OK all you poser 'tards, I put my money where my mouth is. I found some 100% polyester super tight weave and heavy duty fabric at Wal-Mart. I asked for voille, but the battleaxe that cuts fabric looked at me like I was a window licker and might start eating frogs right there in the store. So I found what I needed by assuming: 100% polyester (no absorbtion in the fabric and no strange flavors), strong and no color or surface finish. What I got was like wedding dress material and heavy. 2 yards set me back about $10. Oh, and some heavy rope cost me $5 but I still have 35 feet left. I sewed it up with blind rolled seams and used 100% polyester upoholstery thread. That stuff is tough!
Saturday I brewed a London Porter in a bag. I have pics.
My daughter models the bag. She is wearing no pants, which is why she isn't in any of the other pics, you pervs.
Random crap:
You think you guys have a nice system, check out this. The bag will actually go about 1/3 of the way down the outside before it comes off the bottom of the keg.
First, I made a big rootbeer soda. (Nah, that's mash)
Done mashing, ready to sparge:
Holy crap, that is heavy. Now, the material that I chose is very tight weave. You can breathe through it, but it would not be easy. And when it is wet, the water runs even more slowly. I forgot to mash out, so I pulled the bag on 154 degree wort instead of heating to 165 first.
I had to rig a "bag lifter". There WAS friggin' in the riggin'.
(My 3 year old daughter took that pic.) I kind of lifted the bag a little at a time, let the wort run down a bit and lift it a little more. It still took 20-25 minutes to "sparge". But I was heating the kettle the whole time (bag completely clear of the water so it wouldn't overheat) so I boiled about 5 minutes after finishing the sparge. Next time I am using a pulley to lift the bag.
If you lift the bag too fast, some of the wort runs down the side of your keg. And burns and gets stickey under foot. Mmmm, burned sugar smells.
Boil, immersion chill, ice batch chill while oxygenating and pitch. Mmm, mmm, good:
Well, here is how it worked out. Efficiency: high. I missed my pre-boil gravity by 4 points, but I had 1 gallon too much water. (I had to add extra water when mashing as my temps skyrocketed as I was heating. Next time I think that Ill get the water to about 156 and just put in the bag with the grain. I had put in the grain at about 150, so I could stir and adjust temps, but the temps were very different near the bottom vs near the top, even with stirring. I haven't done the math yet, but I expect about 80% efficiency as the recipe was set up at 75%.
Time was about 1 to 2 hours less than the average brew day. I mashed for a solid 90 minutes, probably more like 110 minutes by the time I got it all "sparged" out. But cleanup was much easier. Just took the bag to the garden and dumped it on the blueberries for mulch after it cooled. Only cleaning 1 pot was really nice too. Of course, the proof will be in the bottle in 2 or 3 weeks, but so far so good. If I had another yard or two of it I might be tempted to use the same cloth for a boil bag. No hot break or hop trub would get through it if it was not squeezed, I am sure of it.
I might just be doing this again.
