More questions about "Brew in a Bag"

When I was getting ready to remove my BIAB grain bag, I would do a mash out to help thin the wort / liquify the sugars more. Then I would give the kettle a very vigorous stir to try and get as much sugars that were clinging to the grains into solution as possible. Then I would lift the bag completely out of the kettle and allow it to drain over the kettle (or in a 5 gallon bucket propped up on 4 upside down glass beer mugs that created a false bottom so I wouldn't have to hold the heavy bag up over the kettle). I did not "sparge" the bag with hot water but you can if you wish. Depending on the size of the bag, you may find that sparging it with hot water really isn't practical as the bag can be an awkward shape / difficult to hold and the water simply "channels" through the bag. Once you are done collecting your runnings, you just proceed as you would with an extract brew after dissolving your extract yes.

 

1. I've read that people do a no sparge techinque, where you take a hit on efficiency, but you just twist the bag a litttle and move on. You just add 6 gal of water to the grains and make sure it hits 150F for 60 min. Otherwise, you'd want a second kettle of sparge water that you put the grains in. You'd stir a few times within 10 min and remove the grains. In the end you'd add the two worts together by the time you hit boil.

2. Your wrists will hate you, but you could. A teapot is too little volume. With a good batch sparge you're looking at upwards of 80% of your wort coming from sparge water. You could use 1.25 qt/lb of grain, and a second kettle of sparge water. Otherwise a no batch sparge would probably be the way to go.

3. Yes. Wort is wort. If it comes from converted grain or extract it's business as usual. Boil with hops, cool, pitch yeast at a reasonable temp, control temp, package.

 

That was my approach and it worked for me. Plus, something everybody seems to overlook is that while a sparge helps collect extra sugars, BIAB generally allows for more wort recovery (in terms of volume) with or without a sparge so that usually cancels things out. For example: I used to lose about 0.065 gallons of wort (EDIT 0.065 if I didn't squeeze the bag, or 0.045 gallons of wort if I did) per pound of grain with BIAB and I lose about 0.125 gallons of wort per pound of grain with a 3 kettle system during first runnings plus a fraction of that on my 2nd runnings after batch sparging.

 

Can you rip a phone book in half with your bare hands yet?

 

White pages or yellow pages?

 

I think the fact that you have to ask answers my question.

 

For your first BIAB, I would stick with the No Sparge Method. Just get the basics down before moving on. Once you learn your system, you can answer these questions yourself. Just my opinion.

 

Have you been here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/biab-brewing-pics-233289/ ?

It is a great resource. Taught me quite a bit.

 

Something like this, or another calculator might help you: http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

Some generalizations for my setup: I mash 1.25 qt water/pound of grain in the grainbill. I have my grain at ambient house temp and make sure the water for mash is 14F higher than my desired mash temp. I also preheat my cooler by making sure the water is too hot and let it cool to the appropriate temp before doughing in. This is usually about +5F

I get about a gallon of wort from a 1.050 beer. You're going to need 5 more gallons of wort. 6 gallons all day because you'll lose a gallon to boil off. (60 minutes).

If it were me, I'd preheat my 1.25 qt/lb of grain water in the kettle. put my nylon sack around the lip of the kettle, dough in, and check temp. I'd have ice cubes ready and measured amounts of boiling water on hand in case I am too high or too low on temp.

I'd use a second kettle with about 4 gal of water, already in the kettle, for sparging. I know this is low, but there will be some variables I haven't accounted for. This 4 gal would be 180F-185F. I know my mash is going to cool off a little over the 60 min mash. There are calculators online for this, but you want to get your mash somewhere in the 160-170 range. The water will need to be hotter than this because of the difference in temp between the grainbed and the sparge water. This will put me up to 5 gal of wort. I'd get a measurement of the total wort volume and I'd take about a gal of water and pour it over the grains to top off to a measured 6 gal. I'd probably be holding the bag above the main kettle at this point. Would it matter how hot this 1 gal of water is? Marginally. You can heat this if you want. Maybe the same temp, but if it were my fingers holding the bag, I'd keep it from scalding me. From a hipshot, this would be the way I'd start BIAB and I think I'd be pretty close on the numbers you need.

The biggest thing you need to worry about is hitting your mash temp and trying to keep that within a degree or two for a 60 min mash. If you're doing your mash on a stove top, don't be aggressive with the burner. You can have very hot grains on the bottom and get a low reading from the top. Have some DME on hand in case you're low on gravity. You can always add water if you're too high.

 

Spending money on a second kettle just to hope to squeeze a few more points out of the extraction undermines a bunch of the good reasons to do BIAB brewing. Namely, you save less money on equipment and less time on clean up than you should be by opting to go BIAB. Not to mention no sparge BIAB brewing can get you extractions as high as the lower to mid 80's in my own experience.

 

My theory is I can give BIAB a shot, and I can always move on to full mash tun/sparge AG if I want to. That's the glory of this "hobby"....

 

I don't do BIAB per se, but I do partial mashes which is almost the same thing. I have a buddy hold the grain bag and I gently pour sparge water over the grains until I reach my boil volume.

A great technique for getting as much wort out of the grains; Take 2 kettle lids and squeez the grain bag several times. You'll get so much more wort than just holding the bag above the kettle. Make sure you wear oven mits though, because that shit will be HOT.

 

I use the term kettle loosely. A cooler or a stock pot might get the job done. I like your way too.

Why the scare quotes around the word hobby? It's legit.

 

Because it's more of an obsession than a hobby...