BIAB forum...?

I read in the sticky post above comments about a BIAB forum. Is there a forum for this on here?

rdbrett said:

I read in the sticky post above comments about a BIAB forum. Is there a forum for this on here?

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Nope. The powers that be don't think we need one as we fit into the All Grain forum.

they don't think we need a 1 gallon forum either.

I disagree on both counts, but I ain't a complainer.

Ok, thanks for the help. I thought one of the big wigs mentioned having one in the forum above. Maybe he was speaking of another site! I'll just have to dig for my info! Wanting to get started on it! Trying to figure out the recipe thing! And if I need a bigger pot than my 7.5 pot!

Why does HBT hate BIAB?



jk

Read through the threads and posts, but feel free to start a new thread asking your specific questions - lots of BIABers here could help you.

cooldood said:

Why does HBT hate BIAB?

jk

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I'm a batch sparger, which is different from fly sparging, different equipment and process. But batch sparging discussion is best handled in the all-grain forum because there are limits to the usefulness of fracturing the forums.

I think this applies to BIAB also.

Bring on a BIAB forum

This forum http://www.biabrewer.info/ is a great place for learning about BIAB set ups, efficiency, etc. A lot of the info can be found here on HBT, but this place is very specialized. I used it when I was first learning about BIAB, settled on a BIAB/Cooler hybrid, and haven't been there in months. There is no BIAB related question I have that isn't answered somewhere on HBT.

I'll ask a BIAB question here in absence of a dedicated forum

How do folks who do electric BIAB without a pump cool their wort? Can't exactly dunk the kettle in a sink of water with a heating element hanging off the side.. I'm assuming they transfer to a carboy and just wait until it reaches pitching temp?..

Been brewing extract for a couple months and now planning an eBIAB setup when I had a brain fart today around how I will cool without a pump and CFC or other chiller..

Thanks for any info.. I tried searching but search function stinks on my tablet app..

Immersion Chiller

A lot of the folks from the Land of Oz forgo chilling. They transfer to a "cube", squeeze all the air out, seal it and wait a day or a month to pitch the yeast. They don't see any down side to it at all. They came up with BIAB.. now, no-chill. I haven't tried it.. but might well do so. Transferring straight from the boil kettle means you don't have to do much more than clean well. I'd err on the safe side and make sure that the cap and lip are well StarSan'ed.

The beauty of this is you don't have to take the time to chill it.. and you can store it for a month of you want to ferment later. Lot's of discussion on BIABrewer. There was also a segment done by James and Steve at Basic Brewing TV or whatever it's called.. I forget

If you have the time the biab sticky has lots of good info but it takes a while to read through all the posts.

bambari said:

I'll ask a BIAB question here in absence of a dedicated forum

How do folks who do electric BIAB without a pump cool their wort? Can't exactly dunk the kettle in a sink of water with a heating element hanging off the side.. I'm assuming they transfer to a carboy and just wait until it reaches pitching temp?..

Been brewing extract for a couple months and now planning an eBIAB setup when I had a brain fart today around how I will cool without a pump and CFC or other chiller..

Thanks for any info.. I tried searching but search function stinks on my tablet app..

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Heatsticks

Sometimes I no-chill in the kettle, sometimes I use a chiller, and sometimes a huge ice tub, I guess I like variety.

bambari said:

How do folks who do electric BIAB without a pump cool their wort?

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Cooling wort is not BIAB specific. How much money do you want to spend on chilling, you can go fancy or cheap. It's whatever you want to do.

1MadScientist said:

Cooling wort is not BIAB specific. How much money do you want to spend on chilling, you can go fancy or cheap. It's whatever you want to do.

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Yep, understood. Probably a better question would have been, "how do people without a pump who cannot dunk kettle in a tub of ice water (due to kettle size, heating element, or other constraints) cool their wort?"

I wasn't planning to get a pump right away and I spaced out on how I would cool wort until I do add a pump. I am now planning to build an immersion chiller on the cheap to get me by.

I'm loud and clear on this now, thank you for pointing in the right direction.

A fairly cheap way is to make an immersion chiller out of copper tubing.

This is then immersed into the wort with one end connected to a water supply and the other end to a drain or garden etc.

This then pushes cold water through to cool the wort which cools it down.

bambari, There's an e-BIAB section over on Biabrewer, it doesn't hurt to join us over there too.

Cool, thanks for the replies.. will check out the biabrewer forums, too..

Productive weekend on my build ---

My house already had a spa circuit run (50 amps in the main to a 50 amp GFCI outside), but the GFCI panel outside did not have any sockets.. Just finished installing a sub-panel off the GFCI panel with a 30 amp 240 V breaker to a 4 conductor outlet and two 15 amp 120 V breakers to standard outlets... also got my power cable built today..

Order from Auber should arrive tomorrow or Tuesday and includes all the major electrical components.. Should be able to start assembly this week..

I need a BIAB Forum...the biggest question I have is, where do you find what temp the water needs to be before you pour in your grains? and how long for the mash?

I do PB/PM BIAB with the same 5G kettle I started with. I put a cake cooling rack on the bottom of the kettle to keep the paint strainer bag/grains from burning. I generally heat the mash water (2G for 5lbs of grains) to 150F,then pour the grains into the bag/kettle. Stir the grains to break up any dough balls & evenly wet the grains. When the mash reaches 152F,I put the lid on it & wrap it up in my hooded,thinsulate lined winter hunting coat for the 1 hour mash. My floating thermometer is inside,lashed to the kettle handle with a few twist ties made into a noose.
I heat 1.5G of sparge water to 165-168F. This gives 3.5G boil volume,which is about maximum for my 5G SS BK/MT.

This is what I did yesterday for a 5 gallon batch of Cream Ale(Yoopers AG Recipe)
1. Heated up 6.5 gallons water to 160F
2. Poured in grains, stirring while pouring....temp went down to 154F
3. Let it sit for 75 mins. had to relight the burner every 15 mins or so to keep temp 150-152F
4. After 75 mins was up, I removed the bag of grains with pulley and squeezed out as much wort as I could.
5. Water level was about 5.5 gallons, pour in more water to the 6.5 gallon level.
6. Started the boil process.

What did I do wrong?

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

This is what I did yesterday for a 5 gallon batch of Cream Ale(Yoopers AG Recipe)
1. Heated up 6.5 gallons water to 160F
2. Poured in grains, stirring while pouring....temp went down to 154F
3. Let it sit for 75 mins. had to relight the burner every 15 mins or so to keep temp 150-152F
4. After 75 mins was up, I removed the bag of grains with pulley and squeezed out as much wort as I could.
5. Water level was about 5.5 gallons, pour in more water to the 6.5 gallon level.
6. Started the boil process.

What did I do wrong?

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It doesn't look like you did anything "wrong". Some things I would suggest doing differently. If your bag that the grain went into is a fine mesh and your grains were milled fine to take advantage of that you don't need a 75 minute mash. Your conversion will be done much sooner, probably within 30 minutes so you wouldn't need to heat the pot if you had an insulating cover on the pot. Sleeping bags work pretty well for that.

If your pot was big enough you could have used more water in the mash. If not, pouring the water through the bag of grains will get you more sugars. Did you squeeze the bag? Squeezing the bag is the key to getting a lot of the sugars out and more liquid too. Don't worry about squeezing tannins out. Can't be done. That requires a high pH and temperature over 170.

Maybe it's time for a BIAB Forum...I see Northern Brewers is selling 3gal BIAB Kits

For me, I have been using iBrewMaster to help calculate my strike water volume and temp. So far everything has been spot on. The nice thing about BIAB is that you can still mash at semi-regular ratios and achieve great results.

My first batch was the NB De Belge Farmhouse IPA. It's currently in bottles and will be ready on the 18th. I've only heard good things about that kit though. The target OG NB gave was 1.060. That is with 5.5 gals of strike water. I used iBrewMaster and it figured that to achieve 1.060 you needed about 68% efficiency. I hit 1.068 at 78%efficiency. It was a 90min mash at 149F. I mashed in at 156F.

My second batch (in secondary now) was my own recipe that I came up with. It's a 3gal American Wheat. I used 7lbs of grain and a 90 min mash at 150F. I used 20.75qts of strike water @ 157F. This one I also overshot and hit 75% efficiency when I designed it at 70%. OG was 1.057.

My third batch (another recipe I came up with) was a 3gal IIPA. I used 13lbs grain and a 90 min mash at 149F. I used 25qts of strike water @ 158F. I again estimated 70% efficiency and over shot and got 76% efficiency for a OG of 1.097. It also had .75lbs of corn sugar.

So it sort of just depends on what recipe you happen to be doing. I think I'm going to stick to my iBrewMaster and the method I've been using to calculate strike water.

I think we need a BIAB forum.

Did my first BIAB Sunday (Yoopers fizzy yellow water). Didn't do any research into the method just put the grains in a muslin bag which barely fit. Og was est 1.046 got 1.022. Needless to say efficiency sucked. Still have bubbles in fermenter since started bubbling mon morning. We're my grains too compacted and should I get a bigger bag next time? Was supposed to be for the wife for Mother's Day

Yes bigger bag. I have never found a muslin bag big enough for BIAB. Also unless you can get the bag around the edges of the pot it is really difficult to stir the mash as much as is needed.

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

Maybe it's time for a BIAB Forum...I see Northern Brewers is selling 3gal BIAB Kits

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Mashing is not vessel specific. Neither is batch size.

We don't have a cooler MLT forum, a stainless keg MLT forum, a batch sparge forum, a no-sparge forum, a fly sparge forum, etc. It would fracture up the forum to have technique specific threads/forums.

A 3 gallon batch is a 3 gallon batch whether you BIAB, use a cooler for an MLT, or no-sparge.

Yooper said:

Mashing is not vessel specific. Neither is batch size.

We don't have a cooler MLT forum, a stainless keg MLT forum, a batch sparge forum, a no-sparge forum, a fly sparge forum, etc. It would fracture up the forum to have technique specific threads/forums.

A 3 gallon batch is a 3 gallon batch whether you BIAB, use a cooler for an MLT, or no-sparge.

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This...as someone who depending upon the weather, my mood, or visitors. I will use a cooler MLT, batch or no-sparge; or BIAB with a traditional batch sparge or full volume no-sparge. That would be 4 more forums to monitor! No thanks.

Yooper said:

Mashing is not vessel specific. Neither is batch size.

We don't have a cooler MLT forum, a stainless keg MLT forum, a batch sparge forum, a no-sparge forum, a fly sparge forum, etc. It would fracture up the forum to have technique specific threads/forums.

A 3 gallon batch is a 3 gallon batch whether you BIAB, use a cooler for an MLT, or no-sparge.

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Yooper, Yooper, Party Pooper.....

(ducking and running)

I have to agree with Yooper too. There is really no difference between BIAB and any other method of making beer. Mashing is mashing. There are lots of different techniques, but if you look at how many different ways of brewing that exist, what it tells you is that there are really no wrong ways to do it.

If you need more information on mash temps for BIAB look up the SIMPLEBIAB calculator. Great resource.

honestly a google search on any topic you need will pull up multiple resources. I found a site that calculates my exact boil off by using kettle diameter for example.

Foosier said:

I have to agree with Yooper too. There is really no difference between BIAB and any other method of making beer. Mashing is mashing. There are lots of different techniques, but if you look at how many different ways of brewing that exist, what it tells you is that there are really no wrong ways to do it.

If you need more information on mash temps for BIAB look up the SIMPLEBIAB calculator. Great resource.

honestly a google search on any topic you need will pull up multiple resources. I found a site that calculates my exact boil off by using kettle diameter for example.

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I am starting to lean this way since I took a look at some pure BIAB forums. There are plenty of resources out there. As for recipes: you can always scale recipes.