How do you brew?

The bag is a course mesh straining bag:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/jumbo-coarse-strain-bag-18-x-32
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewmaster-filter-bag-214-214

My local store has a 24"x32" one that I go for when I jump up from partial mashing.

 

For a BIAB bag I bought one from Wilserbrewer and I am very pleased with it. I provided him with the dimensions of my kettle and received a made to size bag in a few days. The stitches look well done and I can squeeze the hell out of it while it's hanging way more than I ever could with a paint strainer bag from Home Depot.

 

My first couple batches, I used a cheap polyester mean bag from Amazon that was marketed as a brew bag. It broke after those two batches, probably from squeezing it.

After that, I bought a stainless steel mesh basket from Arbor Fab and haven't looked back. It was a bit steep at ~$200 shipped, but I feel it was worth it. It should last a lifetime, and you can apply heat with it in the kettle. I'd highly recommend looking into it, but probably only after you've tried with a cheaper bag to see if the process works for you.

The other thing to consider is that with BIAB, you need a huge kettle. For a five gallon batch, I'd recommend at least a 12 gallon kettle, otherwise you won't be able to mash with the full volume of water for bigger beers.

 

I bought one from these guys after tearing a few cheaper ones. I've used it for 4-5 brews so far and love it. A bit more expense up front but worth the value in my opinion.

 

I think you could probably do it either way. I have a 10 gallon Gatorade cooler as my mash tun. I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D53H3W6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 as my cousin and I seem to be getting a lot of stuck sparges with our false bottom due to the crush size at our LHBS.

I generally get about 70% efficiency when I use this along with batch sparging, which isn't great, but consistent.

 

I bought a bag & a ratchet pulley from http://www.brewinabag.com/?aff=3. Much cheaper doing a BIAB than getting a mashtun & HLT. Basically just need a pot big enough to to a full boil & the bag/pulley.