Beer Forum

I was listening to the BIAB show, and appreciated the coverage of the subject. It was something that I considered for a while, before settling on a recirculating no sparge electric system that serves me very well.

There was one amendment I would like to make to the information given. The efficiency does not have to be anything like 65%, and I would not count that typical in my experience with no sparge brewing.

To get to the bottom of it, you have to follow your recent conversation with Kai Troester and break it into conversion and lauter efficiency. The limiting factor for BIAB and no sparge is the lauter efficiency. The lauter efficiency decreases as the total grain bill increases in a predictable way. This loss is due to absorption of water into the grain and deadloss in the system. To give real numbers for efficiencies from my system and its real losses, a 1.035 OG beer runs about 90%, a 1.050 beer runs about 87%, and to get down to 80% efficiency you have to get up to 1.076.

The second factor is conversion efficiency, and this is where I think no sparge gets a bad rap. If you are willing to pay attention to this number, then the numbers given above can be real. Through paying close attention to a fine crush, and malt conditioning to aid lautering at a fine crush (I constantly recirculate), I consistently get 97% conversion efficiency. With all of that pulled together, my last 1.052 American Amber came in at 83%.

I dont want this to become a dick comparison like so many efficiency arguments are, because I dont think that matters. I just would not want someone to avoid this way of brewing because it is always billed as incredibly inefficient. It does not have to be, and provides many benefits. Even with my two tank system and a 60 minute mash and 60 minute boil, I brew a normal batch in about 4 hours from water on to clean.

Joshua

Yeah BIAB is a good technique and I have used it a lot. My only concern is brewers with very alkaline water are going to have trouble (I had a lot of trouble before using RO+salts). It is harder to get the PH down due to the high liquor to grist ratio, expecially with pale beers. More acid is needed and it seems to affect the taste of the beer. Typically its at least 5:1 ratio in BIAB, which is hard to buffer if very alkaline (Its recommended my BIAB advocates to fill your brewpot with all water needed for the mash+boil to begin with).

I agree with the point about efficiency. It's not terribly inefficient. I think they mentioned 65-75%. Once you tweak your process you'll end up on the high side easily.

Another good point is the pH. I adjust my water with Palmer's spreadsheet and have considered using RO water. I think I have my process dialed in at this point though.

My water to grist ratio is more like 3 to 1 though.

If you sparge even just a tiny bit, you can hit around 80% efficiency with the BIAB method. Otherwise low to mid 70s. This is precisely what I've started to do, now that I've moved to 2.5 gallon batches (otherwise I would just use my Dennybrew cooler system). Not that you can't do bigger batches, but I'm actually wanting to brew a whole lot of new recipes and want to make sure I don't make 5 gallons of something I don't like. But anyway...

Hey all,

I just listened to the BIAB podcast. I bought a Ritchies Brewheat boiler when I was in the UK (I'm in Germany now). I've been using a bag w/it since my 2nd batch. Imagine an 8 gallon electric tea kettle with a thermostat control, and that's the brewheat boiler. I've never seen anything like it in America.

My process is mashing in the bag, using a false bottom to keep the bag away from the heating element. I do my vorlauf, but don't lauter any after the wort is running clear. Then I drain it, and batch sparge. Then take out the bag, ad my first runnings and boil. It's worked awesome so far, but I think for my next batch I'm gonna try going the no-sparge route. I'll let you know how it came out.

dmtaylor wrote:If you sparge even just a tiny bit, you can hit around 80% efficiency with the BIAB method. Otherwise low to mid 70s. This is precisely what I've started to do, now that I've moved to 2.5 gallon batches (otherwise I would just use my Dennybrew cooler system). Not that you can't do bigger batches, but I'm actually wanting to brew a whole lot of new recipes and want to make sure I don't make 5 gallons of something I don't like. But anyway...

Did you read the first post by any chance?

Keep playing with BIAB, and enjoy brewing.

Of course. Just supporting that it is possible to get good efficiency with the BIAB method. And to think... there are still out there who dick around with fly sparging, when all you need to do is pull a bag out and maybe, if you want to, rinse off the bag a little bit when you pull it out.

dmtaylor wrote:Of course. Just supporting that it is possible to get good efficiency with the BIAB method. And to think... there are still out there who dick around with fly sparging, when all you need to do is pull a bag out and maybe, if you want to, rinse off the bag a little bit when you pull it out.

Why bag on people that fly sparge?