First BIAB, wheat and mash questions.

I just mashed in my first all-grain batch, trying out BIAB. I have two questions so far:

1) I'm using the Franziskaner clone recipe from the Beer Captured book. It called for 7 lbs of german wheat. I picked up unmalted wheat by mistake, but read that it doesn't need a cereal mash or anything, so I'm going with it. What will that do?

2) The BIAB guides mostly say to mash in to the *total* water for the whole brew session. In my case, taking into account my high boil evaporation rate (~1.5gal/hr) and 0.1gal/lb grain absorption, that comes to 10 lbs of grain in 8 gallons, or a grist ratio of 3.2. That's much higher than usually recommended, and thin mashes convert slower... will I be done in 1.5 hrs, or should I push it to 2? (nm, just read about testing with iodophor... I'll try that). Anyway, in the future should I mash in with a more normal ratio and then top off?

1) Some of that depends on the rest of your grain bill. 7lb of unmalted wheat is a lot, and it will put a lot of pressure on your base malt to convert it properly. The iodine you mention below will be a good thing to use.

2) A lot of BIABers do very thin mashes like this, but usually get a very fine grind to make up for the efficiency they lose from this and the no-sparge. Many BIABers do a more standard mash thickness and then heat up their remaining water for a "dunk" sparge.

Good luck!

The rest of the grain bill is 2.75 lbs of pilsner malt, .25 lbs aromatic malt, .25 lbs acidulated malt. I might have a problem

mrmekon said:

The rest of the grain bill is 2.75 lbs of pilsner malt, .25 lbs aromatic malt, .25 lbs acidulated malt. I might have a problem

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I don't want to say one way or the other, as I haven't experimented much with pushing the limits of diastatic capacity, but I would be nervous

Good luck!

Coming up on two hours, and a drop of iodophor in a sample swirls black Any way to rescue? I have no other grains.

mrmekon said:

Coming up on two hours, and a drop of iodophor in a sample swirls black Any way to rescue? I have no other grains.

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Hmm...I hate to say it, but you might be in trouble here. Keep your temperature at the low end of mash range (say...~150?) and let it keep going. The running question now is if you have any enzymes left. It's possible that they just haven't had a chance to break everything down yet, but it's also possible that you've already used up everything you've got.

I ran out of time and had to get the boil going. It was at 1.040, very low (expected 1.054), and some of that is probably starch. I'm guessing I'm going to end up with a 1% ABV bread beer.

after getting this idea from james at basicbrewing, i plan to brew an all grain, all wheat BIAB tomorrow. can you guys help????

i will brew on my stove and plan to use my 5 gallon pot as *BOTH* my mash tun and my boil kettle.

here are the *malted* grain ingredients that i will use to make 3 gallons:

- 3.0 lbs weyermann pale wheat
- 1.5 lbs dingemans belgian pale wheat

looks like i need to do a 3-step with decoction:

- 119F @ 25 min
--> decoction (1) 157F for 15 min, (2) boil for 20 min, put back in mash
- 148F @ 20 min
- 158F @ 30 min

1) new to mashing, so what do you guys think about a 1.5 mash thickness? ive read that for recipes with high amount of wheat, its better to go a little thinner than the "standard" 1.25. is this correct?

2) mash thickness refers to the amount of water you are starting with, right? in this case for 1.5 thickness, i would start with 2.05 gallons in my mash tun? is this correct?


TIA for your suggestions, recommendations, etc.