Brew in a Bag

scrapsmac

Hands up all the BIAB-ers!

Doing my second BIAB this weekend. The first wasn't great - I struggled to maintain my mash temp and stupidly turned on the heating element and probably extracted tannins. This time round I've got a water tank insulation jacket so that will hopefully help. I've also learned to measure the water temp closer to the bottom and not on the surface.

Anyway I'm planning a Dead Pony Club clone.

18 Litre batch

2.73kg Maris Otter
0.32kg Crystal 10L
0.08kg Crystal 60L

16g Citra - 15min
8g Simcoe - 15min

40g Citra - 0min
27g Simcoe - 0min

Dry hop with the above.

Danster Nottingham yeast.


Would appreciate some tips for sparging when doing BIAB. I currently raise the temp from 66c to 70ish and leave the grain for 10mins. So a 70min mash. Is this correct?

Cheers

howamidifferent

What's brew in a bag?

eurofoxy

essentially its using a large bag in your brew pot to hold all the grains so you dont need to use a mash tun..
however mash efficiency does suffer but only slightly..
it does however make things a little bit easier if you are new to all grain brews..

NewDirection

I'd really like to make the move to all grain, was thinking of making the move to BIAB next, and have a few questions.

What kind of kettle are you using for it?
What kind of bag do you use for it?
Is it much quicker as opposed to using a mash tun, or is the only benefit not having to get a mash tun?

At the moment I do mini extract brews (8 to 10 litres) and top up with water to 18lt or so. Would BIAB be suitable to do something similar?

eurofoxy

i have only just started all grain and have only done a few extract brews so am fairly new to the homebrew lark myself,
I had a friend sell me a brewferm 27 ltr SS, electric brew kettle fairly cheaply so i use that, i bought a brew in a bag sack from brouwland, they sell them in loads of homebrew stores..but any bag will do as long as it can hold the grain which can be several kilos..
From reaading online it does not seem to be really quicker but just skips a step which would be mashing out in a tun..

I only do 10-15L brew now as i dont drink a huge amount and prefer to try different types of beer/cider etc, i think it would not really be a problem adding more water later on, the only problem with that is the amount of grain is going to be large, so the pot will have to be fairly big.

If you are going to try it i sugest something on the bottom of the pot to stop the bag touching the bottom of the pot, otherwise you will have a melted bag and a ruined beer..

Some people dont like brew in a bag and prefer to use a tun, but since all i have tried is a brew in a bag and i have had good results i cant really comment,
If you do a google search there are loads of things about it online, funnily enough i recently did a small brewery tour here in the netherlands and they do sample brews of new beers using a brew in a bag method..

sharingan

Brew in a bag is handy. The startup costs are pretty minimal and the beer comes out the same. It's a no sparge process so grain to water ratio has a narrower effective range.

This means that it is not too practical to make high gravity beers, though it is still possible. I sometimes top up with extract to hit my target volume or gravity.

Carawaystick

I've been brewing in a bag since late 2011,
started in a 15l pot on the hob, and now have a 28l electric boiler

With the pot, I could put a ring on low to keep the heat up, but with the boiler, I have foam I wrap around the boiler to keep the heat up. the boiler has a tap so I can draw off wort and heat it up on the hob, if I need it.

I got a nylon curtain in Ikea and got an alterations place to sew it up for me, I think it's tripple stitched, and has a drawstring in the top. If I was to get it done again, I'd get a circular bottom, not a straight line.

I've brewed fairly high gravity brews, got a 1.082 OG imperial stout but I usually brew about 1.038 session beers.

Its a handy way to get to all grain from extract brewing, as Sharingan said.

sharingan

What tricks did you use to get up to that Gravity? What was your water ratio?

Interested here, as I would love to make an Impy.

Carawaystick

Actually, I used a bit of lme now I checked my logbook,
7.5kg grain, and 1kg lme

mashed in 22l water@65degC

added the lme to the boil