Bringing this thread back. I have now done 3 BIAB brews, and in the same span of time I did a traditional, in the cooler brew. All 3 BIAB brews have a tone of crud in the bottom of the fermenter. So much so that I lose just over a gallon to the trub. I kegged the traditional cooler brew 3 days ago and I had very little trub. I love the biab method only because it makes clean up so much easier, but to lose over a gallon each time is disturbing. Are there any comments or suggestions? I have to assume that the large amount of trub is due to the fact that I am not using the grain bed to filter out all the debris. If I cant figure this out I think I may have to go to the hybrid option of getting a brew bag that fits my cooler so that cleanup is a lot easier and I can vorlauf and have the grain bed filter.
If anything you should have less crud. What are you using for a bag?
I am using a bag that I got from my LHBS.
What is it made of? Voile is the best fabric. I used to use paint strainer bags
It sounds like the bag that @in_the_basement is using leaves something to be desired in the area of making sure that what is in the bag stays in the bagā¦
I use a BIAB bag from www.brewinabag.com, and it works like a charm for me. It works so well for me that I also purchased one of their hop bags. These bags might cost more than the bags that you traditionally find at your LHBS, but they absolutely get the job done without releasing āa ton of crudā.
Get yourself a good bag like the one recommended above. I mentioned this in the very first response to your post. You canāt blame the method if youāre using inferior tools.
Besides youāre not ālosingā a gallon. Itās not like the trub is drinking your beer. If youāre coming up short in volume you have other issues to address.
Danny, I thought I had a good bag, but I guess I have to consider trying the one from brewinabag. I say that I am losing a gallon because when I pour the wort into the fermenter, I top up to 5 gallons. Then 3 weeks after that, fermentation is complete and I siphon to the keg and I can only get down to just above the one gallon mark. So basically I am losing a gallon tot he fermenter because I cant drink that.
You may havve trub up to the one gallon mark but it should be well compacted. I bet thereās less than a quart of beer left in there.
I use a bag from the link above. I bag my hops in the boil and DH. Thereās nothing but a nice clean yeast cake at the bottom of my fermenters.
Thatās the bag I use also. Do you strain your wort when draining the kettle? Also some really hippy beers will leave more trub. Like Danny use a hop sack
I meant hippy beer with lots of hops. Like flower power IPA
Sounds like hippy beer to me.
I donāt strain from the kettle but I usually whirlpool for 20 mins or so while chilling and/or hopstanding. My pickup tube is about 1/2 inch off the bottom of the kettle, sacrificing about a quart of wort but keeping the fermenters a bit cleaner. Itās just break material thatās left behind though since I bag the hops.
Before I got the pump I always poured everything in from the kettle, through a double mesh stainless strainer, before I started bagging hops. After I started bagging Iād sometimes use the strainer just to aerate the wort but seldom collected anything in it.
edit: The hop bags are just paint strainer bags. I like the 1 gal ones for dry hopping and the 5 gal ones in the boil so they can be well exposed to the wort.
