First BIAB Attempt Derp

I just tried my hand at BIAB for the first time, and my OG is 1.020. Beer tastes like water. I realized I should have investigated how to BIAB a little more before I tried it.


I plan on going to my LHBS and buying some DME to make the beer drinkable tomorrow. I basically treated it like a big steep. My bag didn't fit over my pot sides, so i just tied it off and threw in the grains and let it sit in the pot at 150F for an hour. In hindsight, this was obviously stupid, but my pot is also too small. I mashed in 6 gallons with an 11 lb grain bill. I sparged with a gallon of water and did not squeeze the bag. The bag sat above the pot for about 15 minutes draining.

I want to give this another shot, because I did everything wrong with this go around. Does anyone have tips for the next time I attempt this? Should I attempt this again given my equipment is likely too small?

Thanks,

CHans

Did you not boil it down? You will pick up a lot of gravity points as you boil off water! The BIAB process is really easy and it sounds like you got it mostly right. How much wart did you end up with after sparging? Why would you say your pot was too small, if you fit 6 gallons plus 11lbs of grain it must be a fairly good sized pot!

Thanks for the quick response,

No I boiled for an hour after sparging. I mashed in 6 gallons and added another one from sparging. I boiled off quite a bit of water and had to dilute it to get it back up to 5.5 gallons. I am guessing that I just needed to squeeze the bag and stir the grains in the bag while mashing?

I'd sparge with more water the next time.

But it sounds to me like the water wasn't in contact with all of the grains. Just bagging it up should work fine, but you've got to make sure they aren't too tight in there, or else the water won't reach all of the grains. Next time, poke it and stir (as much as you can in the bag) with the spoon for a good couple of minutes at the beginning of the mash.

Did you bump up your base grain to account for possible lower efficiency? What was your mash time and temp?

Something is up

Check the bag in my signature. A few people around HBT are very happy with it

I haven't gotten into all grain yet but the big question i have is that if your pot is small and you are doing a biab why not invest in a 3 gallon better bottle and do half batches. Not sure why you topped off to the 5 gallons

My guess would be that the grains didnt mix well enough with the water. Id look for a larger bag that will allow you to stir the mash properly. It doesnt sound to me like you really did anything else wrong. Maybe mash with or sparge with more water so you dont have to top off at the end but thats a bit of a trial and error thing. Keeping a few lbs of dme on hand is a good idea just for these types of situations.

This might be a silly question, but did you have some base grain in the grist? enzymes are necessary for conversion.

I typically get 80-85% efficiency with BIAB and I've done several batches where the bag didn't fit over the pot. I just hung the top over the side and put the top on the pot to keep if from falling in during the mash. Every 10-15 minutes I stirred the grain and checked the temperature of the mash. If it needed heat I turned on the burner and lifted the bag so it didn't touch the bottom of the hot pot.

Who milled your grains? At 1.020 I'd almost think they were tossed in un-milled.

I use a $15 voile curtain I got from bed,bath, and beyond for my biab bag. Works great and cheap. If the bag is a problem, you don't need anything special.

Yeah I think I didn't get good mixing. What is the best way to salvage this beer?

Thanks for the replies everyone

Grains were milled by my LHBS. Recipe was 9# US 2 row pale malt, 1# Victory, 1# wheat malt

I am pretty surprised at the low efficiency. I suspect the crush. I use a bag that is not as large as the diameter of the kettle, and do just fine. I also don't sparge.

I think dme is the best way to fix it. I
Not sure of the quantity. What was the target OG and FG?

CHans3 said:

Thanks for the quick response,

No I boiled for an hour after sparging. I mashed in 6 gallons and added another one from sparging. I boiled off quite a bit of water and had to dilute it to get it back up to 5.5 gallons. I am guessing that I just needed to squeeze the bag and stir the grains in the bag while mashing?

Click to expand...

I think this is your answer. You had fairly good extraction but were a little low on volume when the boil finished and you topped off with water. I'm betting that the water and wort didn't mix well and you took your hydrometer sample where it was mostly water. Use a big spoon with as long handle as you have to mix this wort again and take another hydrometer sample, then if you need you can add DME

Target OG was 1.051. I got 1.022. I tried mixing it again because I thought I may have just sampled a diluted area but there was no difference. The key is really the fact that it TASTES like water. Both samples did.

I have some extra light DME, maybe 2.5 lbs if I'm lucky (I think it may be time to invest in a scale). I pulled off a bit of the wort and I am going to boil it, toss in all of that DME, add it back in and I will be at least at something reasonable for beer hopefully.

2.5 lbs at 45 ppg for DME into 5.5 gallons i will get about 20 more points right? That will bring my pale ale up to 4 percent ABV maybe? I don't care about how strong it is. I really just want to try and save it so it tastes like beer and not water.

Anyone have any thoughts on this before I pull the trigger?

Thanks again for all of the help

Also maybe boiling off some water will get me more gravity points overall. Sacrifice some beer for a better overall tasting beer.

Wish me luck

CHans3 said:

Target OG was 1.051. I got 1.022. I tried mixing it again because I thought I may have just sampled a diluted area but there was no difference. The key is really the fact that it TASTES like water. Both samples did.

I have some extra light DME, maybe 2.5 lbs if I'm lucky (I think it may be time to invest in a scale). I pulled off a bit of the wort and I am going to boil it, toss in all of that DME, add it back in and I will be at least at something reasonable for beer hopefully.

2.5 lbs at 45 ppg for DME into 5.5 gallons i will get about 20 more points right? That will bring my pale ale up to 4 percent ABV maybe? I don't care about how strong it is. I really just want to try and save it so it tastes like beer and not water.

Anyone have any thoughts on this before I pull the trigger?

Thanks again for all of the help

Click to expand...

Looks like 2.5lbs DME will give, as you said, about a 20 point increase for gravity in 5.5 gallons putting you at 1.042. Should have you finishing up around 4%. Your original hop schedule might still be a little aggressive for such a low gravity wort.

What style of beer were you brewing?? Maybe you could get away with a pound or two of dark brown sugar to bump ABV up a little plus still leave some residual sweetness.

Yeah its kind of my only option at the moment. The hop character from the samples I pulled before was good, so hopefully this will do the trick.

OG is now 1.046. Thanks for the help everyone

My bet is still on that you topped off the finished boiled wort. What was your water to grain ratio? 12 lb to 6g is about 1lb/ 2qt which i believe is the correct ratio. Once you removed the grain and sparged you should have had about 4g which would boil down to about 3 after 1 hour. Your mash temp would have given you proper efficiency and your ratios look good, you doubled your volume which cut your gravity in half...

woknblues said:

I am pretty surprised at the low efficiency. I suspect the crush. I use a bag that is not as large as the diameter of the kettle, and do just fine. I also don't sparge.

Click to expand...

Could also be the water profile. I have soft water and had constant efficiency issues til I read the water chapter in How to Brew. Now I tweak it with gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom salt depending on the amount of roasted grain in the recipe. This ensures proper mash PH which is a big factor in efficiency. I've had no problems since starting this practice a dozen batches ago...

CHans3 said:

Thanks for the quick response,

No I boiled for an hour after sparging. I mashed in 6 gallons and added another one from sparging. I boiled off quite a bit of water and had to dilute it to get it back up to 5.5 gallons. I am guessing that I just needed to squeeze the bag and stir the grains in the bag while mashing?

Click to expand...

Stirring is ok, otherwise your temps might not be distributed evenly.
squeezing is bad, don't do that, but let it drip for as long as you can.

Justintoxicated said:

Stirring is ok, otherwise your temps might not be distributed evenly.
squeezing is bad, don't do that, but let it drip for as long as you can.

Click to expand...

If you're referring to "squeezing the bag, full of wet grain, being the cause of releasing tannins", I believe that myth has been dispelled.

scottab said:

My bet is still on that you topped off the finished boiled wort. What was your water to grain ratio? 12 lb to 6g is about 1lb/ 2qt which i believe is the correct ratio. Once you removed the grain and sparged you should have had about 4g which would boil down to about 3 after 1 hour. Your mash temp would have given you proper efficiency and your ratios look good, you doubled your volume which cut your gravity in half...

Click to expand...

So what would be the solution to this, because after thinking about this it makes more sense to me. Is the answer to spare with more water to get up to a higher pre boil volume?

CHans3 said:

So what would be the solution to this, because after thinking about this it makes more sense to me. Is the answer to spare with more water to get up to a higher pre boil volume?

Click to expand...

The more water the more grain you need, either you need a bigger pot which will hold more grain or brew 3 gallon batches. There are some great all grain recipes out there which have been scaled to 3 gallons. Your grain bill might have been ok but def very low efficiency due to pot size and compacted grain plus the top off.... check some of the threads on 3 gallon batches... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/calling-all-3-gallon-all-grain-recipes-85111/