Brew in a Bag question

Hi folks. Need a little help here. Taking a baby step into All-Grain by making Yoop's Pale Ale. Can anyone take a look at her recipe below and see if I need to make any adjustments. Thanks



Da Yooper's House Pale Ale

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Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: S-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU: 43.6
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 12
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 at 62 degrees
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): dryhopping
Tasting Notes: A balanced APA with malt flavor, and hops flavor, for a nice APA.

palealerecipes.bsm

5 pounds pale malt (I used marris otter)
3 pounds vienna malt
2 pounds Munich malt
1/2 pound crystal 20L
1/2 pound crystal 60L

1 ounce Cascade 60 minutes
.75 ounce cascade 30 minutes
1 ounce Cascade 10 minutes
1/2 ounce cascade 5 minutes
1/2 ounce cascade flameout

1 ounce cascade (dryhop)

I used homegrown cascade for the late hopping additions, so had to guestimate the final IBUs, but used commercial pellet hops for the bittering additions (8% AAU).

Mashed at 154. Fermented at low ale temps (62) for two weeks, then dryhopped for a week.

The only potential issue I see is that Yooper seems to have that formulated for 75% efficiency to get to the gravity of 1.058 with that grain bill.

You probably won't get high of an efficiency with brew-in-a-bag on your first try (I think BIABers generally get much lower than this, but I am not certain.)

You might want to use more gain with the assumption that you will get lower than 75%.

Only comment is that brew in bag seems to often lead to a drop of about 10% in effeciency from what Ive heard, so could consider upping the malt bill a little to achieve the same gravity, or boil off a little longer.

Hi- +1 on the expected efficiency. I might bump the Vienna and Munich back to 1.5 pounds each and up the Maris Otter to 10 pounds, but that's just a personal preference--I'm a big fan of using MO as the backbone of a Pale Ale.

Another preference would be to shift your .75 ounce Cascade addition at 30 minutes to a 1 ounce addition at 15 minutes. You'll get more flavor and close to the same amount of bitterness.

Good luck with the brew!

I'm not sure what your question is. Are you asking if it is feasible to BIAB with 11 pounds of grain? That seems like a lot to me - I've done 5 pounds or so, using extract for the rest, but others have done more. Deathbrewer's tutorial is very good.

FWIW (and free advice is worth every penny), if you're going to commit to all-grain, just go ahead and make a proper cooler-tun. It's not that hard.

That looks like a gread recipe btw, I may try it this fall when my Cascades are harvested.

ETA: Wow, people are fast around here! Aren't you supposed to be working or something??

I've only gotten less than 75% efficiency with BIAB once (74%), but holding 11lbs of wet grain to sparge is a PITA. I recommend getting a large strainer for the sparge. As long as you hit your temps, stir often, keep the bag loose, split the sparge into at least two, and you should have no problems hitting that efficiency.

Indeed, what frazier said.

If you have a big enough pot to stick that giant bag in then just mash in the pot, control the temp with your stovetop/gas and after youve mashed for long enough dump it in in a "bucket in bucket" for the L&S.

well I've done about 12 BIAB batches and I get about 74-76% every time and i've gotten 78% once. what i do i grind my grains very fine and then use .65 to .69 X (lb of grain) and that gives me me gal of water to lb of grain. i mash for at least 90min also. Then pull the bag out and I squeeze the grain after it drains most of the way. then ill add more water to the boil to make up for my evaporation rate. if im mashing a large amount of grain as the bag is draining ill heat the extra water to mash temp and then put the grains in again to try to get the most out of them. i hope all this helps, but depending on what size pot you have you shouldn't have a problem with the procedures.

Walker said:

The only potential issue I see is that Yooper seems to have that formulated for 75% efficiency to get to the gravity of 1.058 with that grain bill.

You probably won't get high of an efficiency with brew-in-a-bag on your first try (I think BIABers generally get much lower than this, but I am not certain.)

You might want to use more gain with the assumption that you will get lower than 75%.

Click to expand...

Yeah. I get 70-75% generally.

rexbanner said:

Yeah. I get 70-75% generally.

Click to expand...

I get 80-85% generally, using BiaB with a single batch sparge; if you do the Aussie-style spargeless BiaB then you'll probably get lower eff unless you're grinding the grain yourself (and able to crush it quite fine).

11 pounds is well within the bounds of reasonable, but it can get heavy; having some sort of strong grill or something to put on top of the kettle isn't a bad idea.

Walker said:

The only potential issue I see is that Yooper seems to have that formulated for 75% efficiency to get to the gravity of 1.058 with that grain bill.

You probably won't get high of an efficiency with brew-in-a-bag on your first try (I think BIABers generally get much lower than this, but I am not certain.)

You might want to use more gain with the assumption that you will get lower than 75%.

Click to expand...

I dunno, I actually got over 80% the first time I did BIAB. I've never done better than 75% in my cooler MLT...

The important part with BIAB is after sparging, move the bag to a strainer/bucket setup so you can capture all the runoff while you start the boil. Then add that runoff you collect later on. Also, you CAN squeeze the bag to help things along.

I get 65% efficiency in BIAB method, but my water to grist ratio for BIAB is a little low. The higher the ratio you can get (depends on how much you can boil down), the better you efficiency will be.

I would aim for 65% in recipe calculations, if you hit a little lower or a little higher, you can adjust.

Make sure you know how much you boil off, and take a Gravity reading toward the end of the boil. Add extract if you need to, or add a little water if you need to.


Good luck

weirdboy said:

I dunno, I actually got over 80% the first time I did BIAB. I've never done better than 75% in my cooler MLT...

The important part with BIAB is after sparging, move the bag to a strainer/bucket setup so you can capture all the runoff while you start the boil. Then add that runoff you collect later on. Also, you CAN squeeze the bag to help things along.

Click to expand...

One other question. How much water should I start with? Is the calc for BIAB different than regular AG?

I typically use 1.5qt - 1.75qt per pound of grain regardless of whether I do BIAB or a mash tun.

the water calculations are very different. BIAB mashes with ALL the water that will go into the boil, as there is no sparge.
but it really depends on the setup. Can you describe your setup?

weirdboy said:

I typically use 1.5qt - 1.75qt per pound of grain regardless of whether I do BIAB or a mash tun.

Click to expand...

So for the 11 lb grainbill that this recipe calls for, I would calculate:

1.5*11=16.5 qts, or 4.13 gallons

Am I doing the calc wrong? That seems like a low volume of water. Would I have to add after the mash, to get the preboil volume up to around 7 gallons or so?

I've gotten 80% (+/- 2 points) every time I've done a BIAB batch with no sparge (but a 170F mash-out). I think the trick is to hang the grainbag over the kettle (use a ladder, thanks BasicBrewing!) to let it drain as you begin your boil, the weight of the grain will eventually wring out most of those sugars over the course of an hour or so while it's coming up to a boil (and during the first 30 minutes or so of your boil). It also helps to have a high evaporation rate, so that you can boil off 30% or so of your volume in a 90 minute boil. Running off a lot of wort means you collect a larger percentage of the available sugars, especially if you're not sparging the grains.

+1 to all the people saying they get 75%+ eff with BIAB. I did an Oktoberfest on Sunday with a 13 lb grain bill and got 78%. Agreed also that they key is to get a colander that'll hold your bag over the pot for a good 10 minutes to let the grain drip/allow you to squeeze the bag directly into the pot. I don't mash-out or sparge either.

Water calc is simple as can be...put 7 lbs in a pot and go for it. I assume about .05 gal/lb of grain for absorption, which in this case is something like .8 gallons, and I only boil off about .7 gallons/hr, so you'll end up with the perfect 5.5 gallon batch. Less heat loss over the duration of your mash in this setup too, because your entire pot is full, instead of half (or so), with a mash and sparge separate.

One thing I learned recently is that my initial temp loss when adding bag and grains is less than I saw with my mashtun. Again, I think it's the fact that you've got 7 gallons of 168* water there, instead of just 3 or 4. I assume about 8* drop from "strike" temp to my resting mash temp.

I have a FlyGuy inspired mashtun that i'm selling on Craigslist right now cause I have no need for it. If i start making crazy IIPAs maybe I'll just add a few lbs of DME, but I think i could do a 15 lb grain bill with my setup (10 gallon pot).

+1
I don't get quite as high efficiency, but I can't boil such a large water quantity. the key is the thin mash. but don't worry. A 70% efficiency is great, and BIAB just takes so much hassle out of brew day.

Jboggeye said:

the water calculations are very different. BIAB mashes with ALL the water that will go into the boil, as there is no sparge.

Click to expand...

There are many BIAB approaches, not everyone does the Aussie no-sparge version; certainly, DeathBrewer's sticky on BIAB recommends a sparge.

I certainly sparge, as do a couple of the other BIABers who posted in this thread (e.g. weirdboy posted "The important part with BIAB is after sparging, move the bag to a strainer/bucket setup so you can capture all the runoff while you start the boil.")

very true, we need to know what setup you have. If you are mashing in your brew kettle, and it can hold all 7 gallons plus grain, that is what I would do.

I BIAB in a cooler, and I used to sparge by picking my grain and rinsing in the kettle. I have found that if I simply use as much water as I can fit to hit my target I lose 5% efficiency but get a tastier beer. And I like the process better.

It all depends on your setup, and your preference.

ruggierm1 said:

So for the 11 lb grainbill that this recipe calls for, I would calculate:

1.5*11=16.5 qts, or 4.13 gallons

Am I doing the calc wrong? That seems like a low volume of water. Would I have to add after the mash, to get the preboil volume up to around 7 gallons or so?

Click to expand...

Well in a traditional mash, you will mash out, then add the sparge volume(s) to pull out more sugars. So yeah pretty much you'd be adding close to another 3.75 - 4 gallons when you sparge due to grain absorption to get to your preboil volume. My main BIAB BK isn't nearly big enough to hold the full volume of mash + sparge, so I split it into two pots, which happens to be what you'd do with a typical batch sparge anyway.