first BIAB attempt

Trying a 3 gallon Irish red for my first BIAB attempt. Any tips?

Make sure you have a good grain bag, I used a extra large course bag from AHS and had a lot of sediment in the fermenter, Also have a good thermometer and technique planned for holding the mash temp. My thermometer wasnt great and gave mis readings and my temp was off, so efficiency was bad. Last stir alot at the beginning to get a stable temp. We didnt stir enough and temp continued to rise so we thought we were in the 154 range but it rose up to the 160s

Stir your mash really well to get even distribution of heat throughout the grain. Heat water probably 7-10 degree's higher than your target temp. And if it's too hot stir vigorously to get down to temp. Cover the pot to maintain temps!

You'll get more points if you do a pseudo sparge with some hot water over the grain bag from a tea kettle or something. Get a colander large enough for your pot and place the grain bag in it over the pot. Sparge with enough to get your calculated pre-boil volume. Squeezing does help get some of the lingering sugars out.

Try to find a bag that fits your kettle so that the grain can come in contact with all the brewing liquor. Mash for 75 minutes. I use tastybrew.com 's calculator to figure out my strike water temps. After mashing, lift the bag off the bottom and raise the temperature of the wort to 175 degrees (higher than 170, but when you lower the bag it will drop in temp because of the cooler grain), lower the bag and stir gently but well for a minute or so. This helps rinse more sugars of the grains. A dunk sparge in a seperate kettle helps, but may be adding another layer of complexity for your first batch, which should be easy.

Use Whirlfloc 10 to 15 minutes from the end of boil. It will really help settle out proteins.

Don't get upset if the numbers you get are a little different from what you set out for. (1.050 instead of 1.055).

Have fun with it!

Why not mash in the pot to enable effective stirring and temperature control - and then transfer to the bag - keep recycling runnings until they are crystal clear.

BOBTHEukBREWER said:

Why not mash in the pot to enable effective stirring and temperature control - and then transfer to the bag - keep recycling runnings until they are crystal clear.

Click to expand...

If he's only got one pot it's kinda hard to do that You'd be mashing in the pot anyways w normal BIAB

Things couldn't have gone better! Got better than expected efficiency. Mash temp held well. My Colorado is a bit off, but I'll take it. Thanks for everyone's help. Love these boards!

Blackhawkbrew said:

My Colorado is a bit off

Click to expand...

Not familiar with the term Colorado. Is this an auto correct from color?

enkamania said:

Not familiar with the term Colorado. Is this an auto correct from color?

Click to expand...

I was curious about that too. maybing Coloring was turned into Colorado?

Wow!? I guess I shouldn't assume my typing skills are up to par on a tablet! Yes, Colorado is auto correct for color. Why want it recognize the word "color"? Ha