Best grain bag material

[Hamish Jones]

just wondering if anyone knows where to get the material to make a grain bag, kind of like the wine filter bag sort if stuff,

I made a bag of swiss voile and after about 60 minutes of the mash it became water tight and nothing drained out of it, until I got my BBQ fork and stabbed holes in it but was still really slow draining,

my bag sits in a stainless basket so also thinking about finding some stainless fly screen mesh or something similar, has anyone tried that?

[Scarrfie]

I am surprised you are having trouble with the voile, I have done 20 brews or with it without incident. I have even used 50% wheat flour mashes and had no problems. Perhaps dispense with the mesh? I do put a sieve over the outlet to my chillibin when draining and that works okay.

[Hamish Jones]

yeah I can't understand it, the stainless mesh I am using which is what the basket is made out of is 12mm gaps so thats not blocking anything, the bag worked perfectly until about 60 minutes then for some unknown reason it decided that draining wasn't what it wanted to do, the only thing about the bag is that I did make it double layered for a bit more strength maybe that could cause it but I would think it still should drain reasonably well

[Scarrfie]

I didn't actually use voile, which is actually a brand name you will pay extra for. Try the cheaper alternative perhaps. But maybe the double layer is an issue.

[Hamish Jones]

yeah the lady at the fabric shop did looka t me funny when I asked for swiss voile and sold me voile instead, wondering if they have any fabric like the american grain bags which drain really well, shame no brew shop in NZ appears to have a really big one that would fit, might have to go back to the fabric store and see if they have something close,

do you recall where you got your fabric from?

[Scarrfie]

Spotlight in Glenfield, Auckland. They had voile there alongside, and the two looked identical except for the colour.

[Hamish Jones]

sweet I will head to spotlight and have a look, the place I went to had a rack of voile but me not really knowing what I was looking for just took a punt,

Cheers

[Mike Cotton]

I use spotlight swiss voile, I have done 12 AG brews and a batch of wine using grapes in it and it is great. from memory I got 1 meter and had it overlocked to make 2 pillow case sized sacks. I dont whirlpool, just ditch the wort into the fermenter with a voile sack in after the boil. My immersion chiller goes inside the sack and when cool I lift out all the trub in the sack leaving clear Wort. A fermenter lid seal around the top of the fermenter holds the sack in place, Easy !

[paul m]

I've used the spot light swiss voile and works a treat- until it got lost and in desperation used a pillow case instead- pain in the arse real slow end up squeezing it until it ripped. salvaged the brew though resulting in drinkable ordinary bitter

[Darrin Smith]

I used muslin? cloth or cheese cloth when i was bag brewing and it worked sweet.  I guess the drawback is it may hold liquid and the nylon wont?

cheesecloth seemed more natural to me