General BIAB Question

Hi all. I am about to embark into BIAB from all grain. My question is this. I have been seeing back and forth conversations about how much grain to use. Some people say to use the same amount as a regular recipe. Some say to add 10-15% of each grain. What are your thoughts and what has worked for you?

Never used a mash tun before but my for my first BIAB batch I got 70% efficiency, hope this helps. I've heard that you can get over 90% with a lot of sparging and squeezing the bag. Next time i'll take a hydrometer reading after mashing and squeeze the bag until I get up to the pre boil gravity I want, within reason of course.

BTW the bag will weigh a frigging tonne when it soaks up the water! Just thought I'd mention this as as I didn't think it would be as bad

More interested in the grain bill. Just as a quick example let's say my grain bill is only one grain and it is 10lbs of that grain in a normal all grain recipe. If I switch to BIAB would I add 15% of that grain to the grain bill?

If anything I need to reduce my grain bill from a lot of recipes. My software is set to 80% efficiency and I often overshoot that. My last beer which was a session saison I got 87%. This is with a BIAB sparge.

I've gotten between 70% and 85% efficiency with my BIAB set up. I mashout at 170 for a few minutes, squeeze the hell out of the bag, and finish it off with a solid spin over the kettle to get the last few drops out (this gets me up in the 80s usually). So I don't ever tweak the grain bills to adjust for losses in efficiencies. If I do end up short of the 75% I am shooting for I will adjust with a bit stronger boil.

But no, I would stick with the original grain bill until you figure out your system's efficiency.

Since we have no idea what type of crush you have, or many other factors, there really is not a simple answer here. Adding an additional 10 % grain is not a terrible idea until you get a handle on your eeficiency, you may just overshoot your gravity and get a stronger beer, or you can temper down with a touch of water.

If your preboil gravity is low, you can just extend the boil. Kind of a crap shoot...if you like stronger beer, sure go ahead and add a touch more grain....cheers!

I get about 80% eff on my 2 gallon mashes. I'd say stick to the recipe and see what your brewing will give you. Then you can make adjustments as needed. Plug in your recipe to say BeerSmith and I think the default eff is 75%. If you come out low add grain. if you come out high increase the default and use less. But you need to do a few brews untill you get an average.

Use this calculator to see what you get. http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

i don't think adding extra grain is a bad idea either. but just adding grain doesn't fix your efficiency. i found that i worked on my process, managed my temps and volumes better. and with each BIAB i do, my efficiency goes up by 1-2%. now I'm hitting 70% or better every time. now I'm going to do a double crush on my grains and see how well that does.

I'm using BeerSmith and have my efficiency set at 70% and i hit my numbers on the head the last 3 brews.

I buy kits fror my BIAB and have always hit the gravity of the kit if not getting a few points higher. Like others say it comes down to your efficiency in your process. I wouldn't change a thing. Try one exactly like a traditional AG and see what your efficiency is. There are loads of calculators online or beersmith is an excellent resource. Then you can adjust future recipes. I think BIAB is a great way to go! Good luck.

vNmd said:

I buy kits fror my BIAB and have always hit the gravity of the kit if not getting a few points higher. Like others say it comes down to your efficiency in your process. I wouldn't change a thing. Try one exactly like a traditional AG and see what your efficiency is. There are loads of calculators online or beersmith is an excellent resource. Then you can adjust future recipes. I think BIAB is a great way to go! Good luck.

Click to expand...

+1.

For your first batch, don't stray from the recipe. You'll find out right away what efficiency your system yields, then you can either try to improve your process or just buy a little extra grain. Until then, you'll never know. Here's to your first BIAB.

I haven't really had too many issues in using AG recipes as is for BIAB and hitting the proper OG's the recipes call for.

There is one that I have had an issue with and that is a clone for Oberon. The recipe calls for an OG of 1.059 and I've brewed it 3 times this summer and haven't changed anything up and I have hit 1.052 each time I brew it? Not a big enough deal for me to worry about, but I just find it odd that this seems to be the only recipe I have issues with coming in lower than my target OG from whatever recipe I'm using...

I've thought about increasing the base malt (2-row) for this recipe, but I wouldn't mess with any of the specialty malts as wouldn't that affect the appearance of your beer? I mean, I was making a brown ale and I accidentally added 1.25 #'s of pale chocolate instead of .125#'s the recipe called for. While the beer still turned out tasty, it looked like a stout as opposed to the brown ale it was intended to be...

As others have said, I'd stick with the recipe. I usually end up overshooting, so adding to the grain bill may be the opposite of what you want, if you end up having a similar experience.

I keep some DME on hand for starters, and could use it to add after I check my pre- boil gravity if it is too low. That said, it's never been too low.