Mesh size versus squeezing…
Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2024 8:25 am
And another question from a relative newbie…
Background
I have almost three decades of beer brewing experience. Home brewing technology changed substantially from the early 90s to today. Along the way, BIAB techniques were introduced. The loss of efficiency with a BIAB approach was offset by time saved and no need for sparging.
Product was good and but there were occasional dismissive comments about ‘not being real beer brewing’ or some such.
Distilling became the new focus
New hobby – so get a bigger brew pot for mashing.
Bigger brew pot was too large for the former BIAB bag.
Went looking for a larger bag and discovered that now bags come in various meshes – depending on the vendor there are now nine different mesh sizes available.
(Reminder: mesh size is inversely proportional to micron rating.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nrcc/dispatch/equ ... onMesh.pdf )
Turns out that my old bag was ~200 microns (63 mesh) – about all that was available at the time.
In talking to a bag vendor, he said that today many hobby distillers are using 800 micron (~20 mesh) and get good results without squeezing with a mop wringer or press of some type.
The Questions
Assume corn based mash but processed with hi and low temp enzymes. The resultant mixture is reasonably thin. Looks like a good candidate for a BIAB with a larger mesh and no squeezing.
Has anyone tried the larger mesh sizes?
What is the experience?
Any views or opinions would be welcome.
Background
I have almost three decades of beer brewing experience. Home brewing technology changed substantially from the early 90s to today. Along the way, BIAB techniques were introduced. The loss of efficiency with a BIAB approach was offset by time saved and no need for sparging.
Product was good and but there were occasional dismissive comments about ‘not being real beer brewing’ or some such.
Distilling became the new focus
New hobby – so get a bigger brew pot for mashing.
Bigger brew pot was too large for the former BIAB bag.
Went looking for a larger bag and discovered that now bags come in various meshes – depending on the vendor there are now nine different mesh sizes available.
(Reminder: mesh size is inversely proportional to micron rating.
https://gacc.nifc.gov/nrcc/dispatch/equ ... onMesh.pdf )
Turns out that my old bag was ~200 microns (63 mesh) – about all that was available at the time.
In talking to a bag vendor, he said that today many hobby distillers are using 800 micron (~20 mesh) and get good results without squeezing with a mop wringer or press of some type.
The Questions
Assume corn based mash but processed with hi and low temp enzymes. The resultant mixture is reasonably thin. Looks like a good candidate for a BIAB with a larger mesh and no squeezing.
Has anyone tried the larger mesh sizes?
What is the experience?
Any views or opinions would be welcome.