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jmculak

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So I've finally decided to do my first BIAB, naturally I ignored all advice and have decided to do a Belgian quad. I have a 10 Gal mega-pot that will actually hold 11.29 gal according to the BIABacus. After inputting the quantities for the all-grain 5 gal version (16lbs of grain), the BIABacus calculated I would need 21.5lbs! I knew BIAB was less efficient, but 5.5lbs seems like a lot. The calculated mash volume is 10.35 gallons which is going to leave me with not much headspace.

I would love some feedback on if this sounds accurate.

I have attached the original recipe for reference.

Cheers!

View attachment AG-Northy12BelgianQuad.pdf
 
I would just go in with the published recipe amounts. You may come up a little short in OG due to crush or other factors, but I think that would be better than wildly overshooting, which is what I honestly think would happen if you added 5.5 more lbs of grain. Did you remember to add the 2 lbs candi syrup to your BIABacus calcuations? Seems like 16 lbs of grain + 2 lbs of simple sugar would easily get you to 1.090 for a 5 gallon batch.

I've never used BIABacus, but I've been doing BIAB for nearly five years and I can say I have never once had to add additional grain to a commercial published recipe (which are typically designed for ~70% mash efficiency). In almost all cases, I've had to decrease my grain bill to keep OG in line with the recipe. For a 5 gallon batch of 1.090 brew using my own system, I would expect to hit 75-77% efficiency, however I do employ a small sparge. Without a sparge, I would size my grain bill for 70% with the expectation that it would actually yield a few points higher.

Update to add: a quick bit of math confirms that the grain bill in the recipe is designed to yield 1.090 @ 70% mash efficiency. Given that your batch size is going to max out your available mash volume, I'd strongly suggest that you plan to do a small 1.5-2 gallon dunk sparge and I'd bet you'd hit that 70% and maybe do a little better.
 
I agree, go with the published recipe. I use Beersmith for all my calculations, and I have not had to add to the grain bill either.
 
So I threw your recipe into Beersmith with my BIAB profile. With the recipe as is with 72% BH efficiency, I get the same gravity as the recipe shows. The mash time seems short. I would pump up to 90 minutes. I just brewed a Belgian and my understanding is with Pilsner Malts, you need to mash longer. I do not know the science behind that, just read it here on HBT. Beersmith showed this with a 75 minute mash.
 
TorMag said:
So I threw your recipe into Beersmith with my BIAB profile. With the recipe as is with 72% BH efficiency, I get the same gravity as the recipe shows. The mash time seems short. I would pump up to 90 minutes. I just brewed a Belgian and my understanding is with Pilsner Malts, you need to mash longer. I do not know the science behind that, just read it here on HBT. Beersmith showed this with a 75 minute mash.
Click to expand...

Recipes containing Pilsner malts should be boiled longer (typically 90 minutes) due to the Pils having a higher percentage of the precursor to DMS present, but not everyone subscribes to this ideology (I do, however).

Mash duration is temp and crush dependent. Unless you are crushing to flour, I'd concur that the 149° rest should be at least 75 minutes and I, personally, would go with 90 minutes. Increases in mast temps and/or a finer crush will allow for shorter rest durations.
 
LLBeanJ said:
Recipes containing Pilsner malts should be boiled longer (typically 90 minutes) due to the Pils having a higher percentage of the precursor to DMS present, but not everyone subscribes to this ideology (I do, however).

Mash duration is temp and crush dependent. Unless you are crushing to flour, I'd concur that the 149° rest should be at least 75 minutes and I, personally, would go with 90 minutes. Increases in mast temps and/or a finer crush will allow for shorter rest durations.
Click to expand...

There you go. I knew 90 minutes was in there somewhere due to Pilsner Malts. The recipe I just did had both a 90 minute boil and a 90 minute mash.
 
My understanding of Northern Brewer recipes is that they are designed for an average. Approximately 70% brewhouse efficiency. The bigger the beer in my experience the worse the efficiency I get. I get even lower when I do BIAB.

So, either brew per the recipe and accept what you get. Or, try to compensate. 5.5 pounds additional doesn't sound right to me. If you can put it in a recipe program like Beersmith, it would be more accurate. I use Beersmith and for my rig I almost always have a little change in the recipe to get the same OG.
 
Since I now have this recipe in Beersmith, might have to due this one next, I am on a Belgian kick right now....
 
LLBeanJ said:
I would just go in with the published recipe amounts. You may come up a little short in OG due to crush or other factors, but I think that would be better than wildly overshooting, which is what I honestly think would happen if you added 5.5 more lbs of grain. Did you remember to add the 2 lbs candi syrup to your BIABacus calcuations? Seems like 16 lbs of grain + 2 lbs of simple sugar would easily get you to 1.090 for a 5 gallon batch.

I've never used BIABacus, but I've been doing BIAB for nearly five years and I can say I have never once had to add additional grain to a commercial published recipe (which are typically designed for ~70% mash efficiency). In almost all cases, I've had to decrease my grain bill to keep OG in line with the recipe. For a 5 gallon batch of 1.090 brew using my own system, I would expect to hit 75-77% efficiency, however I do employ a small sparge. Without a sparge, I would size my grain bill for 70% with the expectation that it would actually yield a few points higher.

Update to add: a quick bit of math confirms that the grain bill in the recipe is designed to yield 1.090 @ 70% mash efficiency. Given that your batch size is going to max out your available mash volume, I'd strongly suggest that you plan to do a small 1.5-2 gallon dunk sparge and I'd bet you'd hit that 70% and maybe do a little better.
Click to expand...

The candi sugar! That's what was throwing off the calculator. Okay, with that included the numbers are in line with the original recipe.

When calculating for strike water volume I am not including the 2 lbs of candi sugar which gives me 7.6 gallons assuming a .01 gpp absorption rate and 1 gph boil off.

I planned on doing a sparge, have never done a dunk sparge but I do have an additional 5 gal pot I could use in this manner. Is this more advantageous than suspending the bag with a pulley system and doing an in-the-bag sparge?

Thanks for all the help.
 
Well, there you have it!

Candi sugar goes in the boil (I add it at the beginning), so no, it does not play into strike/mash volume.

By all means, if you have a bag suspension system, do a pour-over-grains sparge. It's actually the way I do it. Dunk sparge is easy if you don't have a way to suspend the grain bag over the kettle. There are many ways to skin the BIAB sparge cat.
 
Or add the Candi sugar in the fermenter after fermentation has started. That's what was done to the Tripel I made at No Label Brewing. It ensures all the sugar gets into the fermenter.
 
Make sure you set the candi syrup to the letter "B" for boiled only in Section B, that will re-calculate the strike water, re-calculate the "what you will use" in Section B, the efficiency in Section P, etc. You can set the ppg of the sugar in Section Y to 32 ppg by setting 100% FGDB and 30% moisture content.
MS
 
1MadScientist said:
Make sure you set the candi syrup to the letter "B" for boiled only in Section B, that will re-calculate the strike water, re-calculate the "what you will use" in Section B, the efficiency in Section P, etc. You can set the ppg of the sugar in Section Y to 32 ppg by setting 100% FGDB and 30% moisture content.
MS
Click to expand...

With those adjustments I am coming in at 8.35 gal total water needed with a volume into boil of 7.51 gal. It is also now calculating I will need 9.96 lbs of Pilsner, and 7.74 lbs of pale. I plan on doing a 90 minute mash as was recommended previously in the thread as well as a 75 minute boil.

I had planned on adding the candi sugar at the 15min mark, but if it's advantageous to do it prior to boil I'll do that instead.

Please let me know if something sounds off or there is any other advice.

I would attach a copy of the excel doc but my file size is too large. TWSS
 

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