Brew in a Bag – Make a brewing bag

I did some research on brewing bags. Most people use Voile Curtain material, made of polyester. It needs to be fine enough that all purpose flour will go through the weave, but not anything bigger.  Walmart has good sized panels for cheap.

Build a better bag.
This panel will make about three bags, with enough left over for a hop bag as well.  The design can be as simple as a big sheet draped in the pot, or a simple two sided bag, like those plastic grocery bags we cant get any more. Or one with a narrower bottom so the wort drains to the middle.

The complex way to do it is make a frustum, or truncated cone. Picture a lampshade.

There are several ways to make these. They are well documented on BIABinfo. But basically you need an arch of fabric 15% bigger than the top of your pot, and 15% smaller than the bottom of your pot. BIABinfo has a handy spreadsheet to do the math for you.

The bag is sewn, and the seams are lain down, turned over and sewn down again. So called flat felled seams. A french seam could be used as well. the idea is to capture any edges which might fray.

I sewed the “lampshade” piece and inserted the bottom. Then I put a cylinder extension on it and sewed in a 1 inch webbing around the top and added four lifting handles (green).

Isn’t the grain supposed to go in the bag?