Want to try BIAB

[perryni]

Hi All, I really like the sound of BIAB and would like to step up from the kit brewing. What I am looking for is a step by step guide, is there one out there somewhere?

Also I have Graham Wheelers Brew Your Own British Ale and was wondering whether I can take his recipes for the BIAB method or whether they need to be amended or not.

Cheers

[jonnyt]

I BIAB and this is really it.

Put GWs recipe into Brewmate. This will tell you how much water you need for BIAB. Brewmate is free software.

Heat the water to the temperature advised by Brewmate, around 69 to 70 degrees centigrade would be normal to hit 66 for the mash
Add the grains in the bag to the water and stir.
Insulate and leave 90 minutes
Heat the water to 78 degrees and leave for 15 to 30 minutes - This is called the mash out
Remove the bag of grains, add any wort that drips out back to the boiler.
Bring to the boil and boil / add hops as per the recipe

[Brewtaster]

+1 to jonny on that

[Goulders]

But don't forget to adjust the hops for the AA content, which the book tells you how to do, to get the correct bitterness levels

[jimp2003]

If you try Brewmate you will need to go to Settings then Default Settings then change the recipe type to BIAB and then save.

I use Brewmate for designing recipes. However, I prefer the spreadsheet that you can download from biabrewer.info to calculate water quantities etc as it seems to suit my set up better and takes into account water lost to hops etc more realistically than Brewmate.

[RdeV]

BIABrewer is your best bet for guides. I wrote MiniBIAB and MaxiBIAB, they're getting a little dated but along with the spreadsheet calculator there its all you need. Start with Mini is my advice.

[lambert]

+1 on BIABrewer. The most difficult part is to sit down and read the guides (although I guess that it would be the same for any brewing software!).

[john_drummer]

I've now done 2 of GWs recipes (both Theakston recipes) in BIAB style - using Brewmate to calculate the water, strike temperature etc. I type the 19 litre recipe into Brewmate with the settings as "All Grain", save it, then change to BIAB & see what it does. For 19l brew length it usually says start with 25-26 litres.
I haven't yet done a "mash out" but I have done a sort of sparge using 2 kettles full of hot water (not boiling). Probably made a hash of it but it does seem to have worked (accident or design?), as I get very close to the final volume and OG...

try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfi86yzhPvw - there's a link to part 2 also on this page.

You'll need a suitable sized bag (naturally) (£8-9) and also a big pan to do the boiling in.
I use one of these: http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/ag-equipm ... s-pan.html

A wort chiller would also be good, they're about £55 or you could make your own for about half of that; I plunge my hot FV into a bath full of cold water, it brings the temperature down in a couple of hours, but I will be investing in a chiller in a couple of months

[Bribie]

If you are going to do full-volume BIAB in a 40 or 50 L pot, there's a guide on the BIABrewer forum http://www.biabrewer.info/

You probably have to join to get to see the pictures, then if you go down to "Electric BIABs" there's a tutorial on doing BIAB in an electric urn (e.g. Buffalo boiler style) but this can be applied to heating with gas or any other method.