BIAB – My Brew in a Bag Journey

[Luckbad]

I'm going to cross-post random stuff I throw up on Mad Alchemist here until someone stops me. This is basically my journey with Brew In a Bag and why I don't do it anymore.

http://www.madalchemist.com/archives/bi ... g-journey/

Incredibly Short Version: I brewed in a bag for about a year (2010-2011), then switched to a more traditional homebrewing method and have never looked back.

BIAB Negatives

• Cleaning the fine mesh is something I never successfully mastered.
• You will invariably end up with some grain in the boil, not matter how fine the mesh, leading to barely-detectable undesirable flavors (I never felt I could achieve quite the best possible beer with BIAB).
• To really refine the process, you have to build a method to hoist the grains above the kettle to let them drip, which defeats some of the purpose of BIAB (lean and mean).
• There is (or at least was when I did it) a small chance that the fine mesh will tear under the weight of the grain and wort, resulting in Bad Things That Suck (a big load of grain in your kettle–hope you have backup bags to strain through).

Long Version
I did Brew in a Bag (BIAB) throughout all of 2010, which equates to ~15 batches. Here’s a none-too-brief description of my journey and why I stopped brewing in a bag.

I lived in a small apartment on the fourth floor with a wooden balcony. I wanted–nay, needed–to brew all grain in a confined space, and my stove just wasn’t cutting it (nor could I use propane on that balcony).

So I got turned onto two things at once. First was using an electric turkey fryer to heat up my mash water and boil my wort. Way back in… 2010… electric heating elements were not really a thing in homebrewing, so they were hard to find and most would scorch the crap out of your wort if you tried to use them.

The second was an all-grain brewing method that was picking up steam in Australia (I was in Massachusetts, as an aside), and that sounded great. Get a fine mesh bag of a size that no homebrew places carried and I could just mash right in my turkey fryer, pull the bag out, let it drip for a while as I heated up to a boil, and I’d be golden.

Long story short, it mostly worked. Not at first, but after I reduced my batch size to ~3.5 gallons, doubled up on the mesh bags I made for myself (because one of them broke and pretty much ruined the whole experience), added Reflectix to stabilize my mash temperatures, and generally refined my process, I was successfully brewing very good beers in a bag.

Then I moved.

I got a house, I had a deck, I was happy. So I got a propane burner and a kettle. I started pricing out parts to rig up a system to hold my bag for me to let it drip and method by which to filter the bits of grain that would always go through the bag. I previously resigned myself to just buying craptons of bags because I never found a way to clean them as thoroughly as I liked, and then…

I realized that the cost and process would be just as expensive, arduous, and space-taking as going more traditional (in a homebrew sense) if I wanted to meet my need (in my mind) for the best possible beer.

So I went more traditional. I stopped BIAB.

And I have never looked back.

Brewing with a discreet mash tun and boil kettle is no harder than brewing in a bag for me, and clean-up seems to be simpler for my process. I get more predictable results and have decided that it’s the way I like to brew.

BIAB is great in certain situations, and it’s an awesome way to get started with all-grain brewing (especially in small batches) without a significant monetary commitment.

If you love it and your process works for you, awesome. For me, maybe I’ll mess with it again some day now that homebrew shops support the practice, but I like brewing the way I do now.

[brahn]

I don't really understand why BIAB is so popular right now versus the cheap and easy batch sparge method using a cooler. I guess space constraints would be one reason, but you can fit a cooler and kettle in a pretty small space.

I've yet to see an all grain brew that didn't have some bits of grain end up in the kettle. I can't say if BIAB results in more grain bits than using a hose braid or false bottom, but at least with those two methods I don't think the amount of grain that ends up in the kettle will impact the flavor of the beer. The real issue would be tannin extraction from husks and I don't think you'd get enough husk material to get a noticeable amount of tannins.

[bwarbiany]

I don't really understand why BIAB is so popular right now versus the cheap and easy batch sparge method using a cooler. I guess space constraints would be one reason, but you can fit a cooler and kettle in a pretty small space.

I could see it being both cost and simplicity. For batch sparging in a cooler, you obviously need a cooler, you need to retrofit it with a valve of some sort as well as a manifold or braid, and then you need some sort of HLT available (even if it's just a bucket) to store the extra sparge water. It's extra cost, it's extra space, and then on top of it, it's a lot more hot water to move all over the place and a lot more stuff to clean.

Seems like the concept of "pour grain into bag, put bag into water, pull bag out of water, start boil while remnants of liquid in bag continues to drain into BK" is simpler than any multi-vessel process. And I'd say it's the cheapest way to do AG. So I understand why people would do it.

That said, three-vessel AG can be done without a huge expense, and it doesn't seem "hard" to most of us who do it, so I understand why those of us who started brewing and built our 3-vessel systems before BIAB become popular would wonder "what's the big deal" when we know -- having already done it -- that 3-vessel AG is not really all that daunting.

[Luckbad]

My brother is finally going all-grain, and he's rolling with BIAB due to cost. It is definitely a good option to get your grain wet (get it? not feet, but... grain... ? ...). Certainly cheaper and can yield good beers. I feel like once you start really caring about making the best beer (and being capable of it), you kinda have to leave it behind.

[lexuschris]

Anything that leads folks into brewing is a good thing IMHO.

I started with a $60 bucket/extract kit back in 1991. I used bleach as my sanitizer and my first few batches had a curry flavor from my mother-in-law's aluminum stock pot.

At least I had enough good results to keep me going until I found BrewCommune and started learning the 'craft' side to this excellent hobby!

--LexusChris