Trying Brew In A Bag

I’ve been hearing a lot about the all-grain “brew in a bag” (BIAB) style of mashing.  I’ve held off for awhile but finally made the plunge.  I’ve been all-grain brewing for a while now (videos: Mash Tun, Grain Mill) and have all the equipment needed, but I wanted to try a little something new.

It was another case of “what stuff do I have lying around” like the saison I made a few months back.  This time I had a pound of PB2 lying around along with some Maris Otter that needed to be used to make way in my containers for a new bag of MO I bought earlier in the week.  I decided to make a peanut butter porter.

One of the advantages I had was that I fry my turkeys.  I could wax poetic on how awesome fried turkeys are, but for our purposes I want to point out that I use a “turkey derrick”.  I took my idea straight from Alton Brown, and it works like a champ for turkeys, and BIAB.

As Alton explains above (with printable plans here) with a few items from a home improvement store you can make things easier and safer.  Also, I have to give a nod to the “A-Team” influenced music.

Even thought my derrick wasn’t as nifty as Alton’s it still served the same purpose.  It was very easy to pull the 18 pounds of grain (plus water) out of my keggle with this simple machine.  One thing that help me with this whole project was the use of silicon gloves

Here’s the video I shot for you to take a look at some tips and tricks I picked up.