Two More BIAB Tips (Learned The Hard Way)

Adding to my original list of 6 BIAB tips:

7. The amount of strike water used for BIAB varies by recipe

...sometimes significantly. And I've erred both ways. For my Oberon clone (which had a light grain and hop bill), I used too much water and ended up with an extra half-gallon of wort. As it was a 2-1/2 gallon batch, that extra made a big difference, and I ended up with a weak and watery beer.

I had the opposite problem for a double IPA I brewed. It had a much higher grain bill and 4 kinds of hops (including some for dry hopping), all of which absorb water. I ended up with a bit less wort than planned, which wasn't that big of a deal apart from not getting the full yield from the recipe.

How much water should you use? That can be easily calculated with online tools. I use the Simple BIAB Calculator, but there are many others. Since I started using a calculator, I've been hitting both my OG and my volume targets on the nose.

Check it out - the specific gravity of Kool-Aid.
Oh yeah!

8. Know your OG and FG -- use your hydrometer!

In my years of extract brewing, I rarely took hydrometer readings. They were cumbersome and unnecessary, and though the readings could confirm when my beers were ready to bottle, I instead preferred to wait until I was reasonably sure the fermentation was complete. Since switching to BIAB, I've changed my thinking and now always get an original gravity and a final gravity reading.

I'm taking hydrometer readings now mostly because of #7 above. If I had taken an OG reading for my Oberon clone, I probably would not have pitched my harvested Oberon yeast into the too-light wort and instead brewed it again another day. (All was not lost -- I did wash the yeast and re-used it in another batch later, but that's the subject of a future post. And though the Oberon clone was not ideal, it was still drinkable.)

So not only do hydrometer readings tell you when it's time to bottle, they also let you know how close you are to your target and how efficient your process is. It also allows you to calculate ABV, a number which never fails to amaze non-brewers. So take your readings!

Six Things To Know About BIAB (Brew In A Bag) If You're An Extract Brewer

I've been a longtime extract brewer who has recently been experimenting with all-grain brewing using the BIAB method. There are many great resources to learn about Brew in a Bag on the interwebs, so I'm not going to rehash that. But are some tips and things I learned while experimenting that may not be obvious until you've done it. Cheers!

"A" is my first BIAB beer. "1" is a traditional all-grain brewing of
the same recipe. We were doing a blind taste test. They tied.

1. It takes longer

Using the BIAB method takes longer than brewing with extracts:

• You're heating up more water (the full volume + some extra that will evaporate off or be absorbed by the grains), which takes more time to get to temp.
• Mashing takes time. Many BIAB brewers recommend mashing for 90 minutes plus a ten minute mash out (which requires more the ten minutes to bring it to the proper temperature.)

So it can easily add a couple of hours to your brew day. My first two BIAB attempts took between five and six hours total.