[HoosierBrew]

Jimmy, I don't think it's so much "don't like BIAB", and it is "don't see enough benefit in BIAB to change". I've honed my process to the point where it's dependable and repeatable, I enjoy doing it, and my beers come out great. There's little to entice me to change it; refine it, sure, but change it, not so much. And cleaning up my mash tun isn't on my "critical path" - I do it during the boil - so I'm not likely to save any time overall. Plus, I've never had a stuck sparge (talk about tempting fate by mentioning it...), so no benefit there either.

On the other hand, BIAB is likely a fine method for a new all-grain brewer to try, assuming your brewery can handle whatever method you use to lift and drain the bag (I brew in my kitchen, could be problematic for me).

+1.  I feel the same.

[Joe Sr.]

assuming your brewery can handle whatever method you use to lift and drain the bag (I brew in my kitchen, could be problematic for me).

I brew in my kitchen a lot, and do BIAB partial mashes with 6 - 8 lbs of grain.   I pull the bag and set it on a colander on top of the pot and let it drain in while the pot comes to a boil.  I can heat sparge water in the microwave at the same time, too.

But, frankly, I found brewing in the yard with batch sparging to actually be less work.  Maybe I'm goofy.  My last brew was a really simple recipe, though, so maybe that's what accounts for the perceived less work.

[homebrewdad7]

I prefer brewing outside with a batch sparge, too.  I'm just using the bag as the filter.

[jimmykx250]

I understand and I guess it comes down to what you are used to. It just seems like BIAB doesn't get much attention for some reason. I don't think the quality is any less that a traditional multi vessel brew. May-bee I should try a cooler mash tun method once. I can say with the no chill method I save quite a bit of time. I brewed a 10 gal batch 6 weeks ago in 3.5 hours start to finish. I'm not in a hurry but spending a half a day brewing 5 gals of beer just isn't in the cards for me. I am an early riser and can have a brew in the container by 10 am and cleaned up I still have the day ahead of me.

[homebrewdad7]

I would never suggest that the quality would be lower.  Wort is wort.

[erockrph]

Actually the way you use it as a liner for batch sparging in a cooler would work great for me. Do they make them for round coolers? It seems it would be easier for me to just pull the bag, give some grains to the chickens and the rest to the compost. Its a piano (Edit PIA: damn autofill) to dump from the cooler with a false bottom.
As far as biab goes I love it for 2.5 gallon batches on weeknights in the winter in my kitchen and its made me a better brewer because I have been able to do way more batches. That being said, if I have the time and the weather is OK I prefer batch sparging outside and I wouldn't want to do 5 gal biab.

I use a bag from bagbrewer.com in my 5-gallon round cooler and it works great. He will make it to any measurement you specify. I had him make it wide enough to use in my kettle in case I ever wanted to use it on the stove as a traditional BIAB, but high enough to line my 5-gallon cooler. My procedure is to do a full-volume mash in the cooler, sort of a hybrid between BIAB and more typical cooler mash. The cooler helps hold mash temps for me better than keeping it on the stove in my kettle.

I agree that BIAB would probably be unwieldy for larger batch sizes, but for my purposes it suits me just fine.