Brew in a Bag: how many use it?

I heat the water to strike temp, transfer to a cooler, add the bag and grains and mash in the cooler. I find the cooler is much better at holding temps than the kettle. Holds the temp perfectly. Once mash is done I transfer back to the kettle for boil.

 

Instead of applying direct heat and possibly scorching the bag, can you use these bucket heaters that people occasionally refer to?

And what do you need to do 5 gallon BIAB? I have a 10 gallon kettle now. Surely that is big enough.

 

I don't worry too much about scorching the bag since, like MCBanjoMike mentioned, I use a steel colander in the bottom of the kettle to keep the bag from direct heat.

I think you would be able to do a 5 gal batch in a 10 gal kettle. I'm able to do almost 3 gallons in my 5 gal kettle, so you can probably extrapolate from that.

 

You might not be able to make a really big beer, since you need enough room in your kettle for all the grain plus all the water it will absorb, but I bet you could do 5 gallons of average gravity beer in a 10G kettle. The limiting factor at that point might be how heavy the bag gets when you take it out...

 

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Cool, you've had good results with that?

 

A little later..............

As far as maintaining mash temp. Yes. I mash in at 77deg celcius. Cover up at 68 deg celcius and after an hour the temp is 67/68 deg celcius.

It is a 2.5 gal batch.

 

BIAB is the only way for this cheapskate.

 

I've done 3 biab batches. They all turned out great.

 

My first BIAB is still in the fermenter so I'm certainly no expert. But I wrapped a sleeping bag around the outside of my kettle and secured it with a bungee cord and put another on top of the lid. Still had to add some low heat about half way through but I thought it worked ok.

 

To manage my temps I wrap a jacket of Reflectix around my kettle. Pop a lid on it made out of foam insulation wrapped in more Reflextix that hugs the outside of the kettle. I put a Pendleton blanket on top for good measure. I'm usually losing 1 degree per hour but I'm brewing in SoCal and it's in the low 70s here year round.

It also helps that I'm usually mashing with about 9.5 gallons of water plus grain so the kettle gets fairly full.

Brewed today and all went well.

 

I built my own mash tun and manifold after reading the dennybrew page linked above. I ended up making a copper manifold rather than a braid. I have used a bag to strain mashes with a stuck sparge, about ~2-3x. I have considered BIAB -- might make sense for smaller batches, winter brews, and so on.

 

i've never made an extract batch. i started out all-grain using a rectangular cooler as a mash tun. it was a long term loan from a friend who had quit brewing. i made some tasty beers on that setup. 70+ brews and years later that friend wanted his stuff back to start brewing again. after researching my options for building a new system, i switched to a BIAB system. 100+ beers later on that setup and i have once again made some tasty beers. every system has limitations, but delicious beers can be made in lots of different ways.

 

I used to use BIAB for my smaller batches but I had a hard time keeping stable mash temperatures so I switched to a BIAB system that used a small cooler. That fixed the temperature issue but I still ended up with ridiculous amounts of trub in the fermentor. That's a problem in a one gallon system where excessive trub is the difference between sufficient headspace and losing beer out of the top of the fermentor. I modified the small cooler like larger cooler designs and now use that. BIAB isn't a bad technique, it just didn't fit my needs as well as another technique.

 

I BIAB in a 10-gallon Blichmann Boilermaker and have no issues as long as you're not making an imperial-strength beer. I normally am a mash tun brewer, but have been enjoying BIAB this winter rather than firing up the propane burner out in the garage.

 

To keep my kettle warm I wrap in in three pairs of old jeans around the sides with a towel on top. It looses like 4 degrees in 75 minutes in mid 30s weather with no wind.