brew in a bag, small batches

I just now heard of brew in a bag. I've been doing extract partial boils and thought this could help me transition to AG without much up front investment.

I only have a 5 gallon brew kettle though, and was wondering how big of a batch I'd likely be able to biab.

I brew with the "power burner" on my gas range right now and it works perfectly for my extract partial boils, but I am imagining with biab this kettle will be up to the top.

Essentially, I want to be able to experiment with small batches so I might even be happy with one gallon, but the more the merrier of course!

Thoughts?

I do 1 3/4 gallon BIAB batches once a week. This gives me a great variety of beer to drink instead of 50 bottles of the same stuff. I'm sure you could get away w/3 gallons for sure maybe 4 gallons. Here is a link w/some pictures of my brewing a smoke porter.

I bought a bunch of 2 gallon paint buckets at H.D. I have a 4 gallon kettle and a 5 gallon cooler to mash in.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/smoky-robust-porter-262836/#post3538007

Work with the calculator on the green bay rackers - can i mash it; Green Bay Rackers--Mash Calculators

I wouldn't go less than 1.5 qt/lb.

i bet you could make 3 gallons easily.

I've done several 3 gallon batches with equipment like yours but that is about the limit with a 5 gallon kettle. While I enjoyed it and it took less time, I added a turkey fryer and started making 5 gallon batches and found that my electric range could bring that 6 1/2 gallons to a boil fairly easily so I went to the 5 gallon batches. They take longer to cool but I get twice as much beer in a batch.

It is still posible for you to make a 5 gallon all grain biab with your 5 gallon pot. You will need to do a high gravity partial boil and top off the water in the fermentor (or BK after the boil). This method is referred to as maxi biab if you want to do some searching.

I did this last week with roughly 13 lbs of grain in 3.75 gallons of water. Make sure your grain bag is large enough. I ended up with almost 3 gallons of 1.070 wort. My efficiency sucked but it worked. I did not sparge either.

You will need to scale up the malt in your recipe his way though.

Without getting a small cooler to mash in you should be able to do 2 or 2.5 gallon batches depending on your grain bill. Your limiting factor is your small 5 gallon pot but it can be done.

I have a 7.5 gallon pot and do 3 gallon batches. There is not much extra head space in the kettle with the grain mashing in it. There is a sticky you should check out if you havent already. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/biab-brewing-pics-233289/

Appreciate all the feedback! I'm getting pumped to try this. I think it will help me transition. I do have a nice brew kettle and burner on my wish list so I'll eventually have what I need.

Thanks!

As mentioned, anybody can do a high gravity brew as in this wiki; High Gravity Brewing - Home Brewing Wiki

rshortt said:

It is still posible for you to make a 5 gallon all grain biab with your 5 gallon pot. You will need to do a high gravity partial boil and top off the water in the fermentor (or BK after the boil). This method is referred to as maxi biab if you want to do some searching.

I did this last week with roughly 13 lbs of grain in 3.75 gallons of water. Make sure your grain bag is large enough. I ended up with almost 3 gallons of 1.070 wort. My efficiency sucked but it worked. I did not sparge either.

You will need to scale up the malt in your recipe his way though.

Click to expand...

I used to do this too and it worked great. I have also used a second pot to "dunk sparge" the bag of grains after the mash and added it to the boil kettle before starting the boil. I usually ended up with about 3 gallons of high-gravity wort and topped it up to 5 in the fermenter.

I now do full boil biab with a propane burner, but one of my favorite batches so far was an all amarilo IPA I made on the stove top.

Been doing three gallon BIAB batches for a while in a 5 gallon canning pot with a paint strained bag and a vegetable steamer. Pictures available here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/simple-bib-small-batch-method-146872/

I just picked up a copy of the book Beer Craft by William Bostwick and Jessi Rymill after hearing a segment on the NPR show "The Splendid Table." They do 1-gallon batches using a brew-in-the-bag stovetop method. I've been doing 5-gallon batches, but have wanted to downsize in order to try more recipes without ending up with huge amounts of beer. I also wanted a faster brew day. This book seems promising. It's well put together and includes 10 recipes with ideas for others. I also have a copy of the Durden Park Beer Circle book, Old British Beers and How to Make Them. That book has 1-gallon (UK) recipes that would be easily downsized to 1-gallon (US). Tons of wonderful recipes from British brewing history! I had the British Beers book in mind when I decided to pick up Beer Craft. I had been leary of scaling the old recipes up to 5-gallon batches without knowing how they'd turn out.

I made 5 gallon batches with a 5.5 gallon pot using BIAB and sparging. There is hope for you yet!

My process looked like this:
Mash in my 5.5 gallon pot.
Pull the bag out and let it drip for a minute or so.
When the stream of wort slowed to a drip, I would slide a bottling bucket under the bag and lower the bag down in.
Dump in my 170-175 degree sparge water (serves to mash out)
Mix the grains and sparge water and let sit while I start to bring the wort in my pot up to a boil.
When the wort in the pot starts to boil, drain off the (batch) sparge via the spigot on the bottling bucket and add to the pot.

While doing this, I would live dangerously and boil 4.75-5 gallons of wort. Very little room for error or I would have a boil over, but this would allow for a near full boil. As some of the wort would evaporate off during the boil, I would just keep adding my runnings from the bucket.

In this thread several people have mentioned their method, just try to find what works for you.

2.5 gallons is that I do BIAB and it tends to net me somewhere around a case of beer.

I do 2.5 to 3 gallon stove top no sparge BIAB batches in a 5 gallon pot with no problems on liquid volume.

I have been watching this thread and thought I would add something I am currently trying with smaller batches.

I used a 15.5 gallon keggle to do a BIAB 3.5 gal batch. My bittering hops were boiled using a hop spider. This was followed by No-chill in a corny keg and cooling in my fermenting freezer. I then aerated the wort in the keg and pitched yeast the next day. The primary fermenting corny is connected to another corny with a spunding valve for blow off. The wort has been vigorously fermenting for three days. The primary also has an inch and a half cut of the dip tube.

Tomorrow I will use CO2 to push the green beer off the yeast cake to the blow off keg for secondary. Once transferred, I will add a hop tea to the wort for aroma and flavor and allow it to finish for 10 days at fermenting temp. Then cold crash for two days and taste.

I started this to make smaller batches and have more variety in my serving kegs. I think this method is a great way to test smaller batches for taste with my buddies before scaling up to twelve gallon brews. I currently have a three vessel rig that I would like to automate and this keeps me in all grain brewing until the work is done.

I have my fingers crossed. This whole method made for a very easy and short brew day but was a radical change from past methods.