Paint Strainer Bag for BIAB: Are these food grade/heat resistance

So, as per many suggestions here I went to my local hardware store to be some paint strainer bags for doing all-grain mashing. In the check-out line I realize these have an elastic top and then I realize that these are obviously not made of rope or cloth fiber but some nylon plastic stuff. These *aren't* meant for cooking. 1) Did I get the right kind (Trimaco SuperTuff) and 2) Um, surely the folks who have been doing this kind of mashing have taken it's heat resistance into account haven't they. The bags won't melt will they? Not even if I have an accident and turn the heat up to 212F will they?

Ah, newbies! We *love* to worry, don't we. (But come on... *paint* thinner bags don't fill anyone with images of home-cooked goodness, do they? I *hope* not!)

I've done several batches with the Home Depot paint strainer bags with the elastic top. All my beers have come out quite tasty. The temperature that you mash at isn't hot enough to melt the bag.

knox_brew said:

I've done several batches with the Home Depot paint strainer bags with the elastic top. All my beers have come out quite tasty. The temperature that you mash at isn't hot enough to melt the bag.

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Your bags are nylon, right? Just want to make sure there wasn't another type I was supposed to get instead.

Um, who invented this idea and said person *did* take into account that these bags are safe didn't he or she?

They are nylon and safe. I wouldn't put direct heat to them though - eg flame on with the bag resting on the bottom of the kettle. The melting point is close to 500 degrees, so it won't melt in the wort but your stove element gets hotter than that.

cool. thanks. I can live with that.

Just make sure the bags don't fall loose onto direct flame. check.

(This wasn't a stupid or wast of time question, was it? I mean we *drink* this beer eventually...)

Also of note - the dishwasher element gets hot enough to melt them. No need to ask how I know that.

billl said:

Also of note - the dishwasher element gets hot enough to melt them. No need to ask how I know that.

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Oh, I wasn't going to put them in the dishwasher but I *was* going to put them in the dryer. I'll just handwash or put them in the gentle cycle instead.

How long do they last? I tend to be cheap so I should probably set a Use each one for x brews and then throw away. x is three? Two? Four? Twenty-seven?

In my experience, the easiest way to clean them is just to rinse and then hang them over a door handle to dry. Once dry, walk outside and swing them around to knock any other bits off. Toss them in a bucket with some oxyclean with your other brew supplies and then rinse and dry.

They last a while. You can kinda see when they are starting to get messed up. They have a recognizable pattern to the mesh when new and it starts to looks more fuzzy over time. I just use them in a hop spider and to strain into the fermenter. I generally toss the boil ones after 5 or so brews.

I used a paint strainer bag for the third time last weekend. First two worked out great. Third one melted the bottom of the pot. First two were from Home Depot. Third (the one that melted) was from Lowes.

My floating thermometer said the water was around 160, but perhaps i had the flame too high while warming it?

Also, I guess I shouldn't have had the grains in the bottom of the pot while the water was warming, but I've done it before without issue.

The things i came up with that I did differently from my prior, successful times were using different brands of bags and different amounts of grains. This one was 3 lbs and the other two were just 1 lb.

You can use them for many, many brews. I use one around my cpvc manifold in the mash (makes vorlaufing almost unnecessary and prevents anything from clogging the manifold) and another as a hop bag in the boil kettle (I clip it closed with a binder clip and attach a string to the clip and washers to the other end of the string to keep the top of the bag from going all the way into the boil). I also use them to dry hop in the primary. My first two bags lasted until one got caught between the drum and main part of the dryer and tore/burned a whole in it.

I don't BIAB, but in the hypothetical land of pure mechanical physics that exists in my head, the nylon will never melt as long as there is a sufficient buffer of wort around the entirety of the bag. Where there will be trouble is when the bag and the bottom of the pot get too close and that protective buffer of sub-melting point wort is not big enough to dissipate the "hyper-melting point" temperatures of the base of the pot. It's really not that different than frying an egg. You will never burn the top of the egg because the air buffer dissipates the heat that is burning the bottom of the egg.

I use one I got at the lhbs marketed by LD Carlson for my PB/PM BIAB. I also place a cake cooling rack in the bottom of the BK/MT to keep the grains & bag from burning on the bottom of the kettle. I heat the 2 gallons of spring water with the rack & bag in it as well. The top of the bag is rolled over the lip of the kettle with my floating thermometer in it lashed to one of the kettles handles. Since I mash at about 152-153F,all goes well & the bag is in perfect shape after 5 brews with it.
I clean it easilly by running tap water over it to rinse it off as well as I can. Then fill sink with water & dunk it a few times. This rinses it off clean as new.
Quick & easy.I hang it up to dry before storage. The nulon seems to clean very easilly compared to those darn muslin grain bags,which are cotton weave. I save those for whole leaf hopping.

woozy said:

So, as per many suggestions here I went to my local hardware store to be some paint strainer bags for doing all-grain mashing. In the check-out line I realize these have an elastic top and then I realize that these are obviously not made of rope or cloth fiber but some nylon plastic stuff. These *aren't* meant for cooking. 1) Did I get the right kind (Trimaco SuperTuff) and 2) Um, surely the folks who have been doing this kind of mashing have taken it's heat resistance into account haven't they. The bags won't melt will they? Not even if I have an accident and turn the heat up to 212F will they?

Ah, newbies! We *love* to worry, don't we. (But come on... *paint* thinner bags don't fill anyone with images of home-cooked goodness, do they? I *hope* not!)

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Sounds exactly like the ones we all have here, they work great !!!

DirtyOldDuck said:

You can use them for many, many brews. I use one around my cpvc manifold in the mash (makes vorlaufing almost unnecessary and prevents anything from clogging the manifold)

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I haven't done all grain yet but I will remember that tip. Got the parts to build my copper manifold and hope to use it soon.