According to a recent online survey from Brew Your Own magazine, interest in Brew-in-a-Bag (BIAB brewing) is on the rise. The question was asked Do You Ever Homebrew Using Brew in a Bag Method? Approximately 1800 homebrewers responded, which appears to be the highest response to one of their online polls to date.
Here are the results:
32.7% polled said – Yes, BIAB is how I usually homebrew
26.1% polled said – No, but I would like to learn
24.5% polled said – No, I am not interested
15.5% polled said – Yes, occasionally
So 74.1% of the homebrewers who participated in the online poll either use BIAB already or are interested in learning about the BIAB homebrewing method.
I was actually pretty surprised that 32.7% of homebrewers usually brew using brew-in-bag. I wouldn’t have expected that number to be so high. With BIAB being so simple to learn, maybe more beginning homebrewers will take it up as their primary method of homebrewing after only a few extract brews; at least in small batches.
So what do you think? How soon should a beginning homebrewer start using the brew-in-a-bag method? Does it matter? What if a new homebrewer wanted to skip extract all together and go right to BIAB? Would you suggest it?
My first brew day ever was from an all grain 1 gallon kit. I did several one gallon recipes on my own in a pot on the stove sparging the mash. After a few months I scaled up to 3 gallon batches doing BIAB. SO easy. I would recommend starting this way from the get go to anyone interested in homebrewing. I have never brewed extract and never will.