Brew in a bag

[Oliver]

Too late, warra. You already endorsed it in this very thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10153#p101601

I've no problems at all with people posting links to other forums. After all, we're small fry compared to some

Cheers,

Oliver

[Tipsy]

After all, we're small fry compared to some

That's a good thing

[speedie]

Oliver
If in may ask how did you brew Geoff and Oliver’s millennium ale
speedie

[hirns]

http://homebrewandbeer.com/millenniumale.html

Hirns

[rotten]

I've no problems at all with people posting links to other forums. After all, we're small fry compared to some

Cheers,

Oliver

I'm sure when more people continue to be involved this will CONTINUE to be an awesome forum, actually, it already is.
Awesome is coming from me lots lately, must be word of the month

[Oliver]

Thanks Rotten.

Tremendous is also an awesome word, so perhaps you could adopt that for a change

Cheers,

Oliver

[drsmurto]

Hi chaps,

I went to the brewing demo at Grain and Grape this morning, at which they were doing a BIAB. (As an aside, drsmurto's name was mentioned a few timesduring the course of the morning.)

Cheers,

Oliver

Did the words 'opinionated arrogant bastard' get used in the same sentence?

Perhaps i have referred to them as mexicans once too often. Shame, i was hoping to be allowed back in that state. *crosses another state off the list - only a few to go now*

[billybushcook]

Hi chaps,

I went to the brewing demo at Grain and Grape this morning, at which they were doing a BIAB. (As an aside, drsmurto's name was mentioned a few timesduring the course of the morning.)

So it's got me inspired. I've got the mashing/boiling vessel so during my holidays over Chrismas I'm going to buy an electronic thermometer and immersion heating element, and make myself a bag, then get to it.

Seems pretty straightforward. I say now

Any tips from anyone?

Grog, how did your beer turn out?

Cheers,

Oliver

Oliver,
At the risk of repeating what you probably already know any way.
It doesn't take much to go to a 4 tier system either, if you already have your kettle, the only other bits of kit are an esky (mash tun) & 2 x 10L jerry cans, you have a full kit.

I can easily remove the outlet tube from my mash tun if I wan't to use it as an Esky again (unlikely now I have the Engel)

With out a HLT, all I do is heat my strike water in the kettle & drop it into the mash tun.
40 Mins into the mash, start heating my sparge water, drop this into the 2 x 10L plastic jerry cans.
Lift the mash tun on top of the kettle stand (with burner underneath)
Hang my Sparge water cans from the roof & sparge away.





The bigest cost item/hassle with iether BIAB or a 3 - 4 tier system is cooling at the end of the boil.
I know some choose to skip this step but it can be as simple as a few copper coils for an imersion chiller.
Best left in for the boil & then you don't even have to sanitise it!

Mine is a little over kill thanks to it's former life as a camp shower with 16m of 3/4" tubing but works great!





Cheers, Mick.

[Oliver]

Hi Mick,

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately for me we don't have a shed in which to brew (and obviously indoors is not allowed!). So I want to keep the equipment to a minimum, which in turn will keep my lady friend happy. And we know this is a very important consideration

Maybe one day ...

Cheers,

Oliver

[BribieG]

As a BIABBer myself I (and the vast majority of other BIAB brewers that I know) would never rubbish 3V, Rims, Herms etc and try to persuade such brewers to give away their kit and jump ship to BIAB. What we do say however is that for someone looking to start Full Mash brewing and wondering what system to go with, then BIAB is not only an ideal entry point but produces beers of equal, or better, quality than any alternative system and generally your brew day is over in around 4 hours for a regular infusion mash and only one vessel to clean out. I do know of several 3V brewers who have gone BIAB with their current pot, to save space / time etc as in Oliver's case. Going in the other direction I also know of BIAB brewers who have gone to 3V in order to produce big batches - in my case the solution was to buy a second urn and bags etc and do double side by side brews. However moving from BIAB to another system - and vice versa - never seems to be to do with beer quality.

[warra48]

Hi chaps,

I went to the brewing demo at Grain and Grape this morning, at which they were doing a BIAB. (As an aside, drsmurto's name was mentioned a few timesduring the course of the morning.)

Cheers,

Oliver

Did the words 'opinionated arrogant bastard' get used in the same sentence?

Perhaps i have referred to them as mexicans once too often. Shame, i was hoping to be allowed back in that state. *crosses another state off the list - only a few to go now*

Aaaaww, come on now DrS, you protest too much and you are much too modest.
I'm sure they were all in awe of the mere mention of the name of DrSmurto, as the great brewer and recipe designer you are.

[billybushcook]

Bribie,
I wasn't suggesting that BIAB is an inferior method & I don't doubt that it does produce beers of the same quality.
As for better though, I think that comes down to personal preference.

Tottaly agree that BIAB would be a slightly easier way to get into AG, but only very slight.
The point I was trying to make is that a 3v system need not be expensive or extensive when you can use an existing Esky for a mash tun & your existing kettle as a HLT with the simple addition of a couple of plastic containers.

regards, Mick.

[SuperBroo]

I'm enjoying the change to biab from 3v, only because i'm as lazy as you can get, and theres a bit less thinking / cleanup involved, and a bit more free time while its all happening.

The wort is more cloudy, and I get probably 1/3 more break in the kettle now.

Tasted my first biab JSAA on the weekend, and its on the malty side due to higher efficiency (that I did not allow for in the hop additions), but I have learnt from that.

Its still a really nice beer, a mate was around for a barby luch yesterday, and he sank about 8 middies of it, and loves it. He's also the type to be honest with his assessment, so I'm quite happy with it.

Probably the main downside, is that because you have more free time, it more important that you dont start having a coldie too early in the brewing process, as you could easily be maggotted by the time its ready to syphon into the fermenter.

I am a fan of both 3v and Biab, but unless I do find something I dont like, I will probably stay on biab now because of the simplicity.

Cheers,
Grog.

[hirns]

Hi chaps,

I went to the brewing demo at Grain and Grape this morning, at which they were doing a BIAB. (As an aside, drsmurto's name was mentioned a few timesduring the course of the morning.)

So it's got me inspired. I've got the mashing/boiling vessel so during my holidays over Chrismas I'm going to buy an electronic thermometer and immersion heating element, and make myself a bag, then get to it.

Seems pretty straightforward. I say now

Any tips from anyone?

Grog, how did your beer turn out?

Cheers,

Oliver

Oliver, here's my "micro misses friendly rig(patented)" all grain rig!
1. 27 Litre Nylex Esky



2. Two $19 19L Big W pots.


I sparge into a 30l fermenter and then boil two two halfs to create a 23L batch. You can do 1/2 on the stove inside and the other 1/2 on the BBQ side burner. You can also do 1/2 on the BBQ side burner and 1/2 on the other end of the BBQ with a three ring burner. I mostly just use the three ring burner on the BBQ and do one after the other(but this draws out the process a bit).

3. Again patented: The bathtub and two 2 litre icecream dishes of frozen ice(preboiled water), one for each 19l pot. The first 19l pot is cooled with the ice, whirpooled and then syphoned into the recleaned 30l fermentor and sat in the tub. The second 1/2 gets the ice and is sat in the bath to chill next to the fermentor. Once it is at pitching temp, it gets whirlpooled and then syphoned into the fermenter and the yeast added.

The esky is small but allows for a 23l batch and the pots stack for storage.

Hirns

[BribieG]

Hirns, what was the size of the Esky again? 1.27L would just about fit in my pocket

billy b. - sorry wasn't implying that you were looking down on BIAB - I've done a couple of articles on a couple of forums and for the Brisbane club newsletter and have stressed that set-up cost is definitely not really either a plus or a minus argument for BIAB as you rightly point out you can whack together a decent 3V system for less than a Birko electric Urn + bag to take one BIAB example. There are guys out there designing recirculating BIAB setups with march pumps and laptops and aaaarrrggggg that will approach HERMS dollar territory.

[drsmurto]

There is at least one BIAB rig in Adelaide that i have seen that is an amazing piece of engineering. He actually had a 3V system but liked the idea of BIAB and built himself a setup that competes with the shiniest 3V systems going around. Not a cheap setup but one of the neatest looking ones i have seen.

Especially when compared to mine which is only a small step up from hirns patented ghetto setup '

I'll admit i have never seen someone do a BIAB brew to see just how quick and easy they are. At the moment i am not short on time and space but i suspect that will change in a few months.

I have an urn (~26-27L) although the elements are exposed. I have a cover of sorts for the element that is designed such that i can fit 10 tall, skinny preserving jars in. Would be interesting to do one just to be able to compare, particularly on a recipe i already know quite well. I had a thermometer fitted as the temp dial is in Fahrenheit making it older than me.

I'll stick with chilling though as it takes no extra time and i waste zero water by recirculating back to the tanks.

[bullfrog]

Doc, there's nothing wrong with exposed elements in a BIAB urn. I've got a Crown urn with exposed elements and I don't use anything to stop the bag coming into contact with them. If I wanted to do a stepped mash using the elements to reach all of the temperature targets then I would look into getting a cake cooling rack jobbie, but I seldomly do stepped mashes, and, when I do, I just use less strike water, a Big W pot from my extract days and the stove.

[matr]

Completed my first AG / BIAB yesterday

Ended up with this recipe / FORMULA!;

4.10 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (3.9 EBC) Grain 85.42 %
0.40 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (59.1 EBC) Grain 8.33 %
0.20 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3.9 EBC) Grain 4.17 %
0.10 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 2.08 %
17.00 gm Bravo [14.30 %] (60 min) Hops 28.5 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [7.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops -
20.00 gm Cascade [7.50 %] (20 min) Hops 10.7 IBU
1 Pkgs Sierra Ale Yeast (Proculture #Pro-10) Yeast-Ale

Preboil SG was 1038 (adjusted) from an expected 1042

Post boil SG was 1043 from an expected 1052.

I think my low SG problems come from my volumes. (not that I measured them) Ended up with about 26L of wort when I wanted 21L. This resulted in an unexpected overflow from the cube (My only problem of the day). Beersmith calculates the loss to grain as 1:1 but I'm not sure that was the case??? & maybe the boil off wasn't as much considering it was around 40C yesterday.

Will work on getting my kettle volumes sorted before the next one.

Thanks to everyone, like others I would not have done this if it weren't for the helpful people providing information here.

Cheers, Mat.

[BribieG]

26 litres post boil - ouch
What was your initial strike volume? I normally go for 33L which gives me a cube plus a litre in a lab bottle that I use for making up the starter. If I was going for 21 L for a keg-filler only brew I'd only be looking at around 28 to 29 L assuming a 60 min boil, or 30L for a 90 min boil.

[matr]

Initial volume was 33L.

Just mashed in a Kolsch. Used 30L this time & will do a 90min boil. Sorted my volume measuring out too so hopefuly should be good.

Except... I miss read the strike temp so now I have it mashing @ 68C instead of 65C..