Brew in a Bag--Hodgepodge IPA

This is my first experience with the brewing in a bag technique, and I thought it went well with little complaints. This method is best for people with limited resources who like to have complete control over their grain bill. 


Brewing in a bag gives the versatility of all-grain brewing without having to buy, clean or mess with a mash tun. I found it great for the apartment brewer, although I would recommend having a place to hang it outside as it can get a little messy.




All you need is a bag large and sturdy enough to hold wet grain and wrap it around the top of the pot as shown in the first picture. Then maintain the mash temperature with some towels or a fleece blanket as I did. I brought the water to about 161°F and then added the grain little by little to avoid doughy clusters, constantly stirring. The grain dropped the temp to about 156°F and the blanket worked incredibly well to insulate the mash. At the end of the hour, the temp was about 151°F--not bad for an outside temp of 42°. 




 
After the hour mash I hung it up and let it drain. I squeezed this bad boy as dry as I could, rinsed it with about two more gallons of sparge water at about 167 ° and squeezed it all over again. Then I did a 90 minute boil with the hop schedule as planned. All in all it was pretty simple. I was a little disappointed that both my local homebrew shops had no simcoe hops--terrible I know--so I just used a bunch of left over hops I had lying around in the fridge, hence hodgepodge.

Hodgepodge IPA


Grain Bill
14 lbs 2 row
12 oz. crystal 45
12 oz carapils
10 oz dextrose


Hops
3.5 oz chinook       90
.75 oz chinook       45
1 oz centennial      30
1 oz magnum        flameout
1 oz centennial      flameout


Dry Hop in secondary
1 oz chinook         2 weeks
1 oz centennial      2 weeks
1 oz columbus       2 weeks


.25 oz chinook      5 days at end
.25 oz columbus   5 days
.25 oz amarillo      5 days
.25 oz magnum     5 days


Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast


OG ----- 1.070  (roughly 7% ABV).
60% efficiency. So the brew in the bag isn't all that efficient of a method. But maybe I am missing something here--it was my first time.

Hail during the boil. Luckily we had a roof over us.