Alright so I am preparing for my first all-grain BIAB and have just a few questions... When you guys mash and sparge do you just do two infusions of basically half of your brew plus extra for grain loss? For the sparge do you let it sit for a few minutes, then remove the grain? Thanks as always!
Preparing for first AG BIAB
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The "traditional" BIAB is one step, no Sparging. (make sure the grain is well crushed, you have a big advantage, make use of it)
You add the full water volume, sir it up every so often, raise the temperature to 170 at the end, then raise the bag and let the dripping run out for a few minutes.
What some do is place the grain filled bag, suspended in a plastic bucket, and press the side to speed up the draining.
Having said this, I plan on mashing with a 1.25 L/G ratio, draining the bad for a couple of minutes, then placing the bag in a 2nd vessel with the remaining water at 168F, stir it up, let it sit for 10 minutes, then raise /drain/press. I'm curious how much extra yield the 2 vessel process gives over the traditional No sparge BIAB
You add the full water volume, sir it up every so often, raise the temperature to 170 at the end, then raise the bag and let the dripping run out for a few minutes.
What some do is place the grain filled bag, suspended in a plastic bucket, and press the side to speed up the draining.
Having said this, I plan on mashing with a 1.25 L/G ratio, draining the bad for a couple of minutes, then placing the bag in a 2nd vessel with the remaining water at 168F, stir it up, let it sit for 10 minutes, then raise /drain/press. I'm curious how much extra yield the 2 vessel process gives over the traditional No sparge BIAB
I'd be curious to see how the this differs as well as I was considering doing this for my first BIAB AG batch.
LLBeanJ
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Most of the time, I do full volume, no-sparge. The only exception is when I simply don't have the room in the kettle to handle all the grain and water, and in those cases, I heat a separate pot of water to 168 and do a dunk sparge for 15 minutes. If you have the room, I'd recommend the full volume, no-sparge simply because it's easier and doesn't require another pot, but folks on here who have done it both ways say they get better efficiency with the dunk sparge, so I guess whatever works for you.
One bit of advice based on personal experience: Stir, stir, stir. Stir your strike water thoroughly before dough-in. Stir you grains thoroughly after dough-in. Stir constantly when raising the mash temp to mashout (if you do a mashout, that is). Stirring everything well will help you maintain accurate temp readings, which is pretty crucial when mashing.
Good luck with your BIAB!
One bit of advice based on personal experience: Stir, stir, stir. Stir your strike water thoroughly before dough-in. Stir you grains thoroughly after dough-in. Stir constantly when raising the mash temp to mashout (if you do a mashout, that is). Stirring everything well will help you maintain accurate temp readings, which is pretty crucial when mashing.
Good luck with your BIAB!
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
I get low-80s pretty consistently with standard gravity brews (1.040-1.055-ish). I'll see efficiency drop a bit as the gravity increases, but I've never had one come in under 70% and that includes the tripels I've brewed.
Edit: One more thing... I could be wrong, but I believe that doing the mashout improves efficiency and is well worth the extra effort. Of course, one could always skip it and compensate by increasing the grain bill, so again, whatever works for you.
Edit2: Another thing I should mention... I break my sacch rest into 3 parts. For example, I typically do a 75 min sacch rest, in which I break it up into 3 parts that are 25 min each. I dough in, put the lid on and set the timer for 25 minutes. This is because I always lose a few degrees and need to add heat to bring it back up. The result is that I am stirring the mash a couple of times during the full duration of the rest, which I believe also helps improve efficiency. I know that a lot of BIABers will insulate the kettle/tun, but that means another piece of something I have to haul up from the basement and I'm all about minimizing equipment, hence my preference for the full volume, no-sparge mash.
Edit: One more thing... I could be wrong, but I believe that doing the mashout improves efficiency and is well worth the extra effort. Of course, one could always skip it and compensate by increasing the grain bill, so again, whatever works for you.
Edit2: Another thing I should mention... I break my sacch rest into 3 parts. For example, I typically do a 75 min sacch rest, in which I break it up into 3 parts that are 25 min each. I dough in, put the lid on and set the timer for 25 minutes. This is because I always lose a few degrees and need to add heat to bring it back up. The result is that I am stirring the mash a couple of times during the full duration of the rest, which I believe also helps improve efficiency. I know that a lot of BIABers will insulate the kettle/tun, but that means another piece of something I have to haul up from the basement and I'm all about minimizing equipment, hence my preference for the full volume, no-sparge mash.
+10
Very much agree on how important stirring is. Before you mash, stir to really even out temps, then stir a lot right at/after adding the grain.
I like to open the kettle every 10-20 minutes and stir, adding heat if required, and often get over 85% efficiency with this method.
Good luck!
BIAB has one big advantage over traditional all grain systems, you can handle a tighter (more fine) crush. This will give you greater efficiency.
If you are buying the grain pre-crushed, ask them to double crush it if they wont crush it finer.
As long as you are at your mash temperature you will get almost no additional efficiency going from 60 to 75 minutes.
There is a chart buried in here
http://books.google.com/books?id=zV...gs+malting#v=onepage&q=briggs malting&f=false
That shows that beyond 30 minutes (at the proper temperature) you are gaining very little additional conversion.
If you are buying the grain pre-crushed, ask them to double crush it if they wont crush it finer.
As long as you are at your mash temperature you will get almost no additional efficiency going from 60 to 75 minutes.
There is a chart buried in here
http://books.google.com/books?id=zV...gs+malting#v=onepage&q=briggs malting&f=false
That shows that beyond 30 minutes (at the proper temperature) you are gaining very little additional conversion.
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