2nd All-Grain BIAB (would love so thoughts)

Recipe: Bubble & Squeak IPA TYPE: All Grain-BIAB
Style: English IPA

---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 10.2 SRM
IBU: 54.7 IBUs Rager
Est OG: 1.077 SG
Est FG: 1.020 SG
Est E%: 76.00 Batch: 5.25 gal Boil: 7.51 gal BT: 60 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------
Amt Name
1.50 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)
1.50 tsp Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)

---GRAIN BILL------------------------------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
11 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter Grain 3 80.4 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L Grain 4 10.5 %
1 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) Grain 5 7.0 %
5.0 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.2 %

Total Grain Weight: 14 lbs 5.0 oz Total Hops: 3.00 oz oz.

---MASH PROCESS------MASH PH:5.60 ------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 8.56 gal of water at 160.4 F 154.1 F 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 170.0 F over 7 min 170.0 F 10 min

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.064 SG Est OG: 1.077 SG
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.00 oz Magnum [13.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 49.5
1.00 oz Fuggles [5.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 5.2
1.00 oz Willamette [5.10 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0

I over heated the strike water by 15 degrees so i stirred it until I was closer to 160, probably 161 when I doughed in. PH messured at 5.6. After everything was mixed well I took a temp reading and missed my rest temp by 3 degrees I was at 151. I covered it up and let sit for 75 minutes. When I checked the temp before mash out I was at 149. Mashed out and then pulled the bag of grains squeezed the crap out of the bag when the water got up to a boil. Right before I added my first hop addition I added the rest of the wort I has squeezed out.

After flame out it took about an hour to get the wort to 70 degrees. I transferred 5.25 gallons of wort into my fermentor and had about a half gallon left over on the keggle. I dont have a spigot yet so I have to use an auto siphon which is a pain in the ass. I took my gravity reading at 1.061 which makes for 60% eff. quite a bit lower they my first All-grain where I got 76% I am happy with the outcome but i was hoping to have a beer around 7.5% instead of 6%.

Any ideas on how to improve my efficiency.

Sounds like you had a little too much water to start with. Now that you know your volumes, you can start with less water, to get closet to your target volume.

Also did you get to a full boil before adding your hops? Just asking because of how you worded it. Maybe you didn't get a good enough boil, which also could have lead to a lower SG.

I use a glass bowl to push down on the bag, inside another pot with an upside down colander in the bottom, to squeeze out as much wort as possible.

Why did it take so long to chill? Do you not have an immersion chiller or anything? That would be a good investment.

I think you'll be happy with the lower mash temp too, especially with 1.5lbs of crystal malt. The crystal malt could add a bit much sweetness for an IPA, but the mash temp may help even that out. Not sure about the water chemistry side of things.

Aside from the spigot, you can also eventually include a pump in your setup, which makes racking to the carboy MUCH quicker, especially if you ever use buckets...you don't have a carboy neck to aim it into, so you can just turn it on full blast

You could have probably used more finishing hops, but you can always dry hop. Haven't really used alot of English style hops in my IPA's, so I don't really know what you can expect there. It's definitely not going to have a lot of that American citrusy/grapefruit flavor, but nothing wrong with that.

Overall sounds like it'll be a good beer. I really like to listen to the Jamil Show podcasts on TheBrewingNetwork.com when I'm getting ready to brew a certain style. Just search the website for whatever your looking to brew. Also the book: Designing Great Beers is a really good one, once you get rolling. It basically gives detailed information AND statistics on styles, based on comparisons of homebrew AND commercial that were considered to be good examples of the style. I believe they were competition winners.

Good luck, I'm sure it'll be a good brew!

If I'm understanding it right, there was about a half gallon left in the boil kettle that didn't make it into the fermenter. That would have a pretty big impact on FG/efficiency. Had the extra volume been boiled away your OG would have been close to 1.067 and efficiency around 65.7%. Still not the 76% you got in the first batch, but a nice step up. Knowing your boil off rate and starting with the right preboil amount so you end up with just enough to fill the fermenter will take care of that.

I was getting really bad efficiencies for my first batches and worse than that they were really inconsistent. (50%-70%). I took a good look at the crush of the grain I was getting from my LHBS and noticed a fair amount of the grains were still whole. Once I started making sure I had properly crushed malt, I saw a big jump in efficiency. There's lots of pics around in other threads about what a good crush looks like and those helped me.

I thought my water volumes were right on, when I did my last batch that got 76% eff I had maybe a cup of wort and trub in the bottom of the boil kettle. Maybe I didn't have a strong of a boil going today. It also could be that my last brew day it was 90 degrees out and today it was 65. Amazing what the weather can do over a month in the Northwest.

I also did not double crush my grain which I know is a big deal for BIAB but again based off of last brew day getting 76% I figured that I would be good. I got my grain pre-crushed from Austin home brew both times. I guess I will need to invest in a grain mill or drive the 30 minutes to my LHBS to crush my grains next time.

@ Chapa I wasnt going for the big American style IPA because I was trying to make an English IPA out of some leftover hops that were in the freezer.

I also just realized that I way over pitched my S-04 yeast. I got 2 packets thinking I would be in the 1.077 range but since I was a 1.061 I really only needed 12 grams of yeast per Mr Malty and I pitched 23 grams.

Prymal said:

@ Chapa I wasnt going for the big American style IPA because I was trying to make an English IPA out of some leftover hops that were in the freezer.

Click to expand...

Haha, go figure out of the entire post, I miss the 2nd line saying its an English IPA

You could take a pre-boil gravity reading next time, that way you know how much you extracted from the mash, and what the difference of the post-boil gravity is(might want to keep an eye on the pre-boil volume too). That way you at least know if its from the mash or the boil-off. Taking the pre-boil reading also helps you gauge what your post-boil gravity might be, so if you want it to end up higher, you can just add some DME, boil off more and/or adjust hops. Beersmith gives you estimated pre/post boil og/volumes.

Good luck nailing it down, I love my BIAB setup.

Yeah I am using beersmith. I am a bit confused looking at water volumes though. This beer uses 14.5 lbs of grain and I am making a RIS next that is 20.5 lbs of grain but the water volume only goes up by a half gallon. Does that make sense?

Another question since you are a beersmith BIAB user. What do you set your Mash tun temp to when setting up your mash profile to hit your target dough in temp?

Prymal said:

Yeah I am using beersmith. I am a bit confused looking at water volumes though. This beer uses 14.5 lbs of grain and I am making a RIS next that is 20.5 lbs of grain but the water volume only goes up by a half gallon. Does that make sense?

Another question since you are a beersmith BIAB user. What do you set your Mash tun temp to when setting up your mash profile to hit your target dough in temp?

Click to expand...

Yes that makes sense, because a RIS is a much bigger beer, so you need more grain, but not necessarily more water; if you added a lot more water, it would bring the gravity back down.

I just add a mash step(It doesn't even ask for the mash tun temp in that screen), and I'll put in how much I estimate to use for water, and what temp I want. Then to figure out my volume, I'll look at the brewday sheet view and see if it tells me I will need additional water based on my equipment; then I'll just add that amount to the first step.

I'm still nailing it all down myself, because now I'm getting more volume based on my previously mentioned method of draining the grain bag as well.

What helps me, is I have a little metal basket (that came with my old turkey fryer) that holds the grain bag off the bottom the the pot, so I'll usually kick on the burner to add a degree or two when I need it, and I'll I stir the grains during most of that time. Once I reach my mash temp, I kick off the burner, cover the pot and wrap it in an old sleeping bag. This usually holds temp within a single degree for a 60 min mash.

I have been brewing BIAB all grain for a year and loving it.

Last week I brewed a RIS with 17.25# grain and 1.25# instant oats. I got around 75% efficiency, I'm not near my notes. I used 2 five gallon paint strainer bags and 7.5 gal water in a 20gal pot. After that I removed bags and "sparged" them with about 1 gal 165* water each. I had 9 gal to boil.
Which sucked. Like a 3 hour or 4 hour boil to end up with 5.3ish gallons of wort at 1.084.

It finished fermenting at 64* in 30 hours to 1.022, then I added 1# of table sugar to get me to 9.5% ABV. Ironically enough this RIS may be my quickest grain to glass beer yet!

Edit: for my money more water is necessary for good efficiency in big beers. You simply have to boil down like the big boys. Most of my other beers are around 1.05-1.06 OG and get good efficiency with 6.5-7 gallons of water.

Beer smith is telling me 9.03 gallons of water for my 20.75lb RIS. I need to go buy some CPVC to measure my volumes, I have been eyeballing it during the boil based on the lines on my Keggle. How do you go about using two grain bags with BIAB. I have a custom made bag that fits my keggle would I get better efficiency breaking the grain bill between two bags for large bills?

Yeah I've got everything marked/measured except my carboys, which I really need to do. After replying to this thread just a little while ago, I was looking up how to adjust my grain absorption ratio, and found that it was only available in the newer version of Beersmith, so I've now upgraded to BS 2 and it actually has a BIAB option which looks like it actually fixes my grain absorption ratio perfectly. Nice!

I don't think it's best to have multiple bags, if you can help it. If you have a big enough bag, you don't have to worry about fitting your grain bill, and you'll have more room for the water and grain to mix up and break down.

Yeah the BIAB options within beersmith 2 are awesome. I have my equipment profile set up for BIAB in a Keggle, and I really like the BIAB specific mash schedules. When I asked about your Mash tun temp that is listed in 2.0 under the Mash Details tab of your recipe. I set it to a degree below my strike water temp. That worked perfect on my first batch but I think I over stirred at dough in and lost too much this time.

oops double post.