Critique my 2.5 gallon BIAB plan

1st all grain batch, doing a 2.5 gallon Irish stout kit with a <5 lb grain bill on my stove with a 5 gallon kettle. BK too small for fullvolume mash. After a 3 hour rabbit hole on this forum (with stink eye from the wife), here's my plan. Decided to use simple BIAB calc, with bag suspended on colander, light squeeze with gloves, and sparge water pour at mashout temp till I reach preboil volume. Hoping wilserbag chimes in, since he's fellow jersey, I'll be buying one of his bags once I get s bigger kettle for xmas!

1. Strike water 2.9g at 160.2 for a target mash temp of 153. Water is 2 gallon tap mixed with .9 RO water
2. 75 minute rest, then pull bag into big colander over kettle, start to heat wort to boil
3. Pour 175 F sparge water 100% RO through grains til I hit 3.4 gallons
4. Take gravity reading, 60 minute boil, my guess is 1 gallon loss. Using 12" dia kettle on a 23k btu Bluestar...not bad for stovetop.:rockin:
5. If I'm below 2.5 g, after I pull my chiller, I may top off with water prior to pitching
6. Splash transfer to 3 gallon carboy via autosiphon, gravity reading,shake, pitching wyeast Irish ale 1084.

I have capability to measure total solids in my tap water, it's about 260ppm. I also have gypsum, but no real knowledge on how much to add, except to copy and scale down some recipes...which seems risky. ...but I don't plan to go down the water wormhole til after xmas, so I'm guesstimating RO/tap water mix based on general knowledge. Don't have pH meter.

How's my plan?

Be careful not to oversparge the grains.

I do 2 gallon patches in a 5 gal cooler and a 5 gal pot. I usually get between 17 and 18 bottles. Ferment in 2 gal bucket from HD. BIAB no need to sparge, squeeze like hell. LOL

You've got plenty of kettle volume for full-volume mash. I did many many such 2.5g biab in 5g pot. I usually started with 3.75 gallons. No need to sparge at all

I did probably a dozen stove top BIAB batches when I was getting started. I was doing 5g batches with a 7.5g $30 turkey fryer.

You are on the right path....but I'd make one change. You'll need a 5g+ plastic bucket (if you don't have one, buy one, you'll use it all the time going forward, no matter your new equipment).

For your sparge......do a dunk sparge right into the plastic bucket.

Get the 175* water, dump it into the plastic bucket. Then pull your mash bag right from your kettle and into the bucket. Let it soak 10-15 mins. Then add the sparge water to your kettle. You can sit your colander on the plastic bucket and let the bag drain if you want...doesn't matter too much.

Put some towels down on the floor.


Finally....don't stress out too much. Get your mash temps close and try to hold them there (I would wrap kettle with towels/blankets)

After making dozens of batches now, I realized that you have to really screw up to make a bad beer with BIAB. It's almost impossible!

Old towels on the floor, first picking up any nice mats you wife put there.
I sparged in a pasta pot when I did stovetop. Use a colander to drain, press on it with a plate, no gloves needed. Watch your pot like a hawk as it comes to a boil, burned wort on a stove leads to exile. You can add the sparge after the hot break if you wish.
With this method, topping off as you boil down, and again in the fermenter, you can do five gallon batches in your five gallon pot. I did this routinely. But I also started with 2.5 gallon batches, they are easier.

Tommydee said:

1st all grain batch, doing a 2.5 gallon Irish stout kit with a <5 lb grain bill on my stove with a 5 gallon kettle. BK too small for fullvolume mash.

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Using the "can I mash it" calculator on this web site:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

I plugged in 4 gallons of water (16 quarts) and 5 lbs of grain I came up with a mash thickness of 3.2 qt/gallon.
The Racker's calculator says it will take 4.4 gallons of space to mash.
You want 2.5 gallons to the fermenter, so I added 1 gallon for evaporation and .5 gallon for grain absorption. Using a measured amount of water at the beginning is a good way to dial in the volume amounts you need for your kettle and heat source.
Doing a full volume mash is a good plan since your just starting out and keeping it simple is important. When you pull the bag, if you want to sparge with another 1/2 gallon of water you can have some more volume to account for Trub loss.
If you use only 4 gallons of water I think you'll come up short on the actual beer at the end.
Doing a full volume BIAB mash is also easier to maintain your mash temp. Basically more thermal mass stays warmer longer.
Pull a 1 cup sample when there is 5 minutes left in the boil, chill it down in an ice bath and get a gravity reading before your boil is finished. If the gravity is low you can boil off some more, or you can add some extract.
Since the boil is still going the sample can be dumped back in.
Once you get your system and volumes dialed in, you probably can skip this step.
Does your home tap water taste ok? If it's at all questionable, just buy bottled spring water.
Finally, quit using kits, look for clone recipes of beers you like, or hunt for recipes here on HBT and order your specific ingredients from an online retailer or go to your LHBS if there is one.
Specific grains from different malt producers give different results, so its good keep track of exactly what you are using. Some kits will tell you whats in there, and sometimes its a mystery.
I started with BIAB, but got tired of the mess when the bag is pulled, as well as temperature variations of the mash.
For $20, I got a 5 gallon round cooler, added a spigot and now just put the BIAB bag in there. Its an extra piece of gear, but its just easier for me.
Good Luck and Merry Christmas

I would also do a no sparge. I have a 5g pressure canner that i use stove top for small batches, without the lid of course, but i usually leave the disc thing in the bottom so the bag doesnt touch the bottom and burn.

My process on week nights with wife and kids.

I just fill it up with hot tap water (140 love my tankless) when i get home and put it on the stove on high and dough in. Turn the oven on to warm, my low setting is 170. Stir grain and watch temp till it gets to 152 and then shut off heat on stove and oven. Put the pot in the oven with the light on and forget it for the duration of the mash.

I then eat dinner with the family, usually a slow cooker meal on brew nights, and after dinner pull the pot back out of the oven and put it back on the stove top on high and pull the bag out and place in a colender to drain and squeese.

Family time while the temp comes up.

Once the boil starts i add my 60 min hops and then get the kids ready for bed (bath, pjs, some tv time) then its time for the FO hops and into the sink to chill while i tuck the kids in. Go back to the sink and give everything a stir and change out chilling water and maybe add some ice.

It takes about 30 min to chill this way so I only use hops at 60 and FO.

Im usually to pitching temp by 9:30 and transfer to the fermenter and everything cleaned up and put away by 10.

Then I go tuck the wife in

Sorry for the long post and getting off topic a bit but a 5g pot is perfect for a 2.5g batch BIAB with no sparge.

Further off topic, I usually keg and I only have 5g kegs so I repeat the process the next night and just add that brew to the fermenter.

timdillon36 said:

I would also do a no sparge. I have a 5g pressure canner that i use stove top for small batches, without the lid of course, but i usually leave the disc thing in the bottom so the bag doesnt touch the bottom and burn.

My process on week nights with wife and kids.

I just fill it up with hot tap water (140 love my tankless) when i get home and put it on the stove on high and dough in. Turn the oven on to warm, my low setting is 170. Stir grain and watch temp till it gets to 152 and then shut off heat on stove and oven. Put the pot in the oven with the light on and forget it for the duration of the mash.

I then eat dinner with the family, usually a slow cooker meal on brew nights, and after dinner pull the pot back out of the oven and put it back on the stove top on high and pull the bag out and place in a colender to drain and squeese.

Family time while the temp comes up.

Once the boil starts i add my 60 min hops and then get the kids ready for bed (bath, pjs, some tv time) then its time for the FO hops and into the sink to chill while i tuck the kids in. Go back to the sink and give everything a stir and change out chilling water and maybe add some ice.

It takes about 30 min to chill this way so I only use hops at 60 and FO.

Im usually to pitching temp by 9:30 and transfer to the fermenter and everything cleaned up and put away by 10.

Then I go tuck the wife in

Sorry for the long post and getting off topic a bit but a 5g pot is perfect for a 2.5g batch BIAB with no sparge.

Further off topic, I usually keg and I only have 5g kegs so I repeat the process the next night and just add that brew to the fermenter.

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That was an excellent post! Great breakdown on the timing!

All the Best,
D. White

Wow, this community is great. I'll be making the following changes:

My boiloff rate is too low....more water.
I like the oven idea.
I have a 4 gallon pot, may change to dunk sparge....or may reduce the sparge water to 3/4 gallon, and use more to just get my boil start volume up to 3.8ish.
Love the idea to check SG near the end of boil....this kit and bag and grind are all in question since it's first batch...and probably it's designed for MLT, not BIAB.
I hear you on the kits. I built a similar recipe with the trial program of beersmith, but decided to use a kit on my first from the LHBS, which is also an online retailer. If this goes reasonably well, I'll buy a mill and make my own.
Tim, thanks for the family dinner tips! I will definitely use them. I won't combine to 5 gallons til I dial in my skills, and maybe get a keg system...I have a 10 gallon pot on my amazon wish list, hoping the wife buys....but you make me think instead to go 8 galllon, or perhaps a 2nd 5. I think I want to scale up to about 3.5 or 4 gallons, and use 5 gallon carboys as my standard....but I had not thought about doubling up on 5g....and the oven technique will be harder with 8g kettle, and impossible with 10g. Also, my range is big, with 2 big burners, so I could make 2 batches at once and start my own 2.5 g brulosophy lab!

Lots to think about....today is for bottling batches 2 and 3, I'll. Probably do the BIAB Tuesday, after last day of work for the year on Monday.

This thread is making this sound so difficult it's making my head hurt j/k

Try this.....

Heat 4 gallons to 158-160, mash in and place kettle in a preheated oven on lowest setting. Turn off oven and go to bed. Wake up and remove bag, boil with hops, chill, aerate and pitch yeast.

Keep it simple....

Overnight mash not required, just an example how simple it can be cheers!

An extra 75 cents worth of grain can also delete the need for a sparge or squeezing your bag like a psycho lol jmo

wilserbrewer said:

This thread is making this sound so difficult it's making my head hurt j/k

Try this.....

Heat 4 gallons to 158-160, mash in and place kettle in a preheated oven on lowest setting. Turn off oven and go to bed. Wake up and remove bag, boil with hops, chill, aerate and pitch yeast.

Keep it simple....

Overnight mash not required, just an example how simple it can be cheers!

An extra 75 cents worth of grain can also delete the need for a sparge or squeezing your bag like a psycho lol jmo

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Always found this so interesting. People go to such great expense to maintain a certain Mash temperature. But I'm aware that people let it sit overnight. How does this work? Basically once the starches are converted the temp doesn't matter?

On topic best wishes to you sounds like you got a good plan. I don't know if it's been said ur keep a nice big beach towel around it'll make life easier.

applescrap said:

I'm aware that people let it sit overnight. How does this work? Basically once the starches are converted the temp doesn't matter.

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It's complicated as there are many factors in play. From what I have read, an overnight mash will tend to be a bit more fermentable, with a slightly lower FG. But one can compensate for this by mashing higher to start with, say 3-5 degrees.

wilserbrewer said:

This thread is making this sound so difficult it's making my head hurt j/k

Try this.....

Heat 4 gallons to 158-160, mash in and place kettle in a preheated oven on lowest setting. Turn off oven and go to bed. Wake up and remove bag, boil with hops, chill, aerate and pitch yeast.

Keep it simple....

Overnight mash not required, just an example how simple it can be cheers!

An extra 75 cents worth of grain can also delete the need for a sparge or squeezing your bag like a psycho lol jmo

Click to expand...

I also do the mash in the oven at about 170F. Hot enough to maintain temp in the pot, no risk of burning the bag.

I would just roll with your tap water and treat it with campden tabs if it's a municipal source or spring water otherwise.

Aristotelian said:

I also do the mash in the oven at about 170F. Hot enough to maintain temp in the pot, no risk of burning the bag.

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I tried this yesterday but I guess my oven isn't very accurate at this low temperature. I preheated it to 170°F, shut the oven off, opened the door for a minute to cool it down just a bit, and placed my 5 gallon mash pot inside. The mash was at 158°F going in and I expected it to fall slightly, but instead it rose to 161°F.

I also did a second batch (two in the same day staggered by one hour - boy does that keeps you busy!). For this batch I let the oven cool to just warm and it worked perfectly with the mash temperature going from 156 to 155°F. The batches were the same grain bill and finished at the same OG of 1.050 (English Brown Ale).

TomVA

Ok, so should be finished with my year end report for work in an hour, seriously thinking about starting the brew tonight with an overnight full volume mash, RO water with some gypsum. Pull bag in morning, just pour warm water over grains to get to my desired starting preboil gravity/volume. Is this a good idea? I'm thinking for a stout maybe it will thin it out too much....also, first time, so leaning towards a normal 70 minute mash. Shuould I go for the overnight mash on all grain batch #1? I'll decide in an hour.

I wouldn't do overnight, it would just mess with me. I mash 45 min. Have a good eye on your water and or use calculator. If you go fv with correct water amount then just need to squeeze your sack....or drain it i guess. I guess you could sparge instead of slow drain/squeeze. Not sure that is your best option. Anyways best of luck and i think you will do great. So glad you are brewing.

Thanks for all the help. Went pretty well today. Ended up lightly squeezing, and got my target boil volume...but SG reading showed efficiency was a bit higher than expected, so I had the bag in a bucket, so just topped off from 3.7-3.9 with some room temp RO from the tap, poured over the bag.

My stove boiled off 1.3 gallons, its a beast, so I measured gravity, and decided to add 0.3 gallons of RO to fermentation.

Only 3 potential issues, hopefully none will cause too much trouble with my stout.

1. Mash temp was dead on at 154...preheated oven to 160, turned off, then left in there for 4 hours while I ran errands. Someone must have opened, because temp dropped to 138 and oven wasn't warm. . Just hope it dropped later, and not sooner.

2. LHBS gave me a pretty coarse bag, so there was a lot of crap in the wort. I did drop Irish moss at the end of the boil, but started immersion chiller 20 minutes late (misplaced supply hose...only 2nd time using it!) good news it's a stout, and not a pilsner.

Wort smells and tastes awesome, so I'm hoping this turns out ok. Thanks again for everyone's input, this was pretty simple so far. Wilserbag, definitely expect an order soon! I'll update in a month with the results.

I think it will be fine. Your mash probably converted pretty quickly. Also, those mash conversion occurs over a range of temperatures. Don't worry about the stuff in the fermenter, plenty of brewers pour it all in, I have. Your beer will still clear. As for the slow cooling, it would only affect late hops.
Congratulations!

It sounds like you did just fine. Better efficiency then expected gave you a higher OG so you diluted and will end up with more beer. .

As far as the oven temp I don't think loosing 16° in 4 hours is that bad but did you leave the light on, and is it a incandescent bulb that puts off heat.

You made beer and that's great, any help I can give I will but alot of times the small details get over looked, we here can only advise based on what we are told and often guess that others equipment is about the same.

If your oven will hold at 160, I would try just leaving it on during the mash.

So, after 3 relatively good extract batches I thought all went well, but looks like i've got my first stuck fermentation on my first all grain batch. I also read How to Brew over the break, so I have some theories on what happened and interested in next steps...I made at least 3 mistakes in my 1st all grain, but I guess as long as i learn from them....I figure if I'm going to mess up a batch, better to combine my errors here!:

Recipe was as follows for a 2.5 gallon batch, and I ended up sending about 2.6 gallon to fermenter, since I pretty much hit all my gravities...until FG, that is.

3.25 Lb Pale Malt
12 oz roasted barley
8 oz flaked barley
2 oz black malt

1. Pitched a full smack pack of wyeast 1084, which should have been plenty for a 2.5 gallon batch, BUT, I started it only 30 minutes before pitching....forgot to smack until too late! According to pack, this shouldn't matter. Fermentation started late, around 24 hours, with nice krausen, but generally a lot less airlock activity, and shorter duration than my last 3 batches....only 2 days. Gravity at day 6 ended up at 1.022, with target of 1.013 or so.
To rule out 1, I went ahead and racked to secondary on day 6, tookand pitched a packet of Windsor yeast I grabbed from an extract kit, and basically nothing happened....of course I now know that Windsor is a low attenuator, and should have pitced notty! So that's 4 mistakes!!..

2. I thought i'd to the oven trick for the mash, but I think i turned off the oven too soon, or perhaps my wife opened it....I discussed this above....however I started right at 154 for mashing, but when returned 4 hours later it was down to 138 F....still, i would expect if anything there would be more conversion of fermentable sugars at the lower temp....and wouldn't I expect to see a lower starting gravity if my extraction was bad? I don't think this is the cause, but perhaps.

3. Screwing with my water- my tapwater is decent, but since i have RO in my house, seems silly to not use pure water, and add salts....however, i did a bit of a hybrid....20% tap, 80% RO treated with gypsum....but I did not add carbonate, and I did not have pH meter at the time (have one now!!). So I just put some things into brun water to recheck my work, and think for sure that I over-acidified my mash...assuming 100% RO, and 4 g gypsum added, brun water kicks out a mash pH was 4.6! So I decided I was smarter than the experts, and messed with my water before I really had the proper gear to do so....and paid in beer!! In addition to me being stupid, I had a plan in brun water, then i did some hybrid tweaking based on advice from others, and never verified my final additions in brun water...

So, is the cause 3 as I suspect? Probably...

Lesson learned, KISS, til I get my technique down. I'm going to return to 50/50 split of tap and RO, which i used on batch #2 (pale ale extract), use my pH meter at mash, and do better next time.

My plan is to let this sit in 2ndary for another week, then go ahead and bottle it...if too sweet to drink, i'll drain the rest of the case....or, since i'm making an extract kit holiday ale tonight, which calls for a 2ndary fermentation with spices, I might rack this onto the yeast cake of the spiced beer....right now, i tasted it at day 6, and there is so little alcohol, not sure it's really worth bottling.

What was your OG? When I plug in your grain bill to fit my system, I get a target OG of 1.047 given 75% mash efficiency and a 2.6 gallon fermenter volume. So if your OG was close, you only reached about 53% attenuation. That's really low; it probably wasn't done yet when you moved it to secondary.

Couple of thoughts... Looks like a basic dry stout. You have almost 19% dark roasted grains in there, so it will be a while til it tastes good. Those flavors usually take a few weeks to a couple of months to mellow out. So moving it to secondary after only 6 days sounds like you felt like doing something to the beer, when in reality, perhaps you should have left it on the yeast for another full week at least. There was just no need to rush around.

How did you do for fermentation temps? Hopefully you kept things up in the mid to high 60s. English yeasts like a rising temp curve. They can start around 62/63, but like to finish strong on the shy side of 70. At least that is one way to go. My point is just that you don't want temps to fall with these yeasts during primary.

The water is a whole other story, but mash pH has the potential to affect your yield (OG). You'll want an estimated mash pH of about 5.5 (room temp) with a very dark beer.

Mcknuckle, thanks for the input and for helping a noob from Jersey! oG target was 1.045, I hit 1.044, I believe. Perhaps I should have left it alone, but it never really moved much at all, and active fermentation was slow, and stopped after 24 hours. I do carboys, and the krausen had dropped with no airlock activity in 2 days...Temp started at 66, and I kept it at 68 in the chamber, which is slightly above the midpoint for the yeast.

In hindsight, my water management and approach was too sloppy for a first time all grain run, and I plan to tighten up everything, and take my time on the next one. I'm gonna let this sit in the carboy for another 2 weeks, and go from there. The gravity sample didnt taste bad....just "wet" due to low attenuation.

Help! Doing first brew and messed up! I put the hops during the mashout instead of the boil! I’m I screwed? I’m now boiling but don’t have the hops

Look in your mash grains and see if there are any hops (pellets?) that didn't dissolve, pick 'em out and chuck them in. If not, just split up some of your late addition hops, if there are any, and use that.

Dbares said:

Help! Doing first brew and messed up! I put the hops during the mashout instead of the boil! I’m I screwed? I’m now boiling but don’t have the hops

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You might consider starting a new thread instead of piggybacking it on a 5 year old thread that doesn’t really have anything to do with your immediate problem.

madscientist451 said:

Look in your mash grains and see if there are any hops (pellets?) that didn't dissolve, pick 'em out and chuck them in. If not, just split up some of your late addition hops, if there are any, and use that.

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Thanks, can’t find any in the grains, I only used half the kit so I do have hops left for another batch. Should I use those?

Yeah. chuck 'em in, you can get more hops later.