Hello all! I am a newer brewer. 2 5 gallon extract brews under my belt. Both with specialty grains steeped before the boil.

I'm interested in electric brewing. I've built some equipment already. I'm a hand-on do-it-yourself type. I've built a counterflow chiller and a heat stick. I loved my first brew, a hoppy(citra) IPA, and my second a black IPA is racked in secondary now. It tasted great, even flat, at racking time.

Mr. Beer was my introduction, and I found my way to Papazian's book. Homebrewtalk.com and now here.

I'm 39, in the Boston area. I'm an estimator now and I've been a contractor/carpenter for the last 18 years. I just finished a 4 day 1100 mile motorcycle ride, a few beers were had after each days ride, including a good brew I had in NH that I just remembered to look up!

I was brought here because tomorrow is my first tiny batch of all-grain brewing. A 1 gal. biab. So far I've calculated my boil off rate for my 3.7 gals. kettle. .7gals/hr. I checked my recipe I got from my Local Home Brew Shop in Brew Calc. I wonder if I can paste the output of that here?

Thanks all! In the future I'll be working with electronics as part of this hobby. I already ordered some parts to hook up to my arduino.

I meant brew target. I've downloaded biabacus. It looks great.

Hi, my name is Mike and I am a fairly new home brewer. I have done a handful of extract brews, preferring the IPA style by far. I have been interested in the BIAB method and have listened to a few podcasts describing the method. Just recently I listened to a Basic Brewing Radio podcast with Pat Hollingdale as a guest. This forum was mentioned so I thought I would check it out.

I am hoping to start all-grain brewing on a limited budget and learn some tips and tricks from the pioneers out there.

Thanks!

Gday guys,

My name's Leigh, 30 year old brewer from Melbourne. I've done half a dozen coopers brews k&k, with my own hop boils etc and have enjoyed drinking them.

I've just spent near on a grand piecing together a kegging system (keezer) and really want to move into brewing it all myself. Biab just seems like the perfect solution.

Read a bit about it on ahb and came over here to learn more. Seems pretty straight forward to do the basics, chilling looks to be the hard task without a chiller..

Got to do a cider and ginger beer for the missus first up (keep her happy after buying kegs, 650ss perlicks etc etc) then I'll get my kettle going and have a crack.

Howdy, posting so I can download the calculator.
Lets see, here are some details as suggested in the first post.
I'm from TN, and have been brewing for about a year and a half. Have been doing mostly kit recipes. We started out bottling but moved to kegging, first storing them in a mini fridge and then got a kegerator last October. It stores two kegs; it's great having two beers at a time to choose from on tap.

So, now I'm going to try grain brewing, but I'm going to try it out before making any investments. This means doing a 2.5 gallon batch using mini biab. I have a 5g stainless pot I can use along with a propane burner. The only thing I don't have is a colander. Not sure if that's a must or if I can get away without melting the bag.

Anyway, wish me luck!

Cool thanks. Here's a quick question, how necessary is a false bottom or colander? Is an electric stove capable of enough heat to melt a bag?

I'm from Indiana and I'm relatively new to brewing. I've done extract and extracts with special grains so far. I've never done BIAB , but am trying to accumulate info to make informed buying decisions for equipment.

Can the same pot be used for both 3-gal and 5-gal BIAB batch sizes without compromising brew quality?

I'm looking at buying an 80 qt. aluminum (2mm thickness) cooking pot with vegetable strainer and would like to use it for both batch sizes.

Some brewers on other forums have said it would be better to have separate size pots without offering an explanation for their answer.

If the only drawback was a minor efficiency loss, I would be okay with that.

The other question I have, is would the removable vegetable strainer basket keep the bag far enough off the bottom of the pot that there would be no danger of burning the bag?

Hello All,

My name is Brody and I'm from south Louisiana. Been wanting to homebrew for years and finally started a few months ago. I've been lurking around here for a while getting as much info as I can. Currently, I have two 5 gal extracts under my belt and plan to make my third a BIAB.

Hello everyone!

I´m from Finland and actually I have never done type of homebrewing, not even from extracts But I like to tinker with anything related to edible things and want to start all-grain right from the start and BIAB seems like the way to go. So in the near future, after absorbing enough info and gathering all the equipment, I´ll try my first batch BIAB-style.

Hi BIAB

Did my first BIAB 2 weeks ago, is ageing in Keg at the moment but I think its going to be good.

Hi All!

My name's David, and I've brewed for 18+ years, the first two doing extract with steeping grains, then on to a 3-tier gravity fed system with a round cooler mash tun. I was forced to revert to extract for a few brews due to a divorce and a downsize into a smaller space. When I rebuilt my system, I converted three 15.5 gallon Sanke kegs into a HLT, M/LT and BK, on two tiers with a chugger pump. Adding fermentation temp control and pitching proper yeast amounts has made the biggest difference in the quality of my beer, and having a direct-fire insulated mash tun with recirculation and getting a proper crush has made the biggest difference in my conversion/lautering efficiency.

After years of brewing, I have found that there are many, many different paths on the road to making great beer, with many variables that are sometimes important and are sometimes much ado about nothing, with so much depending on what it is we're actually trying to accomplish, what equipment and ingredients we're dealing with, and what our values are around quality, time, effort and money.

In September I am going to begin teaching a craft brewing at home class at a local community college's continuing education program. It's a 6-week class, 2 hours on one night per week. As I have been putting my curriculum together, I have been trying to cover the basics, as well as some of the "low hanging fruit": the easy things one can do to improve the quality of one's beer immediately. Pitching rates and temp control are two that are high on my list.

But as I considered wort manufacture, I knew starting with 3-vessel brewing would be way too much, but starting with extract and steeping grains would mean that many would likely try it, and either not like the results and quit, or like the results, step up to all grain eventually, and likely have to upgrade equipment purchases. And then I looked towards BIAB.

For not much more time than is needed to steep grains and add extract, I thought that starting with BIAB in a 10-gallon pot on a propane burner would be a good place to begin. In my first class I plan to start mashing early, and have the beginning of the class time start with the mash-out and hoisting of the bag, the boiling, hopping, chilling, and pitching. Some explanation will occur, but then each class after that will deal with the process, step by step, ending on week 6 with the tasting of the finished bottled product.

Since I've never actually DONE BIAB, I'm getting ready for my first batch at home, Tasty's "Janet's Brown Ale", one of my favorites. I've got my kettle, my bag, my ratchet pulley & rope, a step ladder, and made some reflextix insulation for the sides and lid. I still have a stand-alone burner from before I built my 2-tier system. The rest of what I'll need I already have.

I am a supporting member at homebrewtalk.com and am still catching up on all the archives of The Brewing Network. I'm married with no kids, happily pushing 50, and work for a large, international meeting-based weight loss company, having lost and maintained a 108 pound loss for almost 10 years. I believe there is a place for every beer, breakfast included, and that even yellow fizzy beer has its place, just not in my hand, unless, of course, I made it.

Looking forward to both gleaning wisdom here from BIAB brewers, as well as sharing my own experiences and helping others.

Life is Good!
David

Hi Everyone,

My name is Mark and I live in North London in the UK. I have never brewed before. Did my first AG 4.5L micro BIAB 2 weeks ago of an SNPA clone. It's cold crashing in the fridge ready for bottling. I have just invested in an 30L urn so will need Biabacus to tune in recipes. I have already spent too much money on this new hobby. Great site, I have learned a lot here.

I came across BIAB to some extent out of necessity. I live in Guatemala, and after spending a day in the big city trying to find a cooler for a mash tun, and also some decent silicon and CPVC hoses, I found that I couldn't locally source stainless steel parts for the outlet of the tun, and so I would have to go back to Guatemala City yet again. I work for a living, and I also don't drive a car, so I was pretty miffed at this point. I went back and started looking for alternatives, which somehow led me to this blog post (http://brulosophy.com/2014/04/25/brew-i ... very-easy/) and to BIAB brewing.

Its a good post, and it also gives a link to a great interview with BIAB pioneer Pat Hollingdale, and another gentleman called Bob Stempski, on the http://www.basicbrewing.com website. The interviewer goes on a bit at the start doing adverts to plug the website and what not, and no offence intended but its all very Ron Burgundyesque. If you can get past that though, Pat and Bob are very convincing and completely no nonsense in their outlook on brewing, a massive breath of fresh air after ploughing through post after post of "academic" and often confusing (although no doubt well meaning) information. I wasn't totally convinced before I had listened to that, even after reading a fair amount on this site and others. After hearing that conversation, and hearing people speaking my language, I'm already a convert before I've even started brewing again.

I first started brewing back in England where I come from, starting off with kits (Firkin's Dog Bolter was my first), and eventually progressing up to an all grain stout before life took some turns, and I moved out, but my stuff stayed behind. Many years and many travels later and I've decided to get back into it again. There's no such thing as a homebrew shop in this part of the world, and while I did hear that you can get malt extract, I'm not a fan, and so I found a source for barley and I'm malting my own. It looks good, and smells right, but I won't know for certain until Saturday when I knock out my first brew (a straightforward brown ale). I was lucky enough to get up to the States for a wedding recently, and a few mates come and go now and again, so at least the hops, yeast and Irish Moss are in the bag as well (no pun intended).

Lastly, I'd like to thank everybody involved in helping to develop and promote BIAB. Its so much more accessible for new brewers, and also for brewers like myself without access to various accessories and gismos. At the same time, I can see that people are just as passionate and careful as they would be if they were sparging and using a few more vessels. At the end of the day its all about the beer, or at least, it bloody well should be! Top job.

BobBrews wrote:celeryness,

BIAB pioneer Pat Hollingdale, and another gentleman called Bob Stempski,

Welcome and well said! With the exception that "I am no gentleman" When it comes to brewing competitions I pull out all the tricks and "Brew to Kill". Welcome again!

Nice one Bob! And thanks for the welcome!

Good morning. By way of introduction my name is Michael, I'm in my late 30's and have been brewing on and off (extract only) for the past 15-20 years. I just moved back from Germany and fell in love with all the wonderful bier there and unfortunately Fairfax, VA (a suburb of D.C) doesn't have the same charm. I was looking to make the leap to a 3 vessel all grain system to try and duplicate some of what I found in Germany. But, the more I've read about BIAB, and especially the shorter time requirements (a one year old son will do that to you) I think it makes sense to go this direction instead (less investment and more time with the family with the same quality beer). I look forward to participating in the community where I can and if you're in the greater DC area and want to meet up and brew together please reach out to me. I'm in the process of building a 5 tap keezer and Oktoberfest is right around the corner so I'll be busy.

Prost,
Michael