BIAB advice

[LesTom]

I've just ordered a couple of muslin bags to enable me to have a go at BIAB. The thing is, as I've never tried it before I've got a couple of questions for you knowledgeable folks :thumb:

The first is:- to sparge or not to sparge? I've seen a procedure on YouTube where the guy just made up his total boil volume and steeped his grains in that for 75 mins, he then just proceeded to boil. Or do you steep with say the more traditional ratio of 2.5 litres of water to 1kg of grain then sparge with enough water to make up your boil volume?

The other question is:- how much do you squeeze the bag containing your steeped grain? A lot or not?

Thanks in advance

 

[chub1]

Either way works.
I personally dunk sparge and squeeze the daylights out of my bag and must say my efficiency is better than full volume.

 

[Ajhutch]

Sparging: You will probably get advice both ways on this. And that's because either is fine! I've done both, and I've settled on the full volume mash / no sparge method for two very simple reasons:
- it means I can get away with only having one vessel which cuts down my storage space requirement
- it makes the brewday quicker and easier which is valuable to me as I'm normally trying to do other things around brewing

Ultimately either method will work and so it becomes more a question of what you think will work best for you.

I've switched to longer mashes (75 mins) since going to no sparge as I understand that the conversion of starch to sugar will be slower in a thinner mash (as I understood it, enzymes are carried from one grain to another in the water so the more water, the longer it takes an enzyme to find a grain). In a normal mash most conversion is in the first 15-30 minutes so this may be unnecessary on my part but it gives me comfort. You need to be able to maintain your mash temperature through a longer mash of course.

Squeezing: I squeeze a lot. I also try to lift the bag out quite slowly and steadily, to sort of simulate the effect of sparging but my view is you want to try and get as much of the liquid off the grains as possible as it will be rich in sugars.

 

[LesTom]

Thanks folks, I think I'll try the longer mash and no sparge method first as it seems to be more convenient and less hassle (should read as less cleaning up)

 

[IainM]

You can do both but I got much better efficiency when sparging. The best I found was to recover half the wort from the mash and the second half from the sparge. Like chub1, I'm a squeezer. Makes the world difference to the efficiency.

 

[Duxuk]

First time I'd go the no sparge route for simplicity. Reduce the initial volume by 6l and do a dunk sparge and the grain you throw away will contain liquor of a lower gravity, hence more of the sugars end up in the boil. I find that doing this gives a 10% improvement in efficiency.

 

[sven945]

I do BIAB. After mashing I lift out the bag, put it in a colander on top of a wire rack and balance it back on top of the 20l pot that I mash and boil in. Then I sparge by pouring jugs of water over the bag and it drains into the pot. Then I leave it until it stops dripping, rather than squeezing it. I've always found that when I squeeze it looks like sediment is coming out. Not sure if that's a justified concern or not.