How to go from Extract to AG for < $10.00

[Thirsty Boy]

I picked up material for the bag quite some time ago but hadn't gotten around to borrowing a sewing machine to actually construct the bag. Last week my mother gave me her old machine. Now I have to think of some other excuse to put it off.

Seriously though, a bunch of folks in our club will be doing brewing demonstrations at the Nebraska State Fair in a couple of weeks. My partner and I will be doing two separate 5 gallon batches. I think I may do the BIAB as one of the batches so we can see the same beer done two different ways. I will be sure to take pictures if we actually do this.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

That sounds cool Wayne, I'd be really interested to hear about it. Not only how it works out, but also what other brewers think about it. I'm also really looking forward to the feedback from Goober's talk at his HB club.

This sounds like a pretty cool idea.
The ONLY (and I do mean ONLY) thing that may be a slight flaw is some mash-time HSA when you pull the bag out. On a normal batch, it's not a problem, as we usually drink the brew fast enough that it doesn't have time to form, but if it's a beer that needs to age, like a BW, then it could kick in and stale on you. Otherwise, this looks really interesting. I just might give it a try some time in the near future.

BDawg. HSA is something that was considered when people were first trialling BIAB. If you are careful in the way you "pull" you bag, you can limit the issue.

You gently pull the bag mostly out of the wort, not so fast that things splash around, leaving just an inch or two square of contact between the bottom of the bag and the wort when you suspend it (if you can) then the wort runs down gently and doesn't drip or splash. Once virtually all the wort has drained, you pull the bag all the way out and a give it a bit of a squeeze, which will of course result in a bit of splashing. But... you have to remember, there is no transfer of wort between mash tun and kettle, its already in the kettle. So the minimal amount of HSA you might incur draining the bag, is at least somewhat paid back by the HSA you don't incur during a transfer between vessels.

That's if you believe in HSA and I'm afraid that I fall into the doubters camp on the HSA argument. Where I work wort is dropped 20 feet into the kettle, sparge is sprayed with truly impressive violence, the grist is mixed with the brewing liquor at a height and dropped into the mash tun and the mash is constantly and vigorously stirred... all stuff that would make a HSA true believer pale in the face. So I have doubts... oh I take a bit of care just in case, but I'm not going to worry overly much if the bag drips a bit when I'm extracting the last of the wort.

Actually the flaw that I see that might exist is sort of the one that Goober was concerned about. A bit of fine particulate does make it through the bag. But also, due to the lack of recirculation and sparge, a bit more protein is probably making it into the kettle. Not being grabbed by the husk material on its way through the grain bed. Fortunately it does seem to floc out as part of hot / cold break and the result is a bit of an increase in break material in the kettle.

Cheers all

Thirsty

[BDawg]

Thanks, Thirsty. Good to know. I'm always willing to learn something new.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I've recently been brewing very small batches and doing lots of things that traditional brewing lore tells me make for bad beer.

I'm an HSA agnostic. I don't go overboard, but I've not ever done much to reduce the amount of splashing my hot wort experiences.

My fermenter for these batches is a small plastic kitchen storer (effectively a 'food-grade' bucket). Using bulldog clips, I hold a lingerie wash bag over the top of it to act as a kind of filter. I transfer from my kettle into this by holding the bucket under the kettle tap and opening the valve as soon after the boil stops as I get to it (usually within five minutes of flame-out). This catches a goodly portion of the hop trub and break material. The lid goes on the bucket and into a big vat of cool water. More proteins precipitate during this phase, but I ignore them until later. I then pitch, ferment and carry on as per usual.

My normal procedure is to BIAB in a 75litre boiler and I decant the hot wort into a NoChill cube. I've left them sit for up to a month before pitching and - although this is not a scientific proof - they all seem to turn out okay. You do get a lot of yuck settling to the bottom of the cube that has to be left or filtered out if you don't think the yeast will enjoy it.

For the moment, I don't have an issue with beer going stale over time - probably because I (or my friends) tend to drink them all within 4-5 months of brewing.

[GooberMcNutly]

I'm also really looking forward to the feedback from Goober's talk at his HB club.

I am trying to get on the calendar for September 9th. It should be fun. Ill post my powerpoint presentation once I get it made up.

[GooberMcNutly]

I am confirmed for Sept. 9th. I have my powerpoint presentation. Ill try to post it somewhere that you guys can download it.

If the big sculpture crowd crucify me after the meeting, it's been nice knowing you all.

[Thirsty Boy]

I am confirmed for Sept. 9th. I have my powerpoint presentation. Ill try to post it somewhere that you guys can download it.

If the big sculpture crowd crucify me after the meeting, it's been nice knowing you all.

Cool... good luck !!

My LHBS runs monthly AG demos and I'm in the process of sorting out demo'ing BIAB at one of their sessions. Maybe on 22nd Sept

So I'll need that luck as well... considering the setting; they could actually chain me to a sculpture and beat me to death with a mash tun.

Cheers

Thirsty

[PistolPatch]

Just been reading through all the posts I have missed. It's especially great to see guys who have been AGing for some time willing to have a crack at BIAB and furthermore, finding it worthwhile.

Also glad that Thirsty is answering the questions here as he has way more technical knowledge and brewing experience than I could ever hope for

Anyway, I had one such very knowledgeable and experienced brewer willing to have a crack at BIAB and he used my gear last weekend. To keep myself entertained, I thought I might as well ask a few other brewers around as well who were interested in the process. About 15 turned up - a big mistake - lol!

I asked a few judges along as well as I thought it was time to put a few BIAB's into some Aussie competitions. I have 5 beers on tap and thought I might throw the lot in the upcoming comp here in Western Australia. One of these beers, a kolsch, I had saved for three months I think - especially delicious!

There's one problem with my keg set-up. All 5 beers run through a manifold into one tap. Being the trusting bloke that I am I also put a label on the front of the fridge saying what ball-valve would give you what beer. Unfortunately I didn't say, "Make sure you turn off the last valve that has been used."

So, my Schwartzbier, after only an hour into the day, had drained into my Altbier, my Amarillo Ale, my mid-strength ale and my 2.5% ale!!!!!

Oh well, it's all good fun and we certainly had a great day which is what brewing, for me, is really all about.

The main worry though is that, from what I gather, there are no more comps here for bloody ages! A fellow brewer lives just around the corner and his first brew ever was only a few months ago and it was BIAB. I'll see what stocks he has and hopefully he has some. Be interesting anyway to see how a bloke's second or third brew (no prrior experience with any sort of brewing) went in a comp!

On a technical note, while my mate was brewing on my gear, I was busy watering and feeding the other 15 guys. I was a little dissapointed that on draining the wort from the kettle, it was a lot cloudier than I get. I've had this before when I have brewed a little recklessly

I forgot to tell my mate to use a hop sock with his hop pellets and to use whirfloc or koppafloc ten minutes before the end of the boil. These two things make a big difference to clarity.

The beer will turn out fine though as he's racking it.

Because of space limitations, I basically ferment my ales for say 7 days and then pump them under small CO2 pressure from my fermenter directly into the keg via a 1 micron filter. If I use a hop sock and Koppafloc, this works perfectly - the beer IS brilliant.

Racking, cold-conditioning for a week, koppafloc and hop-sock without the filter gives about a 70%-80% result of what I get above.

So I reckon my mate's beer will certainly taste great but I am a little worried about the clarity.

Cheers guys and have really enjoyed reading your posts above,
Pat

[Thirsty Boy]

Just an update on the latest BIAB adventure I have tried.... Spillsmostofit and I did a full size BIAB the other day. And as a side experiment we tried to do a little Partigyle brewing.

We did our main brew mostly as normal, but instead of letting the bag drain completely out to get the most wort possible... we transferred it still quite wet to another pot that had a bit of hot water in it and "sparged"

Spills normally does this as a slight modification to the BIAB technique, to get a bit of extra efficiency, but this time instead of adding the weak wort back to the kettle, we kept it seperate to make a "small" beer with.

Our main wort gave us 24litres of 1.065 wort into a No-Chill cube. The small beer ended up being about 10litres of 1.030 that Spills boiled and hopped today (I think he added a little DME to up the OG a bit)

So now we have a modified version of Denny's Rye IPA split into two 12litre batches, one to be fermented with Fermentis US05 and one I am going to ferment with fermentis S04. And also a 10litre batch of "light" rye ale hopped with Wilamette, cascade and a little chinook that is already bubbling away with US05.

Three beers, one brew. Not bad.

Thirsty