BIAB Question - boil off for final volume

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Rivenin

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Hey all,

just a quick question i could not find an answer to..

Lets say for example i have a 10lb grain bill for a 5.5 gal recipe.

so using the standard 1.25qt per lb for mash and .5 gal per lb for sparge. That would equal to 3.25gallons mash + 5 gallons sparge = 8.25 gallons in the brewpot (for BIAB)

now because it's 10gal we'll account for around .1 gal per lb of grain for absorbtion.

so original water 8.25 gal - 1 gal for grain absorbtion = 7.25 gallons.

now we'll figure my boil off volume as 1 gal an hour.

so after grain absorbtion i'll have 7.25 gallons of water, minus 1 gal of water for boil off, that leaves me 6.25 gallons of wort for the fermenter... which i wanted 5.5 gallons into the fermenter. so would i boil the original wort down to lets say a tad over 6.5 gallons to account for the 1 gallon of boil off im' about to have, and then start the timer for the 60 mins?

this is the only thing i am having an issue with on finding an answer,

TIA! :)
 
The simple answer is to boil until you reach your desired OG....

That would mess up hop schedule. How would he determine when to add bittering and other additions if he does not have a static starting point?
 
Which is why it's the simple answer....

Which style of beer, hop schedule, other additions, boil loss etc. etc.....boil for the time only and add make-up water if needed to bring back up to 5.5 gal vs boiling to OG which should be close anyway...just save late addition hops when getting close to vol or OG.

Could get very detailed and specific...or keep it simple.
 
Thanks for the responses! :)

Well i do understand the boil untill you reach the OG.

however, i just need a basic rule of thumb for what i should do in those cases...

Because i do want to jump into "brew in a bag" i have a feeling it is going to be a bit different, i've read everything from "just put 7-8 gallons into a pot" to "3.02 qts per pound of grain" to as small as "2qts a pound"

what is the rule of thumb for brew in a bag per pound?
 
My BIAB batch was a 10.5lb grain bill and I just rounded to 8 gallons drank lots of homebrew and hit a 71% eff. with regular milled grain. My next batch will be milled on my new barley crusher. I believe (through all of my research) BIAB is all about the crush. Like you I worried a bit too much about water volume then after reading and watching several videos decided 8 gallons would be fine. I have an all electric setup with recirculation so holding temps was not an issue. I held 152 for 60 minutes then raised the batch to 170 for 20 minutes. Boiled for about 75 minutes and ended up with a little over 5 gallons. This will be good beer. Yours will be too.
 
awesome! thanks for the reply! good to hear about BIAB stories :)
 
I don't think you are stuck with the 1.25 and .5 numbers when it comes to BIAB. In 3v brewing the reason for those ratios is to maximize extraction without blowing ph but the BIAB concept trades a small amount of efficiency for simplicity. The point of putting in both your sparge and mash water is to end up with a set volume of wort pre-boil. Work back from your final volume to get your total water. If you come up a little short on water after pulling your grains you can add or do a little sparge through the bag to bring it up to full volume.

I will add that I'm speaking theoretically as I have yet to do my first BIAB but have been spending a lot of time noodling the concept and just sewed up a bag to use soon. Take my advice for what it cost - but it sounds good :)
 
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