First AG BIAB!

Greetings!

So a week from tomorrow im going to attempt my first AG Biab. Due to equipment restraints, I'm limited to 3-3.5 gallon batches which is actually quite perfect for me personally. I'm going to layout the plan/process and please let me know if i missed anything or suggestions to do something slightly different.

I'll be making a Belgian Wit and the recipe is as follows..

3.25# Belgian Pils Malt
3.25# White Wheat Malt
0.5oz Styrian Goldings (60 min)

1.0 oz Coriander (10 min)
Zest from 4 Oranges (1 min)

Wyeast Forbidden Fruit

Target Eff: 70%
Target OG: 1.049
Target FG: 1.010
IBU: 10-15
ABV: 4.7-5.0%

-Bring 3.75gal water up to 159 (yes, im going for a thinner mash since my biggest pot besides the BK holds about 1.5 gallons)
-Dough in (gently stir mash to reduce dough balls)
-Mash at 150 for 60 minutes (BK will fit in the oven, and on low, oven stays at 150)
-Bring 1gal of water to 165, remove bk from oven and set on top, have partner hold the bag so its just above the mash and let it drip... when dripping has slowed i'll slowly pour the sparge water onto the grain in a circular motion while making sure i dont go over my 4 gallon boil limit.
-Boil
-Add hops and adjuncts accordingly.

Plan is to pitch the pack directly into the wort, since it is such a small batch and i've been told slightly underpitching (malty says i need 117will get more esters and such from the yeast, why not?

Let me know if this all sounds good or if it doesnt. I like to think i think i know what im doing. :fro:

You forgot the first and most important step!



1. Open a homebrew.

You probably can do a 5 gallon batch as long as the gravity is less than 1.060 or so. I'm doing AG BIAB now with nothing but a 5 gallon BK. That said, it probably will be a little easier doing 3 gallons.

My suggestion is to just mash on the stove. Don't bother putting it in the oven. If you have an electric range you can keep the heat on the lowest setting and monitor the temperature.

bk0: How on earth do you do 5g. batches in a 5g pot? You'd need to boil over 6g. to get down to 5. Are you adding water to the fermenter at the end? I suppose you could do that if you use more grain to account for less efficiency in a thick mash.

Yes I'm doing BIAB but partial boil. I do my mash with 3.5-4 gallons of water, with grain it fills the BK up to the brim. I do small fly sparges to get the boil volume to around 4 gallons (squeezing the bag too). At the very end I top off in the fermenter to 5 gallons.

I get 65-68% efficiency which isn't horrible. Last batch was OG 1.055. No extra grain needed.

rice hulls. Even though you're doing biab, it cant hurt. maybe .25#.

Why would you need rice hulls when there's no chance of a stuck mash? The whole point of BIAB is to remove the limitations of equipment, most importantly, stuck mashes....

Skelator said:

rice hulls. Even though you're doing biab, it cant hurt. maybe .25#.

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Rice hulls add little to no flavor or mouth feel. They are used to prevent stuck sparges in a mash tun. There is absolutely no need to use them with BIAB.

bk0 said:

Yes I'm doing BIAB but partial boil. I do my mash with 3.5-4 gallons of water, with grain it fills the BK up to the brim. I do small fly sparges to get the boil volume to around 4 gallons (squeezing the bag too). At the very end I top off in the fermenter to 5 gallons.

I get 65-68% efficiency which isn't horrible. Last batch was OG 1.055. No extra grain needed.

Click to expand...

Your effency seems real low for a BIAB, are you double crushing your grains? I have a Corona style mill and crush my own and get 80+ effency.

well ill be damned.

Transamguy77 said:

Your effency seems real low for a BIAB, are you double crushing your grains? I have a Corona style mill and crush my own and get 80+ effency.

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I've just been using LHBS crush. I think the major loss in efficiency is from the small mash volume and small sparge. I just don't have the room in the kettle to do anything about it yet. I'm definitely looking into getting a big kettle and sparge container soon.

65-70% Seems to be the norm for a no sparge/low sparge.

Anywho, it looks like i should have got some oats and flaked wheat... but the white wheat malt and pils malt are already crushed and mixed.. According to more sources online that i previously did not look into say malted wheat in the area of 50% is more of a Hefe and in a Wit its more like 10% wheat malt, 10% flaked wheat, 5% oats, 75% pils. Oh well, i guess it'll be a blend of the two? I guess i'll be adding .5# of quaker quick oats, bringing the bill to 46% each Pils and Wheat Malt and 7% Oats... hopefully this will get it more in line with a wit considering i have a wit yeast already. Anybody see a problem with this?

Hey, you brew and you learn.