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.

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.

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

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

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

I can't believe I only just found your post here Thirsty?!!

Every now and then I check out this site to see what's doin'. Great pictorial of your brew day process ...should be viewed along with PistolPatch's download as a study guide.

If anyone is thinking about giving BIAB a go, I can only recommend that you dive in an attempt it. It's easy, inexpensive, less time-consuming ...and at the end of the day, it allows you to make great beers.

I doubt I'll ever set up a more traditional brew rig (I am trying to double batch my BIAB). The AHB forum users want those who are BIABing to enter their beers into competitions to get some "formal" feedback on the method. For me it's simple: BIAB helps me make better beer ...and I'll never grow tired of that.

Jimmy... I think your avatar pix wants me to log into some catholic educational site... I'll pass
Might want to store that image elsewhere
BUB

Please don't tell the Pope on me, bub!!

This is actually quite similar to the method I have been using for a number of years now. It differs in two respects:

1. I suspend the bag in my electrim boiler (Polypropylene bucket with kettle element) , by fixing it to the neck of it, with bungee cord.

2. I batch sparge by heating a stock pot of water on the hob.

I find that my set-up works particularly well with small amounts of grain, yielding efficiencies in excess of 80%, when 3Kg-4.5Kg of grain are used. Efficiency tends to drop sharply as I add more grain, after that, though.