Will an electric keggle do 5G BIAB

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I'm wondering if I'll be able to do 5G BIAB brews in my 15.5G keg.

It takes just under 4 gallons to fully submerge the element.

Is this still going to be viable for 5 gallon BIAB batches or should I use is as an HLT in the future or something.

Thanks
 
It seems that if you insulated it well then you could heat to strike temp, the turn off the element for the mash. then lift the bag out for the sparge and turn the element on for the boil. if you can't maintain mash temps then your looking at some sort of false bottom. It would also be cool to build some kind of element shroud out of stainless steel to stop scorching. I've never seen it done though.
 
Perfectly suitable, I do it all the time but I can boil down to 3 gallons w/o uncovering the element. For a 5.5 gallon batch, you'll need an additional 1 gallon for boil off, 1/2 gallon for grain absorption, and about 1/4 gallon for misc losses for an initial volume of 7-1/4 gallons. You'll find that to be quite typical for 60 min 15% boils.

ETA - Don't use the element during mashing, you'll never get good results IME. I wrap mine with a quilt during the mash but adding reflectex or similar insulative wrap would be equally effective.
 
I made sure to install my element as low as practical when building my keggle for exactly this reason. I have no trouble making the occasional 5 gal batch. A lot will depend on the specific layout of your system.
 
pvtschultz said:
Perfectly suitable, I do it all the time but I can boil down to 3 gallons w/o uncovering the element. For a 5.5 gallon batch, you'll need an additional 1 gallon for boil off, 1/2 gallon for grain absorption, and about 1/4 gallon for misc losses for an initial volume of 7-1/4 gallons. You'll find that to be quite typical for 60 min 15% boils.

ETA - Don't use the element during mashing, you'll never get good results IME. I wrap mine with a quilt during the mash but adding reflectex or similar insulative wrap would be equally effective.
Click to expand...

Same numbers I end up with for BIAB and it works great.
I do used the element to maintain temps and To ramp up the temps for mash out. With no other insulation other than a lid.
I keep my pump running the whole time and it does very well for giving me even temps. I use A LOVE controller on that system and I have great results. If I had it to do again I would use a PID with Manual Mode as an option.
 
I am also in the process of building a E-Keggle and started getting nervous when it took over 3 gallons of water just to cover the element. I installed it as low as I could but the shape of keg only allows for so much.
 
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20180110_172622.jpg
 
My keggle looks similar to yours. I have been doing EBIAB in a keggle for about 5 years. You start out with about 8.5 gallons of water so you end up with about 6 gallons of wort after the boil and grain absorption. I find that in order to do some 10 gallon batches that I replace some 2 row with dme in order to keep my grain bill under the 20# range. If you do 10 gallons on a regular basis you will wish you had a larger kettle. I have no problem brewing in Wisconsin in subzero weather is no problems. It's the clean up.
 

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