Brew In A Bag - BIAB

Brew in a Bag Homebrew - BIAB

I like all grain, "Brew in a Bag" brewing, as it is basically a one pot system. Quicker than your typical full all grain brewing, but the final result is equally as good as any brewing method

Below is a typical brew day for me.

Three days before I plan to do my brew, I create a yeast starter. Typically this is one cup of DME (Dry Malt Extract), mixed into 1.5 litres of boiled water. To this I add a packed of Liquid Wyeast. I run this on a stirplate for 2 days, then let it settle and refridgerate. 95% of the liquid (beer, but NO hops), is throw away, and the yeast left in the flask is ready to be raised to the required temperature and added to the fermenter.
There are many references to help with making a yeast starter on the Internet
Making a Yeast Starter or YouTube Making a Yeast Starter

BREW DAY

 First thing on Brew Day is to bring the required volume of water to strike temperature. For most of my brews the initial volume of water is around 40 litres (if using around 6-7 kg of grain in the brew)
There are a variety of BIAB calculators available, here is a link to a Simple BIAB Calculator 

 

The water is heated to 2 degrees above the required Mash temperature. The temperature will typically drop the 2 degrees when the cold grain is added to the mash water.

When the mash in temperature is reached (typically somewhere around 66 - 69 degrees C), I add my BIAB bag and then add the grains.
BIAB Bags can be purchased from many homebrew stores, or you can make your own using “Swiss Voile” this is a 100% polyester curtain sheer. Voile can be purchased from most material shops (eg Spotlight or similar)

I add the grain slowly & stir the mash for about 10 minutes before covering with an old quilt. This insulation helps keep the temperate constant for the required 60 - 90 minutes. I temperature check and stir every 15 minutes. I unwrap & heat if required.

DocDazz helping stir the mash

After the mash has been completed, the bag is removed from the pot and allowed to drain completely into the brewpot. I give the bag a good squeeze to ensure that as much of the liquid has drained into my pot as possible.

The liquid (wort) is then raised to the boil.

Once the wort is boiling, I give it 15 minutes before adding the hops.
For this brew, I picked fresh hop cones from my hop bines. I measured out bittering hops, flavour hops and aroma hops.
The bittering hops are usually boiled for 60 minutes.
I add flavour hops about 10 minutes before the end of the boil
My aroma hops are added at flame out (when the burners are turned off at the end of the boil).

Sometimes I use a hop bag, suspended in the wort for my hops

15 minutes before the end of the boil, I put my copper "Wort Chiller" into the boil pot to sterilize it
This is used to cool the wort once the boil has been finished.
I cover the boil pot with aluminum foil, and run cold water (from my water tanks), through the chiller. I bring the temperature down to around 20 degrees Celsius.

Once the wort has been chilled, the wort is transferred to the fermenter, where the yeast is added.
This will then ferment for 7-14 days (usually adding dry hops for the last 7 days in the fermenter. I usually ferment arounf 18 degress celcius.

Once finished the beer is kegged and served!

Good luck and have fun.
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There is a lot of information on the Internet about the process to brew beer using BIAB
An example How to make a BIAB beer