The Brew Bag Blog — fly sparging
Brew In A Bag vs.The Dreaded Stuck Sparge
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We read a lot of articles on the brewing process, and lately we came across two that addressed the issue of the dreaded stuck sparge. The sparge is post mash washing of the sugars from the grains and is accomplished by methodically adding just enough water to the mash tun to "float" the top portion of the grain bed. To allow outflow some sort of manifold with approximately 1/16" holes is inserted in the bottom of the tun. This lets gravity and pressure work together to provide an outlet for the heavier sugar laden wort. The manifold is connected to...
Moving Sugar Water - Filter vs Pickup
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Conversion and MIlling Converting starch to sugar is a complicated molecular process but as brewers we witness the simplicity of that process by milling grain, mixing in hot water and waiting for the magic to happen. Depending on your process, sixty to one-hundred-twenty minutes later we have wort (sugar water). Milling the grain breaks it up so the hot water can kick the enzymes (on the outer layer of the seed) into action and convert the endosperm (starch) into fermentable sugar. This process is known as conversion (literally converting starch to sugar through molecular action) and depending on the mix...
Discoveries from the American Homebrewers Association Conference
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This was my first AHA national conference, but it won't be my last. I left Grand Rapids with so much information to assimilate that I put it on a schedule. I assume that the BOD knows that the braintrust of speaker intellect would compel home brewers to react to all the information they absorbed, and then experiment to an even greater degree, as they seek to create both unique and common beers that exemplify the pursuit of a great brew. Eventually, craft beer lovers worldwide will be the recipients of it all when they tip future brews that have been influenced...
Efficiency and The Brew Bag - Endosperm is where it's at!
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There are some misconceptions in the home beer brewing culture that lead me to write this post. Efficiency is a simple term in brewer's lingo. It means the degree to which the starch in grain, with the help of enzymes, is converted to sugar(s) during the grain mash and transferred into the boil kettle. The explanation of the conversion of starches to fermentable sugars is very complicated and involves PH, water temperature, and enzymatic hydrolysis. I won't go any further on this ( because I don't know much more), but will say that all brewers key in on this term...
All Grain Brewing - Three Tier VS Brew In A Bag
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In a recent article discussing different methods of brewing, the author differentiated "all-grain" from Brew In A Bag. I had to read the sentence twice. BIAB does not use extract, does not come in a kit, (although Brewer's Best is now offering six BIAB kits that include the hops, grain, priming sugar, yeast, and caps) and utilizes the same mashing schedule as the "all grain" method. Now here's the kicker - to make beer using a brew bag you start with grain, that's right, BIAB uses nuttin but grain! I'll tell you what's happening across the USA - new and...