Need help with water volume for first BIAB partial mash

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de5m0mike

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I plan to do my first BIAB next weekend. Because it's my first, and I don't know what my efficiency will be, I've planned it as a partial mash so I can calculate the right amount of extract I need at the end to hit my target O.G.. I think I have my recipe and everything planned out pretty well the way I want it but I could use some help estimating my water volumes.

I have a standard 7.5 gallon turkey fryer set up. I usually start with 6 gallons when doing an extract brew/steeping grain recipe and finish after a 60 min boil with about 5 gallons. I don't really have any idea though how much water my grain (8.5 lb.) will soak up, how much will be lost to evaporation, or even how much I'll be able to fit in my pot once all that grain is in there. Plus I've read Rye Malt and Rice hulls tend to soak up even more so that complicates it even more for me. I was hoping someone with experience with BIAB could look at this and give me some advice. How much water should I start with? How much would I expect to loose in the mash? How much would I expect to have to add before the boil? Ideally I'd like to end up transferring about 5 gallons to the primary.

If it helps, here is my malt list.

4.50 lb. US 2-Row Malt
1.50 lb. US Rye Malt
0.75 lb. German CaraMunich II
0.75 lb. US Caramel 40L Malt
0.25 lb. US Carapils Malt
0.25 lb. US Caramel 120L Malt
0.25 lb. Belgian Aromatic Malt
0.25 lb. US Rice Hulls
2.00 lb. Extract - Light Dried Malt Extract

Thanks a ton.

Mike
 
My calculator says you need at least 7g to start.

What exactly are you saying? Do I have too much grain in my recipe to pull this off in a 7.5 gallon pot? I doubt I can get 7 gallons of water and all the grain in my pot. I suppose I could always alter my recipe to use less grain and more DME.
 
What exactly are you saying? Do I have too much grain in my recipe to pull this off in a 7.5 gallon pot? I doubt I can get 7 gallons of water and all the grain in my pot. I suppose I could always alter my recipe to use less grain and more DME.

I didnt create the formula.....

Total grain (lbs) x 0.125 gives you the total plus loss from absorption.

I think you could go with 5g mash and a 2-2.5g sparge in a separate pot with say 170F water as a mash out. That would bring your volume up to around 6-7g for your boil. Otherwise you need to make a smaller batch or purchase a larger kettle.
 
First of all you do not need rice hulls as you are doing brew in a bag. Rice hulls have no startch content and are only in a grain bill to prevent a stuck sparge. I would try to get go over to http://www.biabrewer.info/ join up and get their calculator and read as much over there as you can. If you don't want to join over there you could probably PM for their calculator. My gut reaction with your volume amount is to fill your kettle about 3/4 of the way then dough in then top off your kettle and mash. Then after your done mashing check your gravitiy and add extract as needed to hit your target. Then boil down to your target volume.
 
I plugged this into Beer Smith. Here is a copy of the relevant info from the print out. This is at a 1.25 qt of water per lb. of grain. Cliff's notes--prep about 7 gallons of brewing water. Mash in with 2.66 gallons of water for 60 minutes. Sparge (read-move bag to pot and teabag a few times, let rest 10-15 minutes, tea bag a few more times, let drain through a colander) in about 4 gallons of water at about 168*. Top up to around 5.72 gallons or whatever your preboil volume usually is to achieve 5 gallons post boil. Continue as normal with hop additions. Add extract with 15 minute hops additions for late extract or at beginning of boil if that is what you like to do.

Hope this helps. Beer Smith is $20 and a must if you are going to start doing partial mash or all grain.

If you don't mind a little critique of your recipe, there seems to be an awful lot of crystal/ specialty grains. Personally, I would probably scale back a little and simplify so you can tell where your flavors are coming from. What recipe is this and what is your hop schedule?

Good Luck and don't hesitate to ask any more questions. This mash schedule is default set at 150* which will create a pretty fermentable wort, though that will be offset to a certain extent by the extract. You have included dextrine malt which will help with mouthfeel/ body/ head retention. If you like a slightly sweeter brew, up the mash temp by as much as 5 or 6*

:mug:

Prepare 6.74 gal Water for Brewing

Mash or Steep Grains

Ingredients for Mashing Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 2.38 %
4 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 42.86 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 14.29 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
12.0 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
4.0 oz Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
4.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %


Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
60 min Mash In Add 10.63 qt (2.66 gal) of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F

Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 4.08 gal of 168.0 F water

Boil Wort

Add water to achieve boil volume of 5.72 gal

Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.052
 
I plugged this into Beer Smith. Here is a copy of the relevant info from the print out. This is at a 1.25 qt of water per lb. of grain. Cliff's notes--prep about 7 gallons of brewing water. Mash in with 2.66 gallons of water for 60 minutes. Sparge (read-move bag to pot and teabag a few times, let rest 10-15 minutes, tea bag a few more times, let drain through a colander) in about 4 gallons of water at about 168*. Top up to around 5.72 gallons or whatever your preboil volume usually is to achieve 5 gallons post boil. Continue as normal with hop additions. Add extract with 15 minute hops additions for late extract or at beginning of boil if that is what you like to do.

Hope this helps. Beer Smith is $20 and a must if you are going to start doing partial mash or all grain.

If you don't mind a little critique of your recipe, there seems to be an awful lot of crystal/ specialty grains. Personally, I would probably scale back a little and simplify so you can tell where your flavors are coming from. What recipe is this and what is your hop schedule?

Good Luck and don't hesitate to ask any more questions. This mash schedule is default set at 150* which will create a pretty fermentable wort, though that will be offset to a certain extent by the extract. You have included dextrine malt which will help with mouthfeel/ body/ head retention. If you like a slightly sweeter brew, up the mash temp by as much as 5 or 6*

:mug:

Prepare 6.74 gal Water for Brewing

Mash or Steep Grains

Ingredients for Mashing Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 2.38 %
4 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 42.86 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 14.29 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
12.0 oz Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
4.0 oz Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
4.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %


Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
60 min Mash In Add 10.63 qt (2.66 gal) of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F

Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 4.08 gal of 168.0 F water

Boil Wort

Add water to achieve boil volume of 5.72 gal

Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.052

with grain absorption how woould 6.7g give him enough wort to compensate for grain absorption and boil off? I started with 8.5g on my last BIAB and started my boil with less than 7g on my last batch and I squeeze the bag. I lost 1.5g to an 11lb grain bill.
 
with grain absorption how woould 6.7g give him enough wort to compensate for grain absorption and boil off? I started with 8.5g on my last BIAB and started my boil with less than 7g on my last batch and I squeeze the bag. I lost 1.5g to an 11lb grain bill.

Dude, I just did him a favor by plugging it in to my software and I guess it calculated about 1 gal of absorption by the grain. I also recommended he bump it up if he usually gets more than .5 gal boil off. If it is off based on the experience of folks such as yourself with more BIAB experience, I'm glad y'all are chiming in. I brew AG and the absorption rates have always been pretty much dead on for me, did not figure it made any difference whether one was mashing in a bag or an MLT...

:mug:
 
First of all you do not need rice hulls as you are doing brew in a bag. Rice hulls have no startch content and are only in a grain bill to prevent a stuck sparge.

I originally left this out of my recipe but a fellow brewer who I highly respect suggested adding a little. We realize it may not be necessary for BIAB but thought it couldn't hurt to add a little. If it turns out I don't have a big enough pot to pull this off I may loose them again.

I would try to get go over to http://www.biabrewer.info/ join up and get their calculator and read as much over there as you can.

Thanks for the link. I just joined up over there.

My gut reaction with your volume amount is to fill your kettle about 3/4 of the way then dough in then top off your kettle and mash. Then after your done mashing check your gravitiy and add extract as needed to hit your target. Then boil down to your target volume.

I don't think I understand how this works. If I add extract to hit my target, and then boil it down wouldn't that concentrate my wort and throw off my OG?
 
with grain absorption how woould 6.7g give him enough wort to compensate for grain absorption and boil off? I started with 8.5g on my last BIAB and started my boil with less than 7g on my last batch and I squeeze the bag. I lost 1.5g to an 11lb grain bill.

When I did my first BIAB i used beersmith as well. I just used the amount they recommended I think 1.25qt/lb grain ration (for me it was 4 gallons). When I was done with the mash, I pulled up the bag and let it drain as long as I could, then put it into a pot with about 2 gallons of 168F h20 for 10 minutes (put bag into collander and added that to wort after 10 minutes). I added the sparge water to the wort and topped it up to 7 gallons -with plain old tap water- (my boil at 60 minutes yielded 5.5 gallons after chilling).

Am I missing something here? Shouldn't he just "pot" sparge, then top off to his pre-boil volume?

I should mention that I exceeded my target gravity with this method.
 
I plugged this into Beer Smith. Here is a copy of the relevant info from the print out. This is at a 1.25 qt of water per lb. of grain. Cliff's notes--prep about 7 gallons of brewing water. Mash in with 2.66 gallons of water for 60 minutes. Sparge (read-move bag to pot and teabag a few times, let rest 10-15 minutes, tea bag a few more times, let drain through a colander) in about 4 gallons of water at about 168*. Top up to around 5.72 gallons or whatever your preboil volume usually is to achieve 5 gallons post boil. Continue as normal with hop additions. Add extract with 15 minute hops additions for late extract or at beginning of boil if that is what you like to do.

I was originally hoping to do this all in one pot as described here http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4650 but I suppose I can borrow a second turkey fryer set up and use two pots if needed.

Hope this helps. Beer Smith is $20 and a must if you are going to start doing partial mash or all grain.

Thanks for plugging this in to Beer Smith. I'm actually a Mac user and I just purchased Beer Alchemy. This is my first batch since the purchase though so I'm still trying to figure a few things out. One of which being how to set up my boil volumes. I know I'll dial them in as I brew more and take better notes but for now I'm tying to get as accurate an estimate as I can for my first batch.
 
Dude, I just did him a favor by plugging it in to my software and I guess it calculated about 1 gal of absorption by the grain. I also recommended he bump it up if he usually gets more than .5 gal boil off. If it is off based on the experience of folks such as yourself with more BIAB experience, I'm glad y'all are chiming in. I brew AG and the absorption rates have always been pretty much dead on for me, did not figure it made any difference whether one was mashing in a bag or an MLT...

:mug:

Absolutely not attacking you just questioning the beersmith numbers. I can appreciate that you ran those numbers. Sorry if I sounded condescending. Did not mean that in any way. :mug:
 
If you don't mind a little critique of your recipe, there seems to be an awful lot of crystal/ specialty grains. Personally, I would probably scale back a little and simplify so you can tell where your flavors are coming from. What recipe is this and what is your hop schedule?

I don't mind critique. I'm going for a Founders Red's Rye type beer. But I wanted to to use more rye and a different hop profile. Founders actually has another beer on tap called foreign spy rye that I love so I was kind of trying to do a mix of both even though there isn't any recipe info on the spy rye out there. So, I based the bulk of it off this recipe I found online. http://blog.flaminio.net/blogs/index.php/beer/beer-tasting/founder-s-red-s-rye-tasting-aamp-recipe And adjusted to suit my needs.

I also talked to someone I know who works at Founders about their new beer so I'm basing some of this off what I was told by him too.

US Centennial 0.25 oz First Wort Hopped
US Amarillo 0.25 oz First Wort Hopped
US Simcoe 0.25 oz First Wort Hopped

US Amarillo 0.25 oz 15 Min From End
US Simcoe 0.25 oz 15 Min From End
US Centennial 0.25 oz 15 Min From End

US Amarillo 0.25 oz Dry-Hopped
US Simcoe 0.25 oz Dry-Hopped
US Centennial 0.25 oz Dry-Hopped

Target IBU (using Tinseth): 39.7 IBU
 
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