beerman1957

Recipes 

A lot of people use those. You can build a manifold type filter to mash with. Just search the forums. I would install a 1/2" valve on the drain port then you can still use it as a cooler if needed.

jwalker1140

Recipes 

I'm still working on this. I have a home depot paint strainer bag with the elastic opening and it's very tight when I pull it down over the outside of the cooler. And because the elastic opening doesn't have anything to hook on to, it just slides back up and down into the cooler. I'm not sure if I want to put screws or something into the outside of the cooler for the bag to hook on to. I probably should just buy a regular 24" x 24" grain bag.

Thanks again to all of you for being so generous with your knowledge! My beer making understanding is light years ahead of where it would be without this forum.

Partial mash maiden voyage: Deathbrewer's Dunkelweizen!

malevolent

Recipes 

Thanks for the guide. Going to be giving this a whirl hopefully tonight with a Flanders Red Ale recipe.


Edit: Brew day went well. Beer is now in the fermenter.

vegas20s

Recipes 

I just had to share.

Just got done brewing a saison using Death brewer's instructions for a mini-mash.

Using the formulas from "How to Brew" by John Palmer I did a multi-step. Since I had 1.5 lbs of flaked wheat, 1.25 lbs of oats and .25 lbs of corn grits I thought it would be a good Idea to have a protein rest. I shot for 122 degrees for 20 min 140 degrees for 40 and then I used the multi-pot rinse technique Death brewer describes; I shot for 158 degrees there.

All my temps came out low 115 to 140 to 150 respectively. I squeezed my grain bag out thoroughly. I figured I should get around 75% efficiency. I only take one hydrometer reading and that is right before I put the lid on the fermenter. So, I had 7 lbs of Pils LME and 2 LBS of inverted sugar.

If I take the sugar and LME out of the equitation I figure I got something like 70% efficiency.


THAT IS SO SWEET!

Here are the numbers if you want to double check my math.

7lbs pilsner LME = 250 PPG
2lbs inverted sugar = 90 PPG

Max ppg for other grains used in mini mash

2.5 lbs 6 row malt = 87.5 PPG
1.5 lbs flaked wheat = 54 PPG
1.25 lbs oats (mostly quick oats) = 40 PPG
.25 lbs corn grits = 9.75 PPG
.25 lbs dark munich = 8.75 PPG


My actual OG was around .080-.081.

If I take the LME and sugar out of the equation I have a max potential PPG (acording toTable of Typical Malt Yields from John Palmer's book ) of 200 PPG.

If I take my .080 reading and mulitply by 6 gallons I get a PPG of 480. Taking out the LME and sugar again leaves me with 140 PPG yield from my mini mash. 140 is 70% of 200.

Now go have a beer since I made your head hurt!

__________________
I just wanted to have a signature!

mizzourah2006

Recipes 

This looks like an amazing idea and a perfect in-between step for me, moving from extract.

I have one question and it may be really stupid, but I have only brewed 2 extract kits before.

My question is...

How do you make up for boil off with water? I noticed you mentioned 2-3 gallons for the mash (I have seen 1.25 qts per lb of grain). So let's say that gets you up to 2.5-3 gallons. Then you have 2 gallons for the sparge. That still leaves you short by about a gallon from the boil process.

Do you make up the remaining water at the end like you would with an extract kit when you only do 2.5 gallon boils? Where you just add a gallon of distilled water?

Thanks for all of your help this was an extremely helpful and awesome thread. I am still making my way through the pages, so perhaps my question has been answered.

Edit: Sorry DB, I found your response on about pg. 20ish. Thanks again though!!

gavball6

Recipes 

Hey Deathbrewer,
Great thread... Noob here with a few extracts under his belt and am thinking of trying this technique out. Playing around in BeerSmith with a Dry Stout recipe, it seems like I can make this all work in my 6 Gallon kettle with new DME addition. Am I missing something?

Here is the recipe. Using the calculators, it looks like I would mash the 9.4 lbs of grain in 11.79 qts of H2O taking up 3.7 gal of space. If I sparge and top up my boil to 4 gal, it seems like I hit my gravity and ibu's great for the style according to BeerSmith.

Is this right?


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 4.00 gal
Post Boil Volume: 3.50 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.60 gal
Estimated OG: 1.045 SG
Estimated Color: 30.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 35.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
6 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 63.6 %
2 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 2 21.2 %
1 lbs 4.8 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 3 13.8 %
2.1 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 4 1.4 %
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 5 35.9 IBUs
1.0 pkg Irish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1084) [124.21 ml Yeast 6 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 9 lbs 6.9 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 11.79 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 3 steps (Drain mash tun, , 1.09gal, 1.09gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------

flushdrew42

Recipes 

Last night I did my very first BIAB - of sorts...

my bag didn't fit over the lip of my mash kettle so i modified the method a bit, and mashed in another pot, transferred the mash into the bag, and then "tea bag" sparged.

here goes the step by step

1. dough in.

2. RDWHAHB

3. Bottle my Amber (first time in glass bottles!)

4. "Sparge"

5. open kettle view of sparge and sweet sweet wort

6. remove bag

7. Sparge/Rinse Grains


8. Add 1/2 of DME

9. First Hops addition - beginning of boil "C" hops

(not a step... but cool pic of spent grains)

10. BOIL

MORE GRAIN PRON

11. 30 Minute addition (5min also)

12. prep yeast

13. keep notes! (and the recipe close by)

14. Cooled. Aerated. Ready to Pitch

15. Lid. "it's all over but the waiting"


whole process took less than 2 1/2 hours, from heating strike water, to having my 3rd homebrew after the lid was on the fermenter.

i had a blast. this kind of brewing will lead to, most likely, AG BIAB's in the near future.

__________________
Drew
off suit brewing
grand island, nebraska
------------------------------
On Deck: APA
Primary:
Secondary: Cascadian IPA

Kegged: Heart Flush Irish Red Ale, Oatmeal Stout, American Wheat

Walzenbrew

Recipes 

I only have one 5 gal pot. Can I do everything in there with out a separate sparge pot? I can maybe heat up water separately then pour it over the mash. Does this work? Sorry for the noob questions

hnsfeigel

Recipes 

That's how I have been doing it. I have a big colander that fits over my big boil pot. I just mini-mashed in the pot, then lifted up the bag, slid the colander under it (resting on the rim) and poured my "sparge" over the suspended bag. Problem arose when my colander slid and fell in this time and spashed sweet, hot wort all over my kitchen.

I am going to switch to the tea-bag method next time, then just combine the two runnings. Less possibility for spill/injury with my setup. Do whatever works better for your setup. From what I understand, you just get a little better efficiency from dipping than pouring.

Walzenbrew

Recipes 

So really I could add the sparge water then dip the grain bag?