A Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine reader recently asked us the following question:
I want to transition to all-grain brewing. Brew-in-a-bag looks like an inexpensive way to get into all-grain, but are there any disadvantages?
Brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) is an excellent way to start all-grain brewing on a budget. In fact, my home system is a Blichmann BrewEasy, which is essentially a fancy stainless BIAB system. For the average extract brewer, all you need to purchase to step up to BIAB is a large pot, a grain bag, and some kind of propane burner.
The concept behind BIAB is to perform the mash and boil all in a single large pot. You heat up some water in a large pot, add a fine-mesh grain bag, and mix in the grains to get them to your desired mashing temperature. Then you maintain that temperature for an hour or so to complete the starch-to-sugar conversion. When you are done, just lift the grain bag out, which separates the grains from the wort, and then boil the wort. The rest of the process—adding hops, boiling, chilling, and fermenting—is the same process you use for extract brewing.