Help! BIAB first attempt, way too much wort

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ishredthecello

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What did I do wrong here. I brewed in a bag, used the calculations on this site to get my volumes and temps. I ended up with 10 gallons of wort for my 6.6.


So I used the volumes from the site. Mashed for 60 minutes at the 152*. Sparged with the amount it said for 10 minutes. i pressed the grains down to get the wort. so i ended up with 10 gallons of wort?

i took a gravity reading of the 10 gallons i have and it's 1.048 at preboil. but problem is i have 10 gallons, not 6.6? was it the pressing down that i've seen people do with this process, but maybe because they weren't sparging?

i did something horribly wrong on this attempt :(
 
opps heres the calculator i used...

wortvolume.jpg
 
look's like you have the per-boil wort from hell. Short time brewing. But, couldn't you evap it down? 1.5g per hour will take some time to do. I read on a thread some were about doing that with 15g down to 6g for a barley wine.
 
i think where i went wrong is squeezing out the grains. i guess for that calculator it takes into account that you aren't squeezing out the grains.

what i decided to do was make a lower gravity beer as a 10 gallon-ish batch. not what i wanted, but should still be good :cross:
 
...or, you could just toss the extra wort.

At 1.048 pre-boil, you could just boil 6.5 gal down to 5.5 gal somewhere around 1.056; ferment that down to a nice 1.012 or so, and you'll hit a respectable 5.9% ABV.

If I had to guess, I'd say your volumes are off because maybe you squeezed the bag a little too hard? Looks like you got almost all of your water out; I don't BIAB, but just doing straight, bagless all-grain, I plan on losing at least half a quart per pound to grain absorption. You don't wanna waste good wort, but especially if you're sparging, you don't need to wring the grain bag completely dry, either.
 
i'm gonna see what happens...isnt' there a saying for it?

"Relax Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew"
 
I do brew in a bag and I use a simpler method for figuring out how much water. I go pounds of grain x .1 then add that to my desired preboil amount. BIAB absorption is less then standard mashing. I also don't squeeze it much. I usually target 7.5 preboil and end up with 6 after the boil. Then I transfer close to 5.5 to the fermenter. Works out pretty well.
 
I do brew in a bag and I use a simpler method for figuring out how much water. I go pounds of grain x .1 then add that to my desired preboil amount. BIAB absorption is less then standard mashing. I also don't squeeze it much. I usually target 7.5 preboil and end up with 6 after the boil. Then I transfer close to 5.5 to the fermenter. Works out pretty well.

how do you sparge?

I finished with about 6 gallons of 1.068 og. It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. I went to a 90minute boil and adjusted receipe. I had probably about 2gallons still in kettle that I unfortunately discarded.
 
I don't usually sparge. To me, that's one of the reasons for doing BIAB. I sparged once when I did a 10 gal batch in my keggle. Couldn't fit all of my grain and preboil water in there so drain the grains and sparged about a gal of water then added it back before the boil. Typically with about 10lbs of grain I will add close to 8 gal of water into my pot, then end up with around 7.5 gal preboil. I also use a hop spider so I don't get as much trub loss.
 
I have an 11 gallon pot. this recipe had 18.5lbs of grain. would i be able to do the easy sparge method of mash, raise, let drip, heat water to 170, dip grains back in for 10 mins?

if i use the min of 1.25 qts p/lb, i'd need just about 5.75gallons there. plus what another 2gallons for loss? think i'd be able to fit about 8 gallons of water + the grains without it over flowing?

or could i do the 5.75gallons mash, pull grains out, add the other 2 gallons, get to 170, dip back in and sparge?

i tend to like to end with about 5.5gallons of final wort to ferment :)
 
ishredthecello said:
I have an 11 gallon pot. this recipe had 18.5lbs of grain. would i be able to do the easy sparge method of mash, raise, let drip, heat water to 170, dip grains back in for 10 mins?

if i use the min of 1.25 qts p/lb, i'd need just about 5.75gallons there. plus what another 2gallons for loss? think i'd be able to fit about 8 gallons of water + the grains without it over flowing?

or could i do the 5.75gallons mash, pull grains out, add the other 2 gallons, get to 170, dip back in and sparge?

i tend to like to end with about 5.5gallons of final wort to ferment :)

This site has a calculator to figuring out you mash capacity. Called "can I mash it?"

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
 
You made an error in measuring your volumes somewhere. Your mash + sparge water was 10.08 gallons and your ending volume is 10 gallons. Unless by "squeezed the grains" you mean "drove over the bag with a tank" this is not possible.

Also, why is your equipment loss set to 1.15 gallons? There is no mash tun dead space for BIAB, so where does that come from?
 
ishredthecello said:
I saw this calculator but couldn't figure out how to factor in with Mashing Out.

Do you mash in your boil kettle? I do, and if I want to do a mashout, I hear up the pot to 168 by turning the burner on. I don't add anymore water.
 
You made an error in measuring your volumes somewhere. Your mash + sparge water was 10.08 gallons and your ending volume is 10 gallons. Unless by "squeezed the grains" you mean "drove over the bag with a tank" this is not possible.

Also, why is your equipment loss set to 1.15 gallons? There is no mash tun dead space for BIAB, so where does that come from?

I guess that calculator isn't for BIAB at all. Those were default values. This is the calculator...http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php. Maybe it just doesn't translate well to BIAB.

But those are the values I used. I can't imagine I was able to squeeze every bit of the water back out that I possibly could. But sure enough when I dumped in the 'sparge' water, it filled my 44qt pot to the top.

I really just ended up with a lighter beer than I had planned, so it'll still be drinkable and all, just not what i was going for.
 
I agree with jesserizzo. I BIAB and usually your boil pot is your mash tun also, so there should be no dead space loss.
 
BUSTIN' OUT SOME MATH:

(I have an 11 gallon kettle and 17.5lbs of grain)

6.56gal (Mash @ 152* for 60mins)
-2.60gal (Grain Absorption)
==================================
3.96gal (Wort)
+2.79gal (Question about this amount...)
==================================
6.75gal (full volume)
-1.25gal (boil off)
==================================
5.5 gallons (final volume)

**********************************

the 2.79gallons to bring my volume up question: do i...

1. Dump it into the 3.96gal of wort, then get temp up to 170*, lower grains back in, hold for 10 minutes, discard grains

or

2. heat it to some other temperature (if so what temp?) and pour over grains above the 3.96gal of wort?

Bonus: Should I be pressing/squeezing out the grains at any point?

I hope this helps illustrate my questions. I figure for this whole thing I'd need is a about 9.35 gallons of water.
 
the 2.79gallons to bring my volume up question: do i...

1. Dump it into the 3.96gal of wort, then get temp up to 170*, lower grains back in, hold for 10 minutes, discard grains

or

2. heat it to some other temperature (if so what temp?) and pour over grains above the 3.96gal of wort?

Bonus: Should I be pressing/squeezing out the grains at any point?

1. This is a mash out, which I don't do anymore, someone else can answer.
2. This is a sparge. You can heat the water to about the same temp as your mash temp or to 170° OR you can just use unheated water. I have done this, many BIAB'ers do. You would pour the water through your grain to wash/rinse as much sugar as possible.

Bonus: After you remove your grains, squeeze, and after you sparge...if you sparge...then squeeze the crap out of the bag. I have a basket in my pot that the bag sits inside. I lift out the grains and use a heavy glass pitcher to press the bag as much as I can. There are many other ways to do this. Pick one that works for you.
 
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