Boil Longer to Increase OG?

Hey Guys,

Would there be any problem with boiling my wort a little bit longer than normal to increase the amount of evaporated water (In addition to increasing the OG)?

To do this, I would possibly boil for 90 - 120 minutes, but then start my hop addition around 60 minutes and continue like normal from there.

If I don't burn the wort on the bottom of the pot, I would assume that this would be OK. Am I wrong in this assumption?

I'm new at this but I believe the standard way of increasing your abv% is to just use more fermentables. The way your suggesting sounds like it would work too, (increasing the ABV% by decreasing the total amount of water in the wort), but would produce fewer beers in the end. Also, if that really is what you're going for it would seem easier to just use less water to begin with. If you're doing a partial mash, perhaps don't top it off with as much water when you pour it into the fermentor?

If you are doing extract there would be no need, just add less top off water.
If AG then yes you could boil off more but at the risk of a little extra caramelzation from the long boil time so it might not be advisable for some styles.

Hmm..

I'm doing this because I am using the BIAB technique. From everything I've read (notably Charlie Papazian), the recommended amount of water per lb of grain is 1 qt and 1/2 gallon of water per lb for the sparge. Also note that this is for a 2.5 gallon recipe.

This would mean that I would need about 8.25 Gallons of Water for my 11lbs of grain. This is obviously way too much water for my recipe and I was hoping that I could just boil the 8.25 gallons until there was the proper amount for the boil.

I may have my math completely off on this one, but I'm not sure. Looking for help.

I'm not sure how you came up with that 8.25 gallons.

If you're using 1 qt per lb of grain and you've got 11 lbs of grains, that's only 2.75 gallons. (4 Quarts = 1 Gallon). Add the extra half gallon for the sparge and you're still only at 3.25. Assumably the difference between this and the 2.5 gallon amount that the recipe calls for is what evaporates during the normal boiling time.

So unless there's some other factor involved here I think you put in way too much water, and you may have a lengthy boil ahead of you.

Well, I got 8.25 gallons from 11 lbs of grain (2.75 Gallons). And, the book I'm reading says a half gallon for each lb of grain as well. That means (1/2 gallon * 11 = 5.5 Gallons). So, 5.5 gallons + 2.75 = 8.25

Just use your full volume with mash/sparge water, etc for BIAB. Keep in mind your grain will absorb some of that.

wyzazz said:

Just use your full volume with mash/sparge water, etc for BIAB. Keep in mind your grain will absorb some of that.

Click to expand...

Right. For BIAB, which I'm not really that familiar with, I believe they use the whole amount in the mash/sparge. They don't do a separate step, if I remember correctly. So, you'd take your full volume, and put the grain bag in it. As Wyzazz said, your grain will absorb quite a bit of the water, like .1 gallons/pound. So, for 11 pounds of grain, you'll lose over a gallon of water in absorption.

I don't do BIAB, but one thing many of us who flysparge or batch sparge in the traditional way do is to simply sparge up to the boil volume. For example, say I get 3 gallons out of my first runnings. Then, I need 3.25 gallons of sparge water to get to my boil volume. You can go up to .5 gallons per pound without risking tannin extraction, but you don't HAVE to use all of that. You'll have a slight decrease in efficiency, but getting 6.25 gallons out and boiling for an hour certainly beats getting out 8 gallons and boiling for 3 hours.

What is your target OG?

To answer the question.

Yes boiling longer, boiling off more, will raise the OG of the beer. You wont burn anything, you shouldnt, you are still applying the same BTU/hr, just over a longer time frame.

Your water requirement will vary, because you have equipment losses, everyones system is different.

You will lose about .12 gal/lb grain

Your deadspace will vary

Just reverse engineer it to get your required water volume.

I just did a 2.5 gallon brew as a BIAB, I've only done 2 so I am no expert. I only had 5.5 lbs of grain for a Magic Hat #9 clone. I mashed in with 3.5 gallons of water (.15/gal per lb absortion rate)
left me with 2.75 gallons preboil. There is no sparge with BIAB unless you need to come up to preboil volume due to water calculation shortage. I mash for close to 75 minutes and do a 10 minute 170 degree mashout before pulling the bag. (according to the aussie article this is an important step.) Squeeze the bag while draining and boil. I used beersmith for the calucation and just added the mash and sparge volume to get the total preboil and added for absorption.

Lets go back to the beginning. What style beer are you making?
RIght now with the information you have given, you are making a barley wine with a gravity over 1.1.
Unless this is what you intend, I would halve your grain bill and that will reduce the volume and make boiling for half a day unnecessary.

Okay, if you are TRULEY doing BIAB....

ALL of your water will go into the MLT/BK. You have NO sparge water as BIAB is a no sparge process.

With 11 pounds of grain, you will lose approximately 1.4 gallons of water to absorption.

I dont recall ever reading anything from Charlie regarding BIAB, but the process for determining the water that you posted is incorrect when doing a BIAB.

When doing a BIAB you need to know your BATCH SIZE (5 gallons)
You then need to ADD to that your BOIL OFF (1.5 gallon in 60 mins)
You then need to ADD to that your GRAIN ABSORPTION (1.4 gallons in 11 pounds)

This will EQUAL your mash water volume. (7.9 gallons)
TOTAL MASH VOLUME 8.8 GALLONS

For your extremely HIGH gravity 2.5 gallon batch, just plug your numbers in the above equation. I get 5.4 gallons TOTAL WATER IN MASH.

It is a simple process of reverse engineering the equation.

BIAB does not follow a certain qt/lb water ratio, BIAB is not a normal mash process, but it does the same thing and has great results.

This should give you a 1.060 beer at 5 gallons
This will give you a 1.100 beer at 3 gallons

If you would like to learn more about BIAB, here is an excellent article on the process.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/06/20/brew-in-a-bag-biab-all-grain-brewing-method/

By the way, thanks for the input guys.

I FINALLY got around to this and your insight helped a lot.