All grain max bill

Presently I do partial boils exract and steeping grains. What is the max grain bill I could expect to do in my 7.5 gallon brew pot? I'm thinking of easing into AG and would like to select a first recipie....

The size of the grain bill is limited by the size of your mash tun.

I use a round 10 gallon cooler. I have not pushed it to the limit yet, but I would imagine that I would be lucky to get 20 lbs in to it along with mash water.

The max grain bill isn't decided by how big your brew pot is, rather how big your mash tun is.

A 7.5 gallon brew pot is kind of small for all grain, if you expect to lose a gallon due to evaporation for an hour boil. You would have very little top room to prevent a boil over during hot break.

Sorry, I was planning on starting with brew in a bag, pop the grains into a paint strainer and "mash" on the stove in my brew pot.

You might want to test the full boil on the stove method before you try a batch. Most stoves won't come close to boiling the 7+ gallons you need for a 5 gallon batch. My 3 year old stove could barely bring 3 gallons to a boil.

If you are mashing in your kettle then you could do up to about 16# if you use 1.25 qt/lb. I have the same size pot and am moving into AG also. My plan is to mash (BIAB) in my kettle then drain my wort into a bucket to hold it. Then fill my kettle with sparge water, heat and rinse my grains. I can then dump the wort from my bucket back into my kettle and continue. As others mentioned, you may want to see if your stove is able to handle a full boil. If not, you could always do small AG batches. Here is a calculator that I use for mash volumes.

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Bobby_M on this site has done an analysis of the grain bill / OG you can brew in various mash tun sizes here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/how-big-your-mash-tun-needs-123585/ But that's for the more traditional cooler MLT AG method.

I realize we're talking about BIAB here, but it would make sense to me that if you can make an average (OG 1.059) beer in a 5-gallon cooler, you could conceivably do it in a 7.5-gallon kettle. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm just guessing ... the mechanics of the BIAB lauter/sparge process are completely foreign to me.

@william_shakes_beer: If you can't do AG, you may consider moving to a partial mash just as a stepping stone for now. It does give you a lot more control than even extract + steeping.

If you use 1.25 qts/lb you can fit 19 lbs in a 7.5 gallon kettle. At least that's what Beersmith says.

After the mash you will have about 5.125 gallons of wort. You can then sparge up to your preboil volume.

jww9618 said:

If you use 1.25 qts/lb you can fit 19 lbs in a 7.5 gallon kettle. At least that's what Beersmith says.

After the mash you will have about 5.125 gallons of wort. You can then sparge up to your preboil volume.

Click to expand...

That would bring you right to 7.5 gallons. He's going to need some room to stir the mash...could get messy if you go with 19#.

Yeah, don't try 19# in a 7.5 gal pot. Your SWMBO will strangle you for getting sticky wort everywhere.
You can safely do 15-16# batches which will get you into the 1.050-1.060 range, which gives you a lot of options.
A smaller grain bill is less expensive too, so if you screw up, (god forbid ) you won't be out much.
You'd probably have to top off the boil a bit, 6 - 6.5 gallons of boiling wort in a 7.5 gal kettle would make me very nervous...

I BIAB in 40 qt brew kettle and I used as much as 18 lbs of grain for my Maibock (ended up with 5.5 gal of 1.080 wort with 65% efficency). I had little room to spare, can fit in there as much as 20 lbs. But I have to admit I cheat a little. I always completelly ignore my grain-to-water ratio and always mash in brew kettle full to the top, 9 lbs of grain or 18 lbs of grain all get same amount of water to start (approx. 30 qt). I just use different ammount of sparge water to get my wort to desired pre-boil level. It works for me

i use a 30 qt stock pot my last three batches and it has done really well. just remember, fermcaps is essential.

As long as you have enough water to cover the grain bed, you could always do this:

1) BIAB mash with as much water as you can fit
2) After the "first runnings" (I guess it's still called that for BIAB?) put the bag in a collander over the brew pot
3) Heat up additional water in a separate pot to equal out to 6.5-7 gallons to make a 5 gallon batch depending on your pot's evaperation rate
4) Sparge this water through the grain bag and collander into the brew pot
5) Normal brew day from there

TopherM said:

As long as you have enough water to cover the grain bed, you could always do this:

1) BIAB mash with as much water as you can fit
2) After the "first runnings" (I guess it's still called that for BIAB?) put the bag in a collander over the brew pot
3) Heat up additional water in a separate pot to equal out to 6.5-7 gallons to make a 5 gallon batch depending on your pot's evaperation rate
4) Sparge this water through the grain bag and collander into the brew pot
5) Normal brew day from there

Click to expand...

+1, this is exactly how I BIAB and it seems to be works

ok, you have given me some things to think about. I was thinkinG BIAB= 3 gallon boil and top off, like extract and steeping. If AG requires a full 5 gallon boil, no way i'm gonna be able to do that with a 7.5 gallon pot and an electric stove. Partioanboil takes 30 minutes to reach a gentle boil.This means a 15 gallon pot and a propane burner.

Yeah, i have the same question, can you just add top off water and mash in a lesser amount of water or will your efficiency be out of whack? I want to make 10 gallon batches in my 10 gallon pot. I was thinking of mashing in about 8 gallons of water and then right before i transfer to my fermenter, i'd add water up to about the 10 gallon mark and split it between 2 fermenters. (All BIAB) Is that a stupid idea and should i just get a 15-20 gallon pot ($$$ )?