3gal batch in 5gal pot

[smitty8202]

I want to move to biab but only have a 5gal pot. Want to make a few beers and save up for a nice 10gal kettle. Is this doable or should I just get the 10gal kettle now?

 

[AsgardNorth]

I do 2.5 and 3 gallon BIAB all the time in my 5 gallon pot. Never any issue to date. (Knocking on wood here).

 

[smitty8202]

I do 2.5 and 3 gallon BIAB all the time in my 5 gallon pot. Never any issue to date. (Knocking on wood here).

What's the most amount of grain you can put in it with 3 gallons of water

 

[Subdivisions]

I want to move to biab but only have a 5gal pot. Want to make a few beers and save up for a nice 10gal kettle. Is this doable or should I just get the 10gal kettle now?

Sure, just reserve some of the water and use that to do a sparge in a separate vessel. I use a $2 Home Depot bucket. Then dump the sparge water back into your 5 gallon pot and start the boil. That way you can get your 4 gallons or so without overflowing the 5 gallon pot.

Example. Mash your grains with 3.25 gallons of water in the 5 gallon pot. Heat up a gallon to 1.25 gallons of water to 175F while the mash is going. Pull the grain bag at the end of the mash and get as much of the liquid out as possible. Put grain bag in the Homer bucket and dump the sparge water in. Stir it good and let it sit for 10 minutes. Pull grains. Squeeze and dump into boil kettle.

The amount of water can be calculated using a number of BIAB calculators on the internet. I use pricelessbrewing's calculator and my volumes come out spot on.

 

[Subdivisions]

What's the most amount of grain you can put in it with 3 gallons of water

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

look for the 'can I mash it' calculator on this page.

Put your lbs of grain in and mess with the mash thickness to get it to about 3.5-4 gallons. The more water in the mash, the less you need to heat separately and sparge with.

Take the lbs of grain and multiply by mash thickness to get quarts of water needed (4 quarts in a gallon). For BIAB we usually use .08 gallons per pound of grain lost to absorption if you squeeze the hell out of the bag.

You're going to want to end up with at least 3.5 gallons of wort to account for boil off depending on your boil off rate

 

[unionrdr]

Well, I do pb/pm biab, & the most grains I've mashed in my 5 gallon SS kettle is 8.7lbs in about 2 1/4 gallons of spring water. that takes up about 4 gallons, maybe 4 1/2 gallons of room. Here's a pic of it;

I then dunk sparged ( read batch sparged) that brew in 1.5 gallons of spring water @ 168F for ten minutes, which allows me to stir the sparge for better efficiency. This give a boil volume of about 3 1/2 to 4 gallons. That's maximum I've found so far for my partial mash beers. Thats going on about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 quarts of water per pound of grains for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[dmashl]

Could do partial boil(4 gallon). Top off in the fermenter to get 5 gallon batch. I do it all the time all grain. I have done it BIAB twice, then made a mash tun for about $30. BIAB can be messy when you rinse the grain with your sparge water.

 

[smitty8202]

I think I'm gonna start out with 3 gallon batches in case I mess it up cause 3 gallons yields what 30 beers or so? Then once I get the process down go full 5 gallon biab batches or move into full all grain with a mash tun.

 

[chickypad]

What's the most amount of grain you can put in it with 3 gallons of water

I use my old 5 gal extract pot for 3 gal BIAB batches. I can fit 10 lbs of grain with 3 gal of water, it would be hard to get much more than that. On those batches I need to dunk sparge about another 1.5 gal to get to boil volume. More commonly I'm doing 6-8 lb grainbills with 10 qt mash and 7-7.5 qt sparge. A full volume mash won't quite fit and still have room to stir.

 

[RM-MN]

Sure, just reserve some of the water and use that to do a sparge in a separate vessel. I use a $2 Home Depot bucket. Then dump the sparge water back into your 5 gallon pot and start the boil. That way you can get your 4 gallons or so without overflowing the 5 gallon pot.

Example. Mash your grains with 3.25 gallons of water in the 5 gallon pot. Heat up a gallon to 1.25 gallons of water to 175F while the mash is going. Pull the grain bag at the end of the mash and get as much of the liquid out as possible. Put grain bag in the Homer bucket and dump the sparge water in. Stir it good and let it sit for 10 minutes. Pull grains. Squeeze and dump into boil kettle.

The amount of water can be calculated using a number of BIAB calculators on the internet. I use pricelessbrewing's calculator and my volumes come out spot on.

I like to do that in reverse, start the boil so you get past hot break, then add the sparge. You have more room for the hot break as the boil starts, then you get a second, smaller hot break from the sparge. It might keep you from a boil over.