To squeeze or not to squeeze ?

[Mavroz]

When brewing a partial mash, after the 60 minute controlled steep at 66c, when removing the grain bag before the boil should the bag be squeezed to release the remaining liquid / flavour or not?

The short question is, do other brewers squeeze their bag dry or not?

 

[Leon103]

Yes. Get all the liquid out

 

[Cwrw666]

I would amend that - yes squeeze out the liquid. But stop if the liquid is very cloudy. I certainly find that the more floury stuff you get into the wort, the more gunk you get burning onto your element in the boiler during the boil. I've never had it producing burnt flavours in the beer (though I have heard of this happening to others) but I have found that if I get significant amounts of burnt stuff accumulating over the element in my Ace boiler then the thing starts switching off during the boil due to the element overheating.
Might not be a problem if you're using a stockpot on your cooker though.

 

[The Baron]

yes you can also sparge in a bucket of water or suspend the bag and jug sparge to get as much residual sugars out if you want. There is a few people who say squeezing the bag causes tannins to be extracted in my opinion another urban myth. Some may have got a tannin in there beer but I think it is other things that have caused it, never had any problems with squeezing

 

[The Baron]

As Cwrw666 says do not over squeeze for the flour which can burn on your element thats why some people sparge first then squeeze to rinse of most of the sugars
Ps that is one of the reasons people get a burnt tannin taste when they have over squeezed it burns on the element

 

[stevey]

I used to squeeze the bejesus out of mine when I used to BIAB, until I started kegging. I found I was getting more volume than I needed so was tipping away around 2 litres. I use brewmate and hit my numbers better without squeezing, although I use to batch sparge.

So, in conclusion, if you squeeze you'll end up with more beer; which is good if you have somewhere to put it. For me it was just a waste of energy.

Interestingly, until this week I used to stand my grain basket in a bucket after sparging, and when it had fully drained pour it into the boil. This week I decided to test it first and it came out at 1.012 so I will pour it down the drain from now on. I guess the sparge did it's job.

 

[BeerCat]

One of the best reasons for clear wort is scorching. Burned beer is awful. I hang mine up to drip dry and the wort is clear.

 

[GerritT]

Squeeze, but don't overdo it. It's hot and sharp anyways.