So I plan on brewing my first BIAB batch in the next two weeks or so. And I have been reading up on it pretty avidly so that I know all of the bases I need to cover for an AG brew. Everything seems fairly straight forward, but I do want to alter a few things when it comes to equipment to make life easier. One of which is just simply setting up hoist with a ladder and a cut piece of 2x4. But my question is regarding this link http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/my-ss-biabasket-tribute-greenmonti-259347/ This guy is eliminating the bag by just using another pot with a mesh bottom. Is the advantage to this that you avoid scorching more, and that you can stir the grains easier? I like the plan and the set up but Im not sure why he is using it.
Also any other equipment "alterations" that would ease the BIAB process, even more so than it already is, please drop a link or something. Like what do yall do to maintain the mash temperature besides throwing a sleeping bag over the kettle?
Charlie Papazian drilled a bunch of small holes in a pickle bucket and stacked that inside of another (in tact) pickle bucket. He mashed his strike water and his grains inside of the buckets. Pull the top bucket out and you're left with the wort in the second bucket. Lautering can be done in a lot of different ways, but the important thing is to get the grain away from the wort for a boil. For BIAB, you can just take a hit on the efficiency. You'd put roughly 8 gal of water in your brew kettle and put your steeping bag (with all of your malt bill inside of the steeping bag) in the pot and bring it up to ~155F. This will be the same as when you have done this with steeping grains. The process now takes about an hour instead of 15-20 min. The process is the same, but there's enzymatic conversion going on inside of the bag. If you want to make it more complicated, find a way to rinse your grains with hot water in the same way that coffee grounds are rinsed when you make a pot of coffee. You can achieve this also by moving your grains into a second pot of water, stirring and adding the two volumes of water together. This is essentially a batch sparge. Good luck and it wouldn't hurt to have a lot of ice cubes and some extra boiling water off to the side in case things get too hot or too cold.
Cool deal, I still dont get the advantage of the pot the guy in the link has set up though. Functionally it seems like it does the same thing a bag would do inside of a pot.
I think the advantage of having a metal basket is that you can heat the kettle (to maintain your mash temp) without melting the bag. You can also achieve this by putting a stainless steel colander on the bottom of your kettle, to keep the bag off the direct heat. I plan on ordering one for myself in the near future (the colander, that is).
Ok, yeah I had assumed that is what it was for because I had seen people putting thinks like metal colanders in there attached to a string or whatever. His mesh bottomed kettle just seems a little elaborate for solving that tiny problem so I figured maybe there was something else benefitting him.
You don't need to worry about the bag melting, its in water. The guy with the special pot probably thinks cleaning is easier, or else he wants security on bigger batches where a bag may break.
@ssam that makes sense. Im only do 3 gallon batches so the bag breaking wouldn't be a problem at all. I would like to be able to stir the grains up better but other than that I think I wont over think this one too much and just use the bag.
Wrap the top of your bag around a dowel rod or a brew spoon. A clothes pin or a chip clip (if you're someone fancy) and you can prevent burning this way.
When I was doing BIAB I would use clips to hold the bag up and to hold it open so that I could stir the mash during the rest or to stir while goosing the temp for a stepped mash. I'll see if I can find a pic for you. Edit: Here ya go. After the mash rest I would pull the bag out and set it in a colander that fit perfectly over the brew pot and rinsed the grains until I reached my pre-boil volume. I will also note that my efficiency was higher doing BIAB than it is now with my cooler setup but I also used a very fine crush with the BIAB.
Haha. Nope, that is an old pic, back when I was using my Extech meter. That meter has a temp function(F/C) that utilizes k-type thermocouples(in this case a waterproof k-type).
