BIAB Strike Water

Hello, looking to make the change over from extrit brewing to AG (BIAB)
Ive read and read all I can find here on HBT about it
I now have a question
the amt of strike to use, I have seen some say 1.5QT per # others 1.3QT/# how do I know how much to use

I understand to work backwards for my total water needed but this one item is not clear

BIAB strike water will be total volume. Work backwards or

total water = finished batch size + grain absorption + boiloff + trub losses + fermenter losses (yeast cake)

so roughly for a 5 gal batch, YMMV

total water = 5+.75+1+.5+.5 or about 7.75 plus minus

There is a very easy formula.

Batch volume + grain absorption + boil off + trub loss = strike volume

Dont' worry about the other all grain mash thinkness ratios used in the multi vessel systems. They don't apply here.

Info you will need
Gain absorption = grain volume in pounds * .06
Boil off = you can use 1.25 gal / hour until you know your equipment. Though I recommend googling boil-off-rates. There are some calculators which will tell you this more exactly.
Trub loss = use .25 gal as a good estimate.

That is all there is to it.

For example.
5.5 gal batch + (10 pounds grain *.06) + 1.25 gal (60 min boil) + .25 = 7.6 gallons (if the math in my head is correct. but you get the picture...)

Look up SIMPLEBIAB calculator. it does most of this math for you. very nice!

Oh please, just pour 7.5 gallons of water in your pot heat to your strike temp, add bag and grains and stir stir stir. 5 gallon batch of course.

Before you start you need to know the size of pot you have. You can't fit 7.75 gallons of water plus 14 pounds of grain in a 7.5 gallon pot, yet I manage to make a 5.5 gallon batch of all grain BIAB in a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer. Your first run through may not be perfect but it will get you a start. You can also start with a little less volume than you plan and do a simple wort addition by dunk sparging the bag or even just pour water through.

RM-MN said:

Before you start you need to know the size of pot you have. You can't fit 7.75 gallons of water plus 14 pounds of grain in a 7.5 gallon pot, yet I manage to make a 5.5 gallon batch of all grain BIAB in a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer. Your first run through may not be perfect but it will get you a start. You can also start with a little less volume than you plan and do a simple wort addition by dunk sparging the bag or even just pour water through.

Click to expand...

+1

This is exactly what I did when I used a turkey fryer setup - mash in 5 gallons within the turkey fryer and dunk sparge in a second 5 gallon pot with about 2.5 gallons.

RM-MN said:

Before you start you need to know the size of pot you have. You can't fit 7.75 gallons of water plus 14 pounds of grain in a 7.5 gallon pot, yet I manage to make a 5.5 gallon batch of all grain BIAB in a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer. Your first run through may not be perfect but it will get you a start. You can also start with a little less volume than you plan and do a simple wort addition by dunk sparging the bag or even just pour water through.

Click to expand...

I have 9 gal (36QT) Turkey Fryer with backet
I undersand how to work backwards (thanks for all your post to clear that up)
it's how do I know to start with 5gal or 5.5 etc, I have read posts here to mult #of grains X qts of water. some posts listed 1.25qts /# others up to 1.5qts/# of grain

I usually set the mash at 2.3 qts per pound in the software I use and it works out well. Since you have a larger pot than me you could set it for 2.5 or even higher.

if you do the dunk sparge, you don't have to have heated water for it. It may be just a little more efficient but cold water also dissolves a bit of the sugar and is easier to work with. You can just put the cold (cool, warm, hot, whatever) water in your fermenting bucket and dunk the bag of grains in it, then pour the wort into the boiling pot.

How many pounds of grain are you using. I have a 9 gallon turkey fryer pot and you can probably fit all the water and grains without having to do a dunk sparge. The 1.25 or 1.5 qts per pound pretty much goes out the window with BIAB.

The excel file found on this page is an excellent and simple calulator

Tinman13 said:

Hello, looking to make the change over from extrit brewing to AG (BIAB)
Ive read and read all I can find here on HBT about it
I now have a question
the amt of strike to use, I have seen some say 1.5QT per # others 1.3QT/# how do I know how much to use

I understand to work backwards for my total water needed but this one item is not clear

Click to expand...

I moved from extract to what is a hybrid BIAB partial mash 11.5 gallon batch about 6 months ago. I keep it simple. Doing a 1.050ish brew:

I raise 10 gallons to strike temp, 158-160 (to cover the thermometer)
Bag 7-8 lbs of grains and drop it in the kettle
Poke it and dunk it here and there for 60 minutes with the lid on
It generally drops below 145 in an hour, but sometimes I fire the burner for a few minutes
Pull the bag on a big strainer over a two gallon pot and take it to the kitchen
Sparge it with about a half gallon with 170 degree water
Return the runnings to the kettle and bring it all to a boil
Add 7 or lbs of DME
Top it off to about 13 gallons and then bring it to boil
Start the clock and add bittering additions....

It's very simple, but the results have been excellent IMHO.

I have always felt the need to go all grain, but this method has been so good that I am content now. I play with calculators, but in the end this method is the backbone for all that I brew. I just add or subtract DME to adjust my gravity targets based on experience. Its a great way to dip into BIAB and mashing. I know that many will say the volumes are critical, but I seem to get really good efficiencies this way and the end product makes me happy. And, I have one 20 big vessel to wash afterward.

Hope this is useful info. Cheers!

I did my first AG/BIAB last weekend. I have a 11 gal. pot with a basket.
I played with this calculator a bit and it helped with my confidence level before jumping in. http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/
It was pretty much right on the money.
By the way everything went good on my first batch.

I assume that if you want to sparge then you could subtract 1.5 gallons from your mash heat it up to 170 to sparge with?

Would you preform the sparge before the mash out? Of does it matter?

I just did my first biab last week. 10 gallon pot and 10lbs of grain. I started with 7.5 gallons at 170 and that temp was too high, it took me a lot of stirring to get down to my 153 mash temp. After a 60 minute boil i finished with 6.25 gallons of wort. I will adjust amount of water and heat from burner. Just my first experience, hope it helps. But in the end you won't really know till you go make some beer

newnick said:

I did my first AG/BIAB last weekend. I have a 11 gal. pot with a basket.
I played with this calculator a bit and it helped with my confidence level before jumping in. http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/
It was pretty much right on the money.
By the way everything went good on my first batch.

Click to expand...

This thing is pretty right on. I used it and it was pretty darn close to my brewsmith calculations. Highly recommend it if you dont have BeerSmith.

dhoyt714 said:

I assume that if you want to sparge then you could subtract 1.5 gallons from your mash heat it up to 170 to sparge with?

Would you preform the sparge before the mash out? Of does it matter?

Click to expand...

If your mash is kept at mashing temperature for a long period the enzymes will continue to break down the sugars from the long chain dextrines to the shorter chains that the yeast can work on. With a conventional mash tun you would be draining fairly slowly so the grain bed can filter the wort so this will take time and then you add sparge water and wait for it to dissolve the sugars and again drain slowly for filtering. If you use the cooler water for sparging you get a more fermentable wort, not necessarily what you intended so you use hot water to stop the enzyme action. That essentially is what mashout does for you.

With BIAB, your strainer bag filters very quickly. You then can begin heating the wort for boiling which quickly denatures the enzymes(mashout). If you want to sparge you can use the hot water as you would in a conventional mash tun or you can use cool water (my preference) which makes squeezing the last of the wort out easier since you will be heating the wort quickly. The sugars won't dissolve as well in the cool water but you still will get most of them.

brewinginnc said:

I just did my first biab last week. 10 gallon pot and 10lbs of grain. I started with 7.5 gallons at 170 and that temp was too high, it took me a lot of stirring to get down to my 153 mash temp. After a 60 minute boil i finished with 6.25 gallons of wort. I will adjust amount of water and heat from burner. Just my first experience, hope it helps. But in the end you won't really know till you go make some beer

Click to expand...

If you ended up with that much wort the conventional thing to do is to continue boiling until the target OG is reached. I prefer to just collect the extra amount of wort and bottle it and save that extra 30 minutes or so of boiling. With BIAB my efficiency is usually good enough that I get pretty close to the target OG even with that much extra wort if I use the recipe as written for the conventional mash.

RM-MN said:

If you want to sparge you can use the hot water as you would in a conventional mash tun or you can use cool water (my preference) which makes squeezing the last of the wort out easier since you will be heating the wort quickly. The sugars won't dissolve as well in the cool water but you still will get most of them.

Click to expand...

You can use cool water around what temp are you talking about

The cooler the water the harder it is to dissolve sugar in it. I take the water directly from my kitchen tap for the sparge because I already have most of the sugars (usually about 80% efficiency) and the grains are pretty hot yet so with a small amount of sparge water, the water still is pretty warm when I squeeze it out but not so hot as to burn my hands. I usually only get another 5% on the efficiency but it lets me mash in with a little less water so I don't overflow the turkey fryer pot and still end up with the correct amount pre-boil.

The first one of these I did, the calculator called for 7.75 gal. water. I used 7, holding back the rest to make sure it all fit in the pot. I used the .75 to pour through the grains after I pulled the basket out of the pot. That was enough to cool the grains off so I wouldn't get burned. I didn't squeeze the bag out but just used a small bowl to push down on the bag in the basket that I had set over another container.

brewinginnc said:

I just did my first biab last week. 10 gallon pot and 10lbs of grain. I started with 7.5 gallons at 170 and that temp was too high

Click to expand...

Ouch! 170 too too hot as you now know! You should be 160 strike temp plus minus a few.

Menard's sells 4 gallon bottles of RO water. The price isn't great, but I refill them for $1.60 at Kroger. I use two bottles for my BIAB batches regardless of grainbill (8 gallons strike water). I usually put 5.5 - 6 gallons into the fermenter. I use a 10 gallon kettle.

dhoyt714 said:

I assume that if you want to sparge then you could subtract 1.5 gallons from your mash heat it up to 170 to sparge with?

Would you preform the sparge before the mash out? Of does it matter?

Click to expand...

I have a 7.5 gal kettle that I mash in about 5.5-6 gal. of water. I then do a sparge in 170° water in a 5 gal kettle in about 2.5 gal of water. I used to do a mashout prior to the sparge, but yesterday I skipped my mashout step and went straight to the sparge. I still hit around 75% efficiency and my target OG was spot on. So I would say you can get by without doing a mashout.

wilserbrewer said:

Ouch! 170 too too hot as you now know! You should be 160 strike temp plus minus a few.

Click to expand...

Yup last night did a pilsner and 160 strike temp was right on for 10lbs of grain