BIAB with 8 gallon kettle

Hi Guys

I am an AG brewer, use a cooler for a mash tun and an 8 gallon boil kettle which gives be a 71% efficiency as I batch sparge, and yields 60 beers.
That said - that makes for a long brew day - 5 hours 45 minutes.

Was thinking about brewing smaller batches more often to experiment with ingredients, and thought BIAB would be a good option for that as I lose the mash tun.

My questions are:

1)With an 8 gallon kettle, what batch size would I be targeting to brew (BIAB) so that I can scale down my recipes
2) do you have to sparge when you BIAB or just let it drain (& squeeze) in the pot. If so what is a good methos to do that?

with my 8 gal pot I do 5 gallon batches up to 1.070 beers with no sparge( at 1.070ish the water is to the top of the pot). Beyond that I need to sparge. I just squeeze the bag, at first it is hot but it cools off quickly and my hands have no problems dealing with it. The bag sits over two mash paddles crossed over the pot so I am not necessarily holding the weight of the grains the entire time till I get nearly all of the water out.

To squeeze a bag I sandwich it between a colander and a small pot lid.

It kind of depends on your boil off rate. My 10 gallon kettle boils off almost 2 gallons per hour so my kettle is pretty full when I mash a 5 gallon batch but I typically brew bigger beers (1.065+). I think a 3-4 gallon batch would be very nice in an 8 gallon pot as you would have plenty of room for stirring but it would probably get a little tight for 5 gallon batches if you do 'no sparge.'

I do the no sparge method and when I pull the bag up by the pulley I clamp two 2x6s on either side of the bag and tighten the clamps to squeeze. It is too hot for me to squeeze by hand very well so I like the clamping method.

WayFrae said:

It kind of depends on your boil off rate. My 10 gallon kettle boils off almost 2 gallons per hour so my kettle is pretty full when I mash a 5 gallon batch but I typically brew bigger beers (1.065+). I think a 3-4 gallon batch would be very nice in an 8 gallon pot as you would have plenty of room for stirring but it would probably get a little tight for 5 gallon batches if you do 'no sparge.'

I do the no sparge method and when I pull the bag up by the pulley I clamp two 2x6s on either side of the bag and tighten the clamps to squeeze. It is too hot for me to squeeze by hand very well so I like the clamping method.

Click to expand...

With a no sparge, do you have to up your grain bill to account for a lower efficiency? What kind of efficiency do you get with a no sparge?

im in the same boat. sold off my stuff and just want to do 5g biab. i have a turkey fryer 7.5g pot. doing pale ales. havent tried yet but i guess if it wont work ill find out soon.

runkelia said:

With a no sparge, do you have to up your grain bill to account for a lower efficiency? What kind of efficiency do you get with a no sparge?

Click to expand...

I typically get a 75% efficiency. Most of my recipes I calculate at 72% just to be safe but I always overshoot my OG and end up at 75 or 76%.

EDIT: I think the reason I get a decent efficiency with the no sparge method is because I squeeze the bag with clamps. I have never tried just squeezing with my hands.

mb82 said:

with my 8 gal pot I do 5 gallon batches up to 1.070 beers with no sparge( at 1.070ish the water is to the top of the pot). Beyond that I need to sparge. I just squeeze the bag, at first it is hot but it cools off quickly and my hands have no problems dealing with it. The bag sits over two mash paddles crossed over the pot so I am not necessarily holding the weight of the grains the entire time till I get nearly all of the water out.

Click to expand...

I am trying to figure out how much "strike water" to add pre boil w/ BIAB in an 8 gal. pot because I don't know how much volume the bag w/ grains take up.

How much water do you mash with in your 8 gallon pot to yield 5 gallons?

Check out this website (http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml) and go to "Can I Mash It?". Punch in the amount of grain and the mash thickness (qts/lb) and it tells you how big a pot you need. Leave in a little fudge factor to play it safe.

With my BIAB setup I usually use a traditional ratio of 1.25 - 1.5 qts/lb for my main mash. Then I will either use the remaining water to mash out and reach my full boil volume or split it into mashout water and sparge water. There are lots of options. An 8 gal pot puts you in the 3-5 gal range for brews depending on the OG.

runkelia said:

I am trying to figure out how much "strike water" to add pre boil w/ BIAB in an 8 gal. pot because I don't know how much volume the bag w/ grains take up.

How much water do you mash with in your 8 gallon pot to yield 5 gallons?

Click to expand...

Usually I have between 6.25 and 6.75 gal of strike water when I am no sparge brewing. To be honest I just put in what Beersmith tells me to, I trust that it is correct.

mb82 said:

Usually I have between 6.25 and 6.75 gal of strike water when I am no sparge brewing. To be honest I just put in what Beersmith tells me to, I trust that it is correct.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information - I bought Beersmith at the '14 homebrew convention, haven't used it yet.

So what do you do - load your equipment and tell it somehow you BIAB?
Sorry for the million questions - thanks for all the helpful answers.

runkelia said:

So what do you do - load your equipment and tell it somehow you BIAB?

Click to expand...

Go to http://www.beersmith.com/forum for some more help with BeerSmith 2. There is a Stickie here: http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html that helps get you through setting up your equipment.

Another biab Michigan poster here! I use a 7.5 gal pot, and usually sparge with around 2 gal. Check out my calculator below, it's based off of rackers calc, and the biabbrewing calculator along with some other helpful info I found floating around.

Can check mash volume before and after grain addition, although currently it's a little aggressive with the space of the grain addition, strike temp for various mash volumes as well as custom sparge volumes. Mash heights, preboil height etc.

If there's any questions or suggestions for a feature let me know and I'll add it in asap!!
Link in my sig.

I have a 8 gal BK. Is that gonna be big enough for this following recipe for BIAB????



Sorry it's a split screen shot of it

copper2hopper said:

I have a 8 gal BK. Is that gonna be big enough for this following recipe for BIAB????

Click to expand...

Yes your 8 gallon kettle is large enough...you may need to sparge a bit due to the small kettle.

I BIAB with an 8gal kettle. I batch sparge with a cooler while I'm bringing the first runnings to a boil so I don't lose much time. I add second runnings just to whatever level I need in the boil. If there is any wort left (usually there is, I'll pour some in a mason jar to use as starters later).

I 'STFOOI' my bag (squeeze the F out of it). I use two pot lids to shield the heat. I'm generally in the 73% efficiency range so long as I got a good mill.

I have been considering a modified BIAB method: my SS pot full of grain and water, is just too heavy to lift easily by myself. Usually when I pour from my BK into my sparge tun, not only is it awkward, there is also some general splashing of hot wort that burns quite deeply. Anyway, I was going to put my paint strainers into my mash tun, add my grains and wait. At that point, I'll lift my grain bag out of the pot, set it into my Zapap tun, put my first running's into my BK, sparge my grain bag, pour into my BK, and proceed as usual. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

MindenMan said:

Usually when I pour from my BK into my sparge tun, not only is it awkward, there is also some general splashing of hot wort that burns quite deeply. .

Click to expand...

Get a 1 gallon pitcher to transfer liquids a bit at a time, for $3 problem solved. You don't want to be lifting and pouring from kettles.

You can even transfer post boil with a sanitized pitcher in a pinch.

Poor mans pump I call it, get one very handy.


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/