allgrain kits for biab

Is it possible to use allgrain kits for biab,i plan on doing a 3 gallon batch.Iam guessing you have to scale down your grain bill but what about the hops, do you have to scale those down also?

musclebrew said:

Is it possible to use allgrain kits for biab,i plan on doing a 3 gallon batch.Iam guessing you have to scale down your grain bill but what about the hops, do you have to scale those down also?

Click to expand...

Yup, cut everything same percentage.

musclebrew said:

Is it possible to use allgrain kits for biab,i plan on doing a 3 gallon batch.Iam guessing you have to scale down your grain bill but what about the hops, do you have to scale those down also?

Click to expand...

if you are doing a different batch size do what c-rider says! Otherwise if you buy a 5gal kit and intend on making a 5gal batch no changes are needed. I got a good buddy who doesn't fiddle with recipes and only buys kits. Does 5gal BIAB. Works great for him!

would you do a 7.5 gallon boil for a 5 gallon batch/

I have done 5 gallon batches with kits in biab. If you don't mind here are some things that have helped me.

1. Double crush your grains. If it comes pre crushed, just run it through a corona mill again. The finer the crush I have found gets you a bunch of points in efficiency. I want from low 60s to hi 80s with a double crush alone.

2. Squeeze the bag. There's debate whether or not this leeches unwanted tannins in your wort. It hasn't so far, and I squeeze the bag like it owes me money. Someone said that once. Don't remember who it was.

3. Make sure your mash temps are all good and stay fairly consistent. I use propane and a burner, and if my temp drops a few degrees I fire it up and try to get the temp just under the target. It will raise that last degree or two on its own.

4. Not sure if your sparging, but I will do a full boil. I boil with 7.5 gallons for 90 minutes and it gets me down to exactly 5 gallons.

5. Have fun

What size bag do you have? Wilserbrewer has bags for sale of varying sizes. If you want to do a 5 gallon batch in a 10 gallon pot, you'll probably need something bigger the a paint strainer. I bought a yard and a half of extra fine voile mesh and had SWMBO sew it with a drawstring. Thing works perfectly. Cost was about 5-7 bucks total and about an hour of time.

Brew on!

Agree with the others - but want to add that Northern Brewer sells 3G BIAB kits to avoid scaling. Seems wasteful to buy a kit meant for 5G and only use a portion. Better to go with a recipe and buy what you need - or use the NB kits

If the grains are already mixed and crushed, what % of base malt and specialty malt will you have when you split it? It would probably be close to intended target but maybe not.

Hey thanks guys very helpful info!!