BIAB # 4 - Courage Directors

[Doctor_Paul]

I had a bit of a nightmare with this one yesterday. Long story short, it looks as though I had the bag too close to the base of the boiler ( a 40 litre Buffalo) which resulted in 3 pea-sized holes. When I started the boil I couldn't get it rolling, which was eventually traced to gunk on the centre of the base stopping the heater from kicking in. I did manage to get some kind of boil going in the end and stopped after 90 mins anyway so that I can at least keep the time constant.

When I took a sample for gravity reading it separated out into liquid and a heavier solution at the bottom. Is there any point in fermenting this out, or should I just write it off at this stage?

Cheers,
Paul.

[subfaction]

I'd deffo give it a chance, I had similar sample jar seperation after a bag fail on my first biab, turned out great in the end though.

[Goulders]

The sample jar solution issue will probably be "break"; it will be fine. As regards the bag issue, I have a buffalo and try to keep the bag above the element if I need to reheat by pulling the bag down the sides to raise it - if that makes sense! May be worth getting a cake rack or something anyway just in case you need to raise the heat during the mash. On my last BIAB my element clogged up during the boil and I just scraped with a long handled metal spoon which did the trick.

[Doctor_Paul]

@ both - thanks!

@ Goulders, yes a long metal serving spoon and marigolds eventually cleared enough gunk to get the heater working again, and I really like the tip about the cake rack. I didn't have this problem before so I think I just forgot to shimmy the bag up a bit. I'll repair the holes by sewing them up and try, try again.