First All Grain Brew and Hop Questions

So bear with me here please, this might be a long one.

So I've been extract brewing for about a year now, and my brewing buddy and myself have decided to take it up a notch and move to all-grain. However, we are also on a college budget and don't have the means to buy all the fancy gear required to brew all grain. So we're starting to experiment with some alternative all grain techniques.

He's going to run a brew with a batch sparge technique, and I'm thinking of trying a brew-in-a-bag. I have a recipe calculated for 75% (which will be found below).

Question 1: Can I reasonably expect 75% for my first BIAB brew? If not, what efficiency should I expect?

Now, for the same recipe (a Red IPA), I picked up the hops today, and I was able to get some Simcoe, which I hadn't planned on doing at first, but it fits well with the rest of the hops.

Question 2: What's the best way to get the best flavor/aroma from Simcoe? 5 min boil, dry hop, etc?

Red IPA Recipe (assuming 75%):
10.6 lbs 2-Row
12 oz Cara 80
4 oz Chocolate

1 oz. Cascade (60 min)
1 oz. Chinook (30 min)
1 oz. Willamette (10 min)
1 oz. Chinook (5 min)
1 oz. Falconer's Flight (dry hop)

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale

Batch Size: 5 gal
OG: 1.064
IBU: 65
SRM: 16

I have a bunch or questions that I need answered before I can give good suggestions.
1. How big is the pot you intend to use for BIAB?
2. Who mills your grain and can you get them double milled for your BIAB batch?
3. Do you have a plan on what to do if you don't hit 75%?
4. Do you like bitter beers? What method is used to calculate the IBU's, Rager or Tinseth?
5. Would it break your heart if I suggested you skip the 30 minute hop addition?

I do BIAB and usually get about 75% efficiency, and this is mashing at full pre-boil volume. Try it this time and see how it compares to your target OG and then adjust from there, there's really no other way to figure it out without testing your system.

As for the hops, that's a matter of opinion. I've been doing 15 min and flameout additions for flavor and aroma and so far I've been pleased with the results.

Okay, so my roommate has an 8-gallon brew kettle. Is that going to be okay for a 5-gallon BIAB batch?

Not unless you plan to do a sparge. Assuming your pre-boil volume is at least 6 gallons you're never going to get all that grain in there, plus you have to account for grain absorption. So your best bet would be to mash with the highest volume of water you can fit in your kettle with the grain and then after you pull the bag pour 170F water over the bag until you reach your target pre-boil volume.

garebear22 said:

Okay, so my roommate has an 8-gallon brew kettle. Is that going to be okay for a 5-gallon BIAB batch?

Click to expand...

I've done a few 5 gallon batches in my 7.5 gallon turkey fryer pot but it's really tight. I think you will need to start with a little less than full volume of water and then sparge to get to your pre boil amount. From my experience, if you start without all the water, pull the bag and set it in a colander over another bowl to collect the wort that will drain out and while waiting for that, start heating your pot to the boil and let the hot break subside before sparging and adding the rest of the wort. It will make a second hot break when you do this but it will be less likely to boil over.

You can find an easy to use BIAB mashing & sparging calculator here: http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/BiabCalc/

Your roughly 12 lbs of grain will displace about 1 gal of volume. So if you mash with 6 gal of strike water you will have about a 7 gal mash. Your grain water retention will also be about 1 gal (assuming some bag squeezing), so you will net ~5 gal of wort from the mash. Sparging with 2 gal of water will bring the total wort volume up to 7 gal. You should net about 5 - 5.5 gal to fermenter depending on boil off, hop absorption, and trub loss. Heat the sparge water if you can, but it is possible to sparge with cold water as well (http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2009/05/12/cold-water-sparging/.)

75% efficiency is definitely realistic with BIAB, as many people get 80 - 90% efficiency, if they have a good crush and process techniques. Definitely go for double crush if you can, or if crushing your own, then crush very fine.

Brew on

RM-MN said:

I have a bunch or questions that I need answered before I can give good suggestions.
1. How big is the pot you intend to use for BIAB?
2. Who mills your grain and can you get them double milled for your BIAB batch?
3. Do you have a plan on what to do if you don't hit 75%?
4. Do you like bitter beers? What method is used to calculate the IBU's, Rager or Tinseth?
5. Would it break your heart if I suggested you skip the 30 minute hop addition?

Click to expand...

I totally missed your response earlier and I must say I'm sorry.
1. 8 gallons, I think.
2. My LHBS and yeah I can.
3. I don't have a plan. What can I do?
4. Bitter beers are good with me. I'm not sure what formula I use, but I could pass along my equation. I do use brewtoad and find that to be consistent with my own calculations.
5. It would not. Would that just not do much of anything? And could I use that ounce of Chinook somewhere else?

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/red-ipa-ag-batch-sparge

^That's the link to my recipe. I changed up the hop additions a bit.

1 oz. Cascade 60 min
1 oz. Chinook 10 min
1 oz. Willamette 10 min
1 oz. Simcoe 5 min

Dry Hop:
Falconer's Flight 14 days
Chinook 14 days

What do you think?

garebear22 said:

I totally missed your response earlier and I must say I'm sorry.
1. 8 gallons, I think.
2. My LHBS and yeah I can.
3. I don't have a plan. What can I do?
4. Bitter beers are good with me. I'm not sure what formula I use, but I could pass along my equation. I do use brewtoad and find that to be consistent with my own calculations.
5. It would not. Would that just not do much of anything? And could I use that ounce of Chinook somewhere else?

Click to expand...

For #3: If you miss low you can calculate how much DME you need to add afterwards for the volume you got. Just figure the volumes out and boil then add as needed for your OG.

For #5: 30 min additions add way more to bitterness than to flavor. Typically only 20 min to ~10 min additions will add a good bit to flavor. Anything less than or equal to ~5 should really be considered an aroma add.

3. I didn't have any plan when I made my first BIAB. The recipe assumed 65 to 70% brewhouse efficiency. I got 80 and had to drink beer that had more alcohol than the recipe had planned for. Oh darn!