BIAB What?

[hop-head]

Hello There.
having got fed up with beer kits and dishwater at £3.30 a pint down the pub, I decided to have a go.
I have an old copy of Dave Lines book. and bought an up to date one whitten by Mr Palmer.

I look on here and Brew in a bag method is mentioned. Please enlighten me?

[daf]

My first crack viewtopic.php?f=24&t=65546

[jaberry]

Basically it is a full volume mashing method. Process is, all all water required for brew is heated to strike temp, bag lowered in and filled with required grain, mash for 90 mins and remove bag of grains. You can mash out by raising temp of water and no sparge is required. After that boil etc as normal

There is a dedicated BIAB site http://www.biabrewer.info which has a very good spreadsheet (to be developed into a standalone programme eventually) which I use

[daf]

'BIAB' is a misnomer, as it should be called Mash in the Bag or something.

[jaberry]

'BIAB' is a misnomer, as it should be called Mash in the Bag or something.

True but having brew in the name does tell people what it is. If you said to people that you mash they'd probably look at you funny lol

[daf]

Sounds a bit like boil in the bag, which gives the plastic picnic box crowd ammunition.

[hop-head]

Thank you for the replies.
sorry but one question always leads to another.
1. It looks so easy so why do it the other way? (mash in insulated box and sparging)
2. what's the downside. To me it looks like a much greater weight of water to shift and wasted wort.

[jaberry]

1. Years and years of 3 vessel brewing vs BIAB new on the block (started in OZ)
2. Why would you need to shift the water. All done in one vessel. Why do you think there is wasted wort?

[hop-head]

Hello jaberry.
I would have thought a lot of wort would still be in the grain bag.
I'll have a go next week and let you all know how I get on.

[jaberry]

The wort drains from the bag. I've had 2 bags in my short brewing time. The first was a general mashing bag which had a very fine mesh and did need a lot of draining but now have one from here http://brewinabag.co.uk/index.php?cPath=22 that works a treat and as it has handles I hoist it out of my pot and get the most from it I can. Not much liquid left in the grain by the end

[PhilB]

Hi hop-head

1. It looks so easy so why do it the other way? (mash in insulated box and sparging)

... there are two reasons (or maybe not, see below);

1. A bag isn't really a great filter and lots of bits from the mash/grain end up in the kettle, whereas with a dedicated mash-tun you can re-circulate (vorlauf) to form the grain bed itself into a really effective filter and produce very clear wort passing into your kettle. If you BELIEVE that getting clearer wort into your kettle will equate to clearer/better finished beer then that's a disadvantage for BIAB. If you BELIEVE that subsequent processes or filtering steps for getting that stuff out of your wort/beer will suffice, then it isn't.
2. The extra stuff that goes through your bag into the kettle and the wort soaked into the grains that you take out with them (that doesn't get washed out of the grains by subsequent sparge steps) increase your losses and so will reduce/limit your overall efficiency. If you BELIEVE that the little extra grain that that will cost you (probably around 50p-£1 extra) for each brew, will in the long run be cheaper (or no more expensive) than the extra equipment you would have to buy/make (a mash-tun at least, maybe an HLT, some tubes, pumps, etc.) to improve your efficiency then that's no disadvantage to BIAB. If you BELIEVE that the extra equipment is the better investment, and that the overall cost is important to you, then you'd invest in that kit

N.B. I've capitalised BELIEVE in the sentences above to emphases it. You should read it there in the religious sense of "belief". Only you can decide what you believe but to help you decide you should recognise that your beliefs are influenced by; your culture, what your parents, friends, family and the rest of society have brought you up to believe; your experiences, what you've read, heard and otherwise come to know about all of this; and your opinions, what (set of) beliefs you have decided suit and represent you best. But bear in mind, that once you've decided what you BELIEVE you will be expected to defend those beliefs, to the death, if necessary. And once you've made your mind up about what you believe, you won't be able to change your mind. No-one respects a "convert" ... So choose wisely my friend

Cheers, PhilB

[Sadfield]

Never tried it, but doesn't BIAB either reduce your potential batch size, or double the size of pot required?

The advantage of 3 vessel is you can cheaply add a bag to your setup and go BIAB if needs be.

[timbo41]

I can three vessel ..and did..but I now biab in a 7 gallon burco,with a steel braid filter. Yes,more particulate matter gets into sort..some say that's a good thing.
Yes,my efficiency is lower..but 70% is ok, and either a mash out or dunk sparge improves it. There are calculators that help, I don't bother just up weight by 5%.
Biab is an absolute diddle, less space needed

[hop-head]

Hello Brewers.
First. PhilB. As with my wine, if its cloudy I drink it out of a pint tankard. and as for the other beliefs, I have kept bees for 19 years and yes, I got led round by the nose with expert opinions on everything and I have a shed full of crap I'll never use again.
I have since found a bit in the sparging section of Mr Palmers book but as it doesn't call it BIAB, i overlooked it.

Second timbo41. 70% efficiency is good enough for me. I'm doing 5 imperial Gallon batches.

Third jaberry. having read your post again, I assume the home brewing fraternity thought they had to copy what the big breweries do.

Thank you all for Your posts. I'm off to get the gear next week.
Regards, Del.

[Eric]

Hello Brewers.
First. PhilB. As with my wine, if its cloudy I drink it out of a pint tankard. and as for the other beliefs, I have kept bees for 19 years and yes, I got led round by the nose with expert opinions on everything and I have a shed full of crap I'll never use again.
I have since found a bit in the sparging section of Mr Palmers book but as it doesn't call it BIAB, i overlooked it.

Second timbo41. 70% efficiency is good enough for me. I'm doing 5 imperial Gallon batches.

Third jaberry. having read your post again, I assume the home brewing fraternity thought they had to copy what the big breweries do.

Thank you all for Your posts. I'm off to get the gear next week.
Regards, Del.

While you always could make wine, it was not until 1963 that you could brew in UK without a licence. In those times I was one of many who would have loved to replicate commercial mash tuns, but there weren't the materials to do that cheaply on a small scale and so made do with bags for making wines from fruit and the boiler to maintain temperature. With improved materials at lower cost, those who wished and could afford, made themselves a separate mash tun. This transformation was well advanced when someone in a land far away created a new acronym.
Pay your money and take your choice.