembly for the past six years and it works great, for me. You could probably nab one on sale in the next couple months if you're trying to be cost conscious.

For me personally I prefer the cooler because it's easier to maintain temperature. I can walk away, have lunch, or do something for an hour while it mashes. Cleaning the cooler is very easy - I just dump the grains in the garbage, rinse out the cooler, and wipe it dry. Cleaning it takes less than 10 minutes.

The only concern that I would have with BIAB is the need to lift the wet, heavy bag of spent grain out of the pot for disposal. You can rig up several methods to make it mechanically easier and safer, but that seems more work, to me, than converting a cooler.

 

[ong]

I never quite understand the objection to lifting the bag out of the wort. For a five gallon batch it weighs at most 30-35 lbs, which is quite easy to lift. I generally lift the bag out, then place my mash paddle and giant potato masher-type tool (actually a stainless mud mixing tool for drywall installers) across the top of the kettle, and put the bag on top of those, where it can drain into the kettle. From there, I can grab the kettle lid and use it to push down on the bag and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. This all takes about a minute, maybe, then I can dump the spent grain into the compost. Were I a sparger, I guess I'd just dunk into another vessel of hot water, or sprinkle some over the bag while it sat atop the kettle.

 

[Peruvian802]

I think another expense to consider is some silicone gloves for BIAB as squeezing a 150 deg bag of grains can be painful with bare hands.

 

[kh54s10]

I never quite understand the objection to lifting the bag out of the wort. For a five gallon batch it weighs at most 30-35 lbs, which is quite easy to lift. I generally lift the bag out, then place my mash paddle and giant potato masher-type tool (actually a stainless mud mixing tool for drywall installers) across the top of the kettle, and put the bag on top of those, where it can drain into the kettle. From there, I can grab the kettle lid and use it to push down on the bag and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. This all takes about a minute, maybe, then I can dump the spent grain into the compost. Were I a sparger, I guess I'd just dunk into another vessel of hot water, or sprinkle some over the bag while it sat atop the kettle.

30-35 pounds might not seem like a lot to you, but I think it is HEAVY. I always seem to drip some wort outside the pot. To me it is a hot heavy sticky messy proposition. I would much rather take my 10 pounds or so of damp grain, in the mash tun, to the compost pile and dump it. No bag to clean either.

 

[LJvermonster]

So you need a good mill in order to further crush grains if you order them online? I am a cooler MTL guy myself and have enjoyed my results but if I can save an hour off the process I am no dummy.

What mill does everyone use to grind the grains?

 

[kh54s10]

So you need a good mill in order to further crush grains if you order them online? I am a cooler MTL guy myself and have enjoyed my results but if I can save an hour off the process I am no dummy.

What mill does everyone use to grind the grains?

If you batch sparge there is little time difference.

1 hour mash (both) Sparge 10 - 20 minutes (both?) boil 60 minutes (both)

Mill can be any type, 2 roller mill, 3 roller mill, Corona style. You can set up for a fine crush or run the grain through twice.

Many LHBS's will run it through twice for you.

 

[HomeBrewMaster]

I consistently get efficiencies of between 85 & 90 percent, and often exceed 90. The key of course is having a very fine crush.......... which you can't do with a conventional mash or you'll get a stuck sparge. It increases efficiency, and reduces time. I'll repeat my latest mash time......... though I'm sure folks are tired of hearing it........ 5 minutes! Not an hour, not 45 minutes, not 30 minutes........... 5 minutes to full conversion. I challenge anybody to match that with a mash tun and sparge. The efficiency was my usual 88% or so. There is no argument that I can conceive of that would get me to go to a conventional mashing system. I can see absolutely zero advantage. The Barley Crusher is key to the whole thing. My second crush is with a spacing of .010.

H.W.

So You do 2 crushes with a barley crusher?

 

[alby44]

I'm graduating to some form of AG this week....Does the boil pot factor into your decision to either do AG or BIAB? Picking up a Turkey Fryer today w/a 7.5 gallon boil pot. I have the MLT already, which can hold up to 10 gallons, but like the ease of BIAB.

Can you do BIAB with 7.5 pot or is that limiting in what you can do?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Can you do BIAB with 7.5 pot or is that limiting in what you can do?

Yes you can, depending on the size of the grain bill, you may need to add a simple sparge step, either a dunk / batch sparge in another bucket or vessel, or a pour over / fly type sparge pouring sparge water over and through the grain bag above the kettle.

 

[Peruvian802]

I'm graduating to some form of AG this week....Does the boil pot factor into your decision to either do AG or BIAB? Picking up a Turkey Fryer today w/a 7.5 gallon boil pot. I have the MLT already, which can hold up to 10 gallons, but like the ease of BIAB.

Can you do BIAB with 7.5 pot or is that limiting in what you can do?

Three considerations:
-how 'big' the beer is: see wilser's discussion above
-what your boil off rate is: higher boil off means more strike or sparge water
-how closely you want to watch for boil over

There is a reason most folks recommend 10g kettles for 5g batches.

 

[cernst151]

So much great info in this thread, I love it. I do BIAB and was planning on eventually upgrading to a mash tun but after a dozen or so batches I see no reason.

I don't know why anybody would BIAB in a cooler. That seems to eliminate one big advantage, the ability to do a 1 pot mash. Using the cooler just gives you something else to clean. I have a fairly thick walled 7.5 gallon kettle and with 2 bath towels I only lose about 2 degrees in an hour mash. I'm extremely skeptical of the 5 minute mash claim made earlier but I've never tested my mash throughout the process so maybe it's done in 5 and I'm just "wasting" time sitting around drinking homebrew. Either way, don't tell my wife I could be done in 5 minutes.

On my first few BIAB batches I bought extra grains expecting a lower efficiency and ended up dramatically overshooting my OG. I think I'll start double grinding and see if I can cut down the required grains further because I've definitely noticed that on some big beers my mash is too thick and I start having efficiency problems and lose too much wort in the grains.

I put an A-Frame ladder over my kettle and have hung a basic block and tackle pulley system from the top with a cleat on the side which makes it light enough that my wife has no problem at all lifting even the largest grain bill. For squeezing the bag I use 2 pot lids and don't burn myself at all. I got my bag at Northern Brewer. I actually got 2 of their largest bags thinking I wouldn't be able to fit everything in 1 but I've never opened the second bag.

 

[LJvermonster]

If you batch sparge there is little time difference.

1 hour mash (both) Sparge 10 - 20 minutes (both?) boil 60 minutes (both)

Mill can be any type, 2 roller mill, 3 roller mill, Corona style. You can set up for a fine crush or run the grain through twice.

Many LHBS's will run it through twice for you.

So I'm confused; where is the 1 hour time saving?

 

[cernst151]

I'd also add that the biggest downside to a traditional mash tun is the cost. If you've already got a spare cooler you're taking out the biggest part of the cost. Still, I like BIAB for the easy cleanup if nothing else.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Really? Did you think I'd brewed BIAB up til now by sheer force of will, telepathically compelling the starch to convert to sugar and fall into the kettle of hot water?



After the grains have successfully mashed with the grain bag in the water, and once the mash has completed, does the hot, wet, sticky bag full of grains need to have contact with the wort to minimize oxidation? I've heard that hot-side aeration is a myth, but even so the myth had to have it's roots somewhere...

I asked because I didn't know what you were doing. What it sounded like was you were pouring hot water over the grains and letting it drip into the boil kettle. Now it sounds like you pull the bag out and let it drain. This is what I do and there isn't anything wrong with it.

 

[kh54s10]

If you batch sparge there is little time difference.

1 hour mash (both) Sparge 10 - 20 minutes (both?) boil 60 minutes (both)

Mill can be any type, 2 roller mill, 3 roller mill, Corona style. You can set up for a fine crush or run the grain through twice.

Many LHBS's will run it through twice for you.

So I'm confused; where is the 1 hour time saving?

The 1 hour time savings would be BIAB compared to doing a fly sparge.

Biab Mash Collect wort (sparge?) Boil
Batch sparge Mash Sparge (10-20 minutes) Boil
Fly sparge Mash Mashout 10 minutes sparge 30-60 min. Boil.

 

[Owly055]

So I'm confused; where is the 1 hour time saving?

You can cut mash time far below the typical mash time, simply because you can crush far finer, which drastically accelerates conversion. BIAB allow you to operate with extremely fine crush that you could never use with conventional mash.

H.W.

 

[BroStefan]

So I'm confused; where is the 1 hour time saving?

For me the time savings mainly comes in the fast transition from mashing to boiling. Pull the bag, kick up the heat and I'm at a boil in not time. Even with a batch sparge it takes a while.

This is not directly related to BIAB But I have a Jamil style recirculating immersion wort chiller. Boiling to pitching temp in ~ 12 minutes.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[Owly055]

All things being equal, perhaps a conventional mash is more efficient than BIAB.... But all things are NOT equal. I have frequently gone over 90% using BIAB. The deal breaker as far as efficiency is the crush. You cannot use the fine crush in a conventional mash tun we can on BIAB. If you use LHBS standard crush with BIAB, your efficiencies will tend to run in the mid to high 70's. If you do a finer crush, you will find yourself in the 80's, and can even exceed 90 occasionally. In both processes the same amount of water is used. In the one case, it is all used at once, in the other it is used in stages. The net result appears to be almost the same. In theory less water means a higher concentration of enzymes, and faster conversion....... at least some people's theory. Experience does NOT bear this out.

Both processes achieve exactly the same results if done correctly. BIAB is far less expensive, and requires only a single pot, and bag. You don't handle the wort until you transfer it to the fermenter. It doesn't require a mash tun, valves, pumps, an HLT, etc. You just dump your malt into the bag and go.........Lift it out and boil. I use a colander, and a round bottom bowl to squeeze the bag to drain it.

BIAB really requires a LHBS that is willing to adjust crush......... or your own crusher, if you want peak efficiency. You can keep it simple, or you can complicate it. as much as you want....... You can with either process. I only had to buy the bag (and malt and yeast and hops) to get started. I had everything else I needed including fermentation locks from wine making, and a hydrometer. You can brew in stainless steel, aluminum, enamel, you name it.

Get started cheap........... go with the bag. You can take it from there.


H.W.

 

[Jphillips13]

What effect does mashing with the full volume have on ph? I've only done one extract and one biab batch. On the biab batch I used a cooler and mashed at 1.5q/pd and dunk sparged in my bk. SG came out perfect and beer turned out fantastic.


Sent from somewhere using Home Brew

 

[paul_111]

I consistently get efficiencies of between 85 & 90 percent, and often exceed 90. The key of course is having a very fine crush.......... which you can't do with a conventional mash or you'll get a stuck sparge. It increases efficiency, and reduces time. I'll repeat my latest mash time......... though I'm sure folks are tired of hearing it........ 5 minutes! Not an hour, not 45 minutes, not 30 minutes........... 5 minutes to full conversion. I challenge anybody to match that with a mash tun and sparge. The efficiency was my usual 88% or so. There is no argument that I can conceive of that would get me to go to a conventional mashing system. I can see absolutely zero advantage. The Barley Crusher is key to the whole thing. My second crush is with a spacing of .010.

H.W.

Owly;

Can you please explain further? What is the gap for your first crush? Is your grain essentially floured? Do you stir during the mash? Have you achieved similar efficiency results with many styles and gravities?

Thanks!
Paul

 

[Owly055]

Owly;

Can you please explain further? What is the gap for your first crush? Is your grain essentially floured? Do you stir during the mash? Have you achieved similar efficiency results with many styles and gravities?

Thanks!
Paul

Paul:
When I got my BC mill, I immediately closed the gap significantly from normal.... I didn't measure it at that time, but it was as tight as I could go and not have the handle slip. I would guess it to have been about .020. At that point my grain was not "flour" at all, but noticeably finer than LHBS grind. My efficiency jumped dramatically from the low to mid 70's to the mid to high 80's. It made a HUGE difference. I do get a bit more trub, as there is more "flour" than there was before, but not much, most of my trub is cold break material and yeast.

In my 5 minute conversion test, I used this same grind as my primary, and my secondary was with the rollers set at .010" which is extremely close. It was like course corn meal. I doughed into 130F tap water, full volume. I never added any water after that point. I already had the kettle on the burner at high when I added the grain, then slowed the temp climb down to approximately 1 deg per minute when I hit 145...... on up until I had full conversion. The conversion began around 148-149, and was complete 5 minutes later at around 153-154. I left the one deg per minute temp rise until 165 anyway, then cranked the heat and pulled the bag. My conversion efficiency was right in the 90% range, and in only 5 minutes. I was monitoring brix and doing iodine tests. The Brix started to rise slowly, then almost instantly hit a plateau and never climbed after that. It was well above what I expected.

Fermentability is my concern...... How many long chains versus short chains. My test this coming Saturday will be an exact duplicate of a previous brew, and should tell the story. I will do a similar brew later, holding the temp rise a bit lower, and cutting the heat, and adding some cold water, and allowing it to slope off once the conversion is complete. Perhaps capping temp at 152, and dropping back to 145, and bringing it very slowly back up to give the Beta Amylase more conversion time to break sugars down to short fermentable chains, making it a 15 min or so mash.

In any case, as far as I'm concerned, I'm through with the conventional one hour heat and hold mash. Below is an interesting bit of information that would explain why my mash that slopes up from 130 into the normal conversion range seems to be providing plenty of fermentables for my current test brew. It also suggests that perhaps the optimal procedure might be a slower temp increase from 133, all the way up to total conversion temp.... say a 20 minute time from 133-153. Clearly there is a lot of room for experimentation.
Howard



Beta amylase produces Maltose, the main wort sugar, by splitting 2 glucose molecules from the non-reducing end of a glucose chain. It is therefore able to completely convert Amylose. But since it cannot get past the branch joins, Amylopectin cannot completely be converted by beta amylase. The optimal pH range for beta amylase between 5.4 and 5.6 and the optimal temperature range is between 140ºF (60ºC) and 150ºF (65ºC). Above 160ºF (70ºC) beta amylase is quickly deactivated [Narziss, 2005].

Alpha Amylase is able to split 1-4 links within glucose chains. By doing so, it exposes additional non-reducing ends for the beta amylase. This allows for the further conversion of Amylopectin. The optimal pH range is between 5.6 and 5.8 and the optimal temperature range is between 162ºF (72ºC) and 167ºF (75ºC). Above 176ºF (80ºC) alpha amylase is quickly deactivated [Narziss, 2005]

Limit dextrinase is able to split the 1-6 links that are found in Amylopectin. It is therefore able to reduce the amount of limit dextrins (glucose chains containing a 1-6 link) which are left over by alpha and beta amylase activity. Its optimal pH is 5.1 and the otimal temperature range is between 133ºF (55ºC) and 140ºF (60ºC). Above 149ºF (65ºC) this enzyme is quickly deactivated [Narziss 2005]. Because of an optimal temperature well below the commonly used saccrification rest temperature for single temperature saccrification rests, this enzyme plays only a mior role in most mashing schedules. Extended rests in the lower and upper 130sºF (upper 50sºC) benefit a higer fermentability of the wort.

 

[Peruvian802]

Howard - very interesting reading. What was your OG, FG, and what yeast did you use?

 

[Owly055]

My target OG was 1.062, (75% efficiency) My actual OG reading as my boil hit 1 gallon was over 1.074, (90% efficiency) and I boiled down another quart as the fermenter I'm using is only 1 gallon. I'll add water when the krausen falls to bring it up to a gallon. Because I was water later, I pulled the sample during the boil so I'd have an accurate OG.

My current SG is meaningless because it is fermenting still. Current SG is 1.045 but I will be diluting 25% to hit my 1 gallon volume, so in reality, I'm probably somewhere closer to 1.036 as compared to my OG based on a gallon volume.

What is clear is that I got a pretty fermentable wort. I usually finish at about 1.026, on a brew of this gravity, and I'm going to hit pretty close.

Note: These are direct, uncorrected refractometer readings. I use a refractometer exclusively, and don't bother with correction, so they are not accurate compared to a hydrometer reading. I don't really care. It tells me all I need to know comparatively, and I'm not concerned with absolute data.

This coming 2 Saturdays, I will brew exact copies of my "Rolling Stone Pale Ale", and I will use the same procedure, so I have an exactly baseline for comparison. I'm downsizing to 2 gallon brews from 2.5 gallon brews also for convenience. My 4 gallon stainless pot won't contain all the strike water and grain for a 2.5 gallon brew, and I'm using a large hot water bath canner for a brew kettle. I recently decided that rather than buying a 5 gallon stock pot, I'll just scale to use what I have. I can do 20% less beer per brew. I want to cut down on my own consumption a bit anyway. 2 gallons is a better kitchen size than 2.5 gallons. With my brew day approaching a mere 2 hours start to finish, it makes sense for me.

Rolling Stone Pale Ale (2.5 gallons):
Grans: 2 pounds American 2 row, .25 Carapils, .25 CR60
Hops: 1/4 oz nugget & 1/4 oz Nelson Sauvin (first wort), repeat at 5 min + 1/4 oz
Amarillo. Dry hop 4 days.... 1/4 oz Nelson.

 

[Peruvian802]

I wonder if your volumes effect your speed of conversion?

 

[Owly055]

I wonder if your volumes effect your speed of conversion?

Supposedly a larger volume of water slows conversion. The logic being that the enzymes are less concentrated. With a 5 minute conversion, I can't see where there is much room for improvement. I suppose I could mash with half my water, and dump the rest in after the conversion, but the extra hassle hardly seems worthwhile. I think that the key to the extremely rapid conversion is twofold. One factor being the very fine crush (.010), the other being that I dough in at 130F which gives plenty of time for starch gelatinization during the heat to conversion temp. The grain is well saturated by the time it hits 140 (gelatinization temp), so things happen really fast!
Fermentability is still my concern........but the rate things are percolating, it looks like it shouldn't be too much of a concern. If it does under-attenuate, I'll just dump in some cold water next time after complete conversion, and drop the temp back into the high 140's for another 10 minutes or so to allow the Beta to do it's work. Making my 5 min mash into a 15 min mash.

H.W.

 

[Skarekrough]

The thing that drove me to brewing AG was, thankfully, BIAB.

I just found the process cumbersome and mainly just too derivative from BIAB. Why would I want to continue doing something that was derived from and required things like more materials when I could just do the original thing to begin with and be done with it.

I'm certain plenty of people have done BIAB and made great beer. But for me it was just easier to figure out AG rather than have to figure out how something got done in AG and then how it would work in a BIAB scenario.

 

[LLBeanJ]

All grain is all grain.

With traditional MLT brewing, you drain the wort from the grain. With BIAB, you remove the grains from the wort. Other than that, they are the same process.

 

[Owly055]

All grain is all grain.

With traditional MLT brewing, you drain the wort from the grain. With BIAB, you remove the grains from the wort. Other than that, they are the same process.

There is one distinct difference. That is that you generally do a mash with 100% of your water when doing BIAB, while with traditional mashing, you use very little water for your strike water, then sparge later with the remainder. The net result as it turns out is virtually identical.

I'd love to have a simple "extractor" to use with the bag, but I just set it in a colander, and use a round bottom mixing bowl to squeeze it.... seems to work fine.

H.W.

 

[LLBeanJ]

There is one distinct difference. That is that you generally do a mash with 100% of your water when doing BIAB, while with traditional mashing, you use very little water for your strike water, then sparge later with the remainder.

Yes, but that is not a hard and fast rule. One could just as easily mash with 100% of the brewing water using a standalone mash tun and get the same results. Conversely, a brewer could mash at 1.25 qts/lb doing BIAB and sparge the rest. In the end, it makes no difference other than how do we get the wort out of the grains and into the boil kettle.