Jps101
Well-Known Member
So yesterday, I am did my first AG, BIAB. Earlier in the week, I sewed up a voile cloth bag. material direct from Joanne Fabrics, even used a "serger". Who knew I could be domesticated. Nonetheless, I used a receipe that was in BYO mag, earlier this year for an Imperial Blonde Ale - 14.625# of grain. everything seemed to go pretty easy, for the most part...I think. Used 8 gallons of water for a 2.18 qt/# ratio. Raised water temp to 160*, mashed in and water hovered around 152*. had to reheat briefly at about 30 min. Tried to stip mach every 15 min to make sure i was getting good water exposure. I also double crushed my grain bill as I have read that helps with efficiency. Raised the the temp for mash out to what I thought was 170*, but it quickly dropped to 166*, left there for 10 min. Removed the grains and put in a 6.5 gallon bucket to squeeze out as much wort as possible. I ended up getting nearly 3/4 of a gallon. Added this back to the kettle for a total volume of ~6.75 gallons. Pre boil gravity was 1.057 (target 1.059). Boiled for an hour, added 2.5# of clover honey (per recipe) last 5 min. Final gravity was 1.081. Here is where I have some questions...per Beersmith, I had 90% efficiency. This does not seem realistic. I ended up with about 6 gallons in to the fermenter, plus I added about 2.5L from my starters. This is a big beer, so I made a 2.5L starter.