Grain bag in my mash tun?

[knotquiteawake]

My stainless braid on my 5gal igloo mashtun failed last time I used it so I shelved it for months and am only now just coming back to address the issue since I'm going to move to all grain shortly.

Since space is so limited in the 5gallon mashtun (no plans to move to 10 gallon tun for now but maybe in a few months when time and money allows. For now I'm just going either brew a few lighter beers or adjust with DME to bring the gravity up) I don't want to mess with PVC fittings and cramming that into the bottom of the tun and figuring a way to attach it to the fittings. same goes with a false bottom (although this seems like it might not be too hard).

So my question is: Are there any downsides to just using a extra large grain bag? Seems to me it would filter the grain, and be pretty easy to take care of any stuck sparges. I was reading here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/paint-strainer-bag-mash-tun-good-idea-132893/ about people who were doing something similar and it seemed ok.

 

[JJL]

It's really no different than doing the BIAB method as seen here.

Just like any other mash. You'll need to make sure your temps are right, your water to grist ratio is correct. Make sure you thoroughly wet all of the grain.

 

[bovineblitz]

That'll work fine, my friend did that for a while before he built his braid

 

[knotquiteawake]

Awesome. thats all the nudging I needed to click on "submit order" for my AHS Order.

 

[thetragichero]

i did that for a few brews before stepping up to a 10g mash tun too
make sure to stir it well, since it seemed to get dough balls a lot easier

 

[msa8967]

Another option is to wrap some voile cloth around your ss braid and secure it with a plastic zip tie. I have also used panty hose that had been boilled to remove any dye and wrapped these around my ss braid to help filter the grain.

 

[dbrewski]

I often use a grain bag with a manifold. Once I forgot the manifold and just had the bag in there. It did not drain well, not that it was clogged, but there was a relatively small opening on the valve and the water couldn't get through. I had to use a mash paddle to keep pulling the bag away from the valve opening to get to drain.

If you are planning BIAB, be prepared to lift the bag out. If you want to leave it in there, use a manifold.

 

[CadillacAndy]

I almost always use a strainer bag in my 5 gallon mash tun - especially with wheat beers. I was getting stuck mashes and sparges on almost every batch and using a strainer bag is cheaper than using rice hulls. Seems to be working very well for me. I'm getting about 80% efficiency consistently.

 

[troyp42]

I use a grain bag in my esky mashtun with my copper manifold as it makes it much easier to pull the gains out on clean up. But I have to agree with others, if you use it with just your tap outlet it can be pulled in against the outlet and give you a stuck sparge. I did it once and once only.You really need to create a larger surface area for the wort to drain.

 

[thisgoestoeleven]

I just switched to all grain, and my mash tun is a bottling bucket I insulated with reflective foil and a large paint strainer bag. It worked like a charm!