BIAB Winter Warmer

Since my first beer is resting comfortably in my closet, I've been going crazy - I want to do more brewing and soon!

This Friday I plan on going to the LHBS and pick up another fermenter and the ingredients for a winter warmer.

I would also like to go BIAB all grain with this recipe, seems simple enough and I have a 7.5 gallon kettle so I think it's possible based on this thread.

I would mash the grains in my kettle, then transfer that to my spare bottling bucket. Then I'd heat the sparge water in the kettle, sparge, then transfer back the wort.

Thoughts? I'd like to shift to AG as soon as possible, and this seems very reasonable. In the meanwhile a handy friend of mine wants projects and he's willing to eventually build me a mash/lauter tun, hot liqour tank, etc. We're debating fermentation chiller styles at the moment.

Would oxidation be an issue?

Nope I don't see oxidation being an issue. I would probably keep your wort in your kettle and sparge using a different large pot for the water. But that is just me.

That should work out fine. Be aware that you will have a pot that is pretty full and with all grain you will get a "hot break" that may boil over before it settles down. You could hold back a little of the wort and add it after the hot break settles but you also need to know that that bit of wort you add later will also have to go through hot break, although much smaller. Once you get the hot break settled you can add your hops for the hour of bittering.

mb82 said:

Nope I don't see oxidation being an issue. I would probably keep your wort in your kettle and sparge using a different large pot for the water. But that is just me.

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That's certainly possible. However after my 7.5 gallon pot, my next biggest is 2.5.

RM-MN said:

That should work out fine. Be aware that you will have a pot that is pretty full and with all grain you will get a "hot break" that may boil over before it settles down. You could hold back a little of the wort and add it after the hot break settles but you also need to know that that bit of wort you add later will also have to go through hot break, although much smaller. Once you get the hot break settled you can add your hops for the hour of bittering.

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My grain bill would be 15.5 lbs - which would mean a little over 5 gallons for the mash, right? That fits in my bottling pail.

How much would I need for the sparge?

I boiled 6.5 gallons last week and it didn't boil over (I was also quick draw with the spray bottle).

BIAB, sparge? Thought the whole point of BIAB was that you don't have to rinse the grains afterwards? Just bring the temp up to mash out then drain it and add that back to the kettle.

I wasn't familiar with BIAB back then - I'm more educated on the subject now. Cooling the wort of my partial-mash Dunkelweizen right now.