[Dbbrewing]

I am trying the Brew in a Bag for the 1st time, brewing up a Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter. I am an all grain brewer and brew on a 3 tier setup but it is a pain to take to our clubs group brews so I thought that I would give the BIAB a chance and see how it goes using just my keggle, and if it works out I will cut down on all the crap I have to lug to the group brew days.
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[dharvey513]

Wow, I have to research how to do that.

[denny]

I hope to include BIAB in the talk I'm giving at NHC this summer.  I've never tried it, so I'd appreciate hearing about technique and results from anyone who's used it.

[Dbbrewing]

Well I over shot my pre boil volume by 1  1/2 gallons so I had to do a 2 hour boil, but man is is alot easier than using the MT and HLT and transfering all the liquid around. So now on my next batch I will adjust my water by about 1 1/2 gallons, I  thought that I accounted for the dead space in the MT and grain absorption(it was a lot less because you let the bag drain) but I guess I didn't. 

[euge]

How difficult is it to lift this bag out of the wort? How big of a batch?

[Kaiser]

I hope to include BIAB in the talk I'm giving at NHC this summer.  I've never tried it, so I'd appreciate hearing about technique and results from anyone who's used it.

You should give it a try.

I mean to try it as well at some point but not before the HNC.

Kai

[denny]

I hope to include BIAB in the talk I'm giving at NHC this summer.  I've never tried it, so I'd appreciate hearing about technique and results from anyone who's used it.

You should give it a try.

I mean to try it as well at some point but not before the HNC.

Kai

Yeah, I should and I intend to.  I just don't know if I'll have time before NHC, either.

[glitterbug]

I'm in the final stages of getting my biab setup going. I'll be sure to post some info once it is done

You can do a small batch like this guy to try it out: http://brewing.lustreking.com/articles/stovetopallgrain.html

[Dbbrewing]

How difficult is it to lift this bag out of the wort? How big of a batch?

I did a 6 gallon batch with 16# of grain and it was not bad getting the bag out of the keggle but it was a little messy, so once I got the bag out I let it drain into a 5 gallon bucket and then put the wort back into the brew pot. The only other difficult part of this was making sure all the grain was wet and no dough balls, it is alittle hard to tell if there is any dry spots.

[euge]

Seems a little unwieldy to me. That's my main concern- deadlifting a steaming hot ball of grain out of scalding wort at arm's length like a humongous tea-bag. 

A hoist comes to mind.

Dbbfrewing, do you think it is worth doing on a regular basis?

[Dbbrewing]

Seems a little unwieldy to me. That's my main concern- deadlifting a steaming hot ball of grain out of scalding wort at arm's length like a humongous tea-bag. 

A hoist comes to mind.

Dbbfrewing, do you think it is worth doing on a regular basis?

This was the 1st time I did it, so I plan on using the BIAB method again. Our club has a group brew on the 27th so I plan on trying this again and see how it works again. I never touched the hot part of the bag just the top( it was the largest grain bag that the LHBS has like 18" X 32") and had the mash spoon under it.

[brewboy]

Denny, do you want to borrow my engine hoist? 

[abraxas]

This was the 1st time I did it, so I plan on using the BIAB method again.

Did you check to see what kind of efficiency you got?

I have a 7 gallon and a 4 gallon brew pot, I figure using the second pot for a BIAB sparge I should be able to get 70%+ efficiency.  With two pots I would be able to use two burners on the stove to get my wort up to temp for winter indoor brewing.  Additionally grains would be more manageable and I wouldn't have to clean my lauter tun which can be a pain in the ass over the sink.

The only major downside I see is getting too many solids (protein, grain powder etc) in the wort that would be filtered through a set grain bed.  That and larger beers would require a good size rig for draining the bag.

Actually as I think about it, a custom lauter tun shaped strainer bag would save a little bit of cleanup time...

[Kaiser]

Chances are you'll get 70-80% efficiency even w/o the sparge step.

Kai

[dean]

What bag or material is being used?  Its amazing how the wheels of progress turn so slowly sometimes, a year or two ago the Aussie's did this and everybody sorta scoffed at it.  They were also doing grain conditioning long before it was considered by homebrewers in the US.  I think when they first started mentioning BIAB, a guy had a site showing the bag he used and it was some sort of curtain material like you would find in the sewing or craft department stores and they sewed their own bags?  Is there something else out there available, even large bags made of very fine woven material?  Perhaps the large fine mesh bags offered on some of the sites like NB are fine and strong enough.