First All Grain/ BIAB.. Can you guys have a look?

[GearDaddys]

Greetings..

So after HOURS and HOURS of reading and preparing.. I did my first all grain/BIAB batch today.. WOOHOO.. Had a ton of fun doing it, and learned a lot.. Thankfully I didn't have too much drama, other than a slightly torn bag due to me forgetting about the dang temp probe in my kettle.. (Crap).. Was hoping some of you would look over my numbers, and possibly comment on what I should do next time..

I am using a 15 gallon kettle MegaPot1.2.. And the recipe that I chose was one from this site.. It was a clone of Stone "Enjoy By".. Perhaps ambitious for my first go around, but hey.. go big or go home right?? I also used beersmith to calculate everything out, and checked every setting probably 4 times..

Strike/Mash temps worked out perfectly.. After mashing in I was less than a degree of from the expected temp in beersmith.. I was jazzed right off the bat with that. After the final step of the mash out, I raised the grain bag with a hoist, and let it drain for a little bit.. Then I squeezed it gently and was surprised by how much wort came out of the bag.. After squeezing it, I used my refractometer to check pre boil gravity.. To my surprise, after squeezing the bag, I came up with 1.054.. Dead on per beersmith.. Interestingly though, I had .3 Gallons of wort more than I should have in the kettle at this point. I decided not to sweat it because the gravity was spot on. Mash effiency according to beersmith was 78 percent. (I thought that this was pretty good)..

Boil went without any problems.. It was a 90 minute boil.. After the boil, I cooled with wort chiller, and then transferred to the fermenter. I had planned on transferring 5.5 gallons into my fermenter, but I had more wort than I was prepared to have! So I put 6 in my fermenter.. and still had 1/4 gallon left in my kettle above the 1/4 gallon that I had planned to leave behind for "Trub Loss".. After pitching, I took my OG reading and found it a little bit low. I came in at 1.074.. The recipe calls for OG of 1.082.. I guess it could have been worse!

I have a few questions about what to do with beersmith now.. I know how to adjust brewhouse effiency numbers to match up the predicted and actual mash effiency numbers.. Should I for the sake of calculations enter in my actual batch size as 6.25 (which I could have had if I had a larger fermenter) or do I put in just the 6.0 that I actually put into my fermentor?

Also, any thoughts on why I would have started so well on my preboil gravity, then wound up with too much wort, at a lower than expected OG? Is the difference that I got vs the recipe something I should be concerned with, or is this an acceptable difference? I'm wondering if I should tweak the "Grain Absorbtion" numbers in beersmith, as this was where I started with too much wort.. I should mention that I measured my original water volume to a gnats ass.. so I know I started with the correct amount..

Anyway, thanks a TON for reading all of this, and I apologize for being so long winded.. Just wanted to share in the excitement of my first all grain brew!

Cheers!

GD

 

[JMSetzler]

That extra .3 gallons you came up with was probably from squeezing water out of the grain bag. I don't recommend doing that if at all possible. Just let it drip for 20 or 30 minutes.

I use beersmith also and tweaking it to match your brewing equipment makes a big difference. It sounds to me like your boil-off rate is out of whack. You didn't boil off as much wort as beersmith thought you were going to. You can fix this number by doing a test boil. Put a measured volume of water in your kettle and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for an hour and then measure you volume again to calculate that boil-off rate.

Since you didn't boil off as much wort as beersmith thought you would, your post boil gravity was lower because the wort was more diluted.

 

[RM-MN]

That extra .3 gallons you came up with was probably from squeezing water out of the grain bag. I don't recommend doing that if at all possible. Just let it drip for 20 or 30 minutes.

I use beersmith also and tweaking it to match your brewing equipment makes a big difference. It sounds to me like your boil-off rate is out of whack. You didn't boil off as much wort as beersmith thought you were going to. You can fix this number by doing a test boil. Put a measured volume of water in your kettle and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for an hour and then measure you volume again to calculate that boil-off rate.

Since you didn't boil off as much wort as beersmith thought you would, your post boil gravity was lower because the wort was more diluted.

Why not squeeze the wort out of the grain bag. That's potential beer there. I squeeze the bag really hard to get as much sweet wort out as I can.

 

[RM-MN]

From my reading, Beersmith tends to recommend way to much water which you then have to boil off to get to your proper amount of wort into the fermenter. I'd recommend that you reduce the water amount by about a gallon from what Beersmith says. Your brewhouse efficiency is calculated by what you got into the fermenter. If you had too much wort to fit and throw it away, that loss is counted against your efficiency.

 

[kh54s10]

You have to adjust the numbers in the equipment profile to match your boil off rate. It might take a few batches to narrow it down. For batch sparging I need to collect about 7.3 gallons to end up with 5.25 in the fermenter. It took a few batches to make all the right adjustments in Beersmith.

I dislike BIAB (heavy, hot, sticky mess) but I squeeze as much wort out of the grain as I can (without suffering too much pain from the hot grain). I have not had any issues.

 

[GearDaddys]

Thanks for the replies..

To clarify a little bit more.. I actually did 2 test boils with water.. I got very similar results on 2 different days of 1.75 gallons per hour.. So I did put that data into beersmith in my equipment profile..

I checked my preboil gravity immediately after pulling my grain bag out, and found that it was a little bit low (should have been 1.054.. I think that it was 1.050ish). After squeezing the bag a little, and stirring the wort I was able to get it up to 1.054.. Had I not squeezed the bag, I'd have been a little bit low on my preboil gravity..

Few things going on in my my head.. First is that I'm thinking the "grain absorption" number that beersmith defaults to may need to be tweaked a little bit? Secondly, is there a difference in doing a boil test with water vs wort? In other words, does the 1.75GPH that I got with water translate to the same value with wort?

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Boil off for water is pretty much the same, I'd keep measuring it to double check and you make sure it's consistent from brew to brew but after 5 or so times I stopped.

Looks like you need to lower your boil off rate from what's in beersmith, and since your pre boil volume was also high, you should lower the grain absorption rate.

Looks like you're having better luck setting up your equipment profile than I did originally, but if you want an easier calculator take a look at mine in the sig below.

I'd suggest letting your bag drain naturally, then squeezing. Just seems more consistent. Set that as your practice and nail down your boil rate and you should be hitting your volume every time.

 

[TexasWine]

Let's do some math!

Final volume after boil 6.25 gallons at gravity of 1.074. If your boil off rate of 1.75/hour is accurate that means you had 6.25 + 1.75x1.5 + 0.3 extra you mentioned = 9.175 gallons pre boil at 1.054.

According to Brewers Friend, boiling 9.175 gallons of 1.054 wort down to 6.25 gallons would give you a final gravity of 1.079.

This is pretty close to what you were expecting, so something seems amiss to me.

Hope this helps!

 

[JMSetzler]

Why not squeeze the wort out of the grain bag. That's potential beer there. I squeeze the bag really hard to get as much sweet wort out as I can.

I guess if tannin extraction is not a concern then it's OK to squeeze the bag.

The original poster was commenting on using BeerSmith and BeerSmith does not accommodate for that. It is programmed to assume .1 gallons of water per pound of grain will be lost to grain absorption. Letting the grain bag drain for 15 minutes or so is going to yield that amount. If you aren't using beersmith to calculate your recipe gravities and water volumes then it doesn't matter.

 

[RM-MN]

I guess if tannin extraction is not a concern then it's OK to squeeze the bag.

The original poster was commenting on using BeerSmith and BeerSmith does not accommodate for that. It is programmed to assume .1 gallons of water per pound of grain will be lost to grain absorption. Letting the grain bag drain for 15 minutes or so is going to yield that amount. If you aren't using beersmith to calculate your recipe gravities and water volumes then it doesn't matter.

Many people are concerned about squeezing the bag for that reason but tannin extraction requires both a high pH and high temperatures. You simple cannot squeeze hard enough to extract them. So long as you keep the pH where it should be you don't have to worry about tannins. In fact, you could even boil the mash and not extract them as this is done in decoction mashing.

 

[BigRob]

The tannin thing has been debunked numerous times here on HBT, squeeze away.

You can set up Beersmith however you like, adjust for more or less absorption losses, it's worth doing a test batch where you measure everything, and lock down your process (are you gonna squeeze, or just hang and drip). Obviously with beers at the extreme low/high ends it will be a little off, same with beers using a lot of rye or other hard to lauter grains. For the most part with standard recipes it's pretty spot on, assuming you set up your profiles correctly.

 

[JMSetzler]

Absolutely. The profiles are important and the supplied numbers are just rough estimates that can be tweaked to get really close to your actual brew day numbers if you take the time to do it. My brewsmith numbers are always within .1 to .15 gallons on my volumes and my gravities are always within .002.

Adjusting your efficiency numbers in Beersmith are also important. 75% is just their starting point. My efficiencies run between 82-84% but it took three or four brew sessions to get to that number.

 

[GearDaddys]

Again... THANK YOU for all that replied.. This is forum is fantastic, and I can't say thanks enough.. Hopefully after I have a better handle on what I'm doing, I'll be able to help some future newbies..

Squeezing the bag issue: Not sure if I'll do this again.. I"m certain that is where the original extra .3 gallons came from. I was too focused on getting my preboil gravity right.. I think it isn't good for the bag to squeeze it either, as it's hard on the seams. Had I recorded the preboil gravity prior to squeezing, I think I could have tweaked my brewhouse effiency to account for this next time.. Next time I think I'll just let it drip for 30 minutes and call it good.

Boil Off: I'm 100 percent certain that I had 9.00 gallons pre boil (kettle is marked and it was dead on at 9 gallons).. Post boil was 6.00 in fermenter + .25G thrown out + .25 planned for trub loss.. For total volume of 6.5G. That gives me a boil off of 1.66GPH vs the 1.75GPH that I found with water testing

I think for my next brew I'll dial down the boil off rate a little bit, and plan to not squeeze my bag.. Feel like squeezing it is hard on the bag, and a workaround to not having beersmith account for my efficiency properly.. Is this reasonable?

 

[GearDaddys]

Ok.. so I just saved a few fake "Working copies" of the recipe in BS, and did some playing around..

Changed boil off to 1.66GPH, and I changed my preboil gravity to 1.050 (close as I can't remember exactly what it was, but was a few points below target prior to squeezing the bag).. I then went into the equip profile in the recipe and started dialing down the brewhouse efficiency number until the expected mash efficiency equaled the actual mash effiency.. Turned out to be 65.5 percent brewhouse efficiency.. Rescaled the recipe from the original, with mods to equip profile, and it calculated an additional 14 ounces of required grains..

Is this too much "change or tweak" on the first go? I don't want to get into a cat chasing it's tail situation, but I'd like to dial this in so that I hit my PB and OG numbers without having to squeeze that bag.. Hopefully I'm not missing something here..

 

[GearDaddys]

JMSetzler,

Wow.. 80-85 percent brewhouse efficiency is really amazing for BIAB.. Are you doing a sparge step, or milling your grain into powder? I used a grain crusher mill on stock settings, but double crushed.. Maybe next time I'll tighten up the rollers a bit..

GD

 

[JMSetzler]

JMSetzler,

Wow.. 80-85 percent brewhouse efficiency is really amazing for BIAB.. Are you doing a sparge step, or milling your grain into powder? I used a grain crusher mill on stock settings, but double crushed.. Maybe next time I'll tighten up the rollers a bit..

GD

I should have clarified my statement there... That's not for BIAB (I have never actually tried BIAB but I plan to soon). It's for a regular mash using a 10-gallon water cooler and batch sparging.

 

[RM-MN]

JMSetzler,

Wow.. 80-85 percent brewhouse efficiency is really amazing for BIAB.. Are you doing a sparge step, or milling your grain into powder? I used a grain crusher mill on stock settings, but double crushed.. Maybe next time I'll tighten up the rollers a bit..

GD

I don't think that 85% is exceptional for BIAB. I've come to plan on that. Occasionaly I might overshoot it just a little. My first batch I did BIAB I didn't do a sparge and hit 80%. That efficiency is most in the milling, you have to get the grain particles down in size so you can efficiently extract the sugars.

I should have clarified my statement there... That's not for BIAB (I have never actually tried BIAB but I plan to soon). It's for a regular mash using a 10-gallon water cooler and batch sparging.

This is the amazing part because quite a few brewers expect only 70 to 75% efficiency.

 

[TexasWine]

Squeezing the bag issue: Not sure if I'll do this again.. I"m certain that is where the original extra .3 gallons came from. I was too focused on getting my preboil gravity right.. I think it isn't good for the bag to squeeze it either, as it's hard on the seams. Had I recorded the preboil gravity prior to squeezing, I think I could have tweaked my brewhouse effiency to account for this next time.. Next time I think I'll just let it drip for 30 minutes and call it good.

Boil Off: I'm 100 percent certain that I had 9.00 gallons pre boil (kettle is marked and it was dead on at 9 gallons).. Post boil was 6.00 in fermenter + .25G thrown out + .25 planned for trub loss.. For total volume of 6.5G. That gives me a boil off of 1.66GPH vs the 1.75GPH that I found with water testing

With these volumes and gravity you would have needed to boil that 9 gallons down to about 6 to hit you desired OG of 1.082. So with that in mind I'd keep everything the same except for a small adjustment of boil off rate, and next time just boil down to 6 gallons, put 5.5 into the fermenter, and bottle/keg 5 gallons.

And you squeezed the bag and got more gravity points (~1.050 to 1.054). That means your gravity after the boil would have been even lower than it was if you didn't squeeze. So squeezing actually helped you in this situation.

Other things to think about for next time:

1. A refractometer is an extremely handy tool. Just pull samples as you're boiling and when the gravity hits the number you're looking for you can stop. It's good to have an idea of how much time it will take because you'll be adding hops and what not as you boil, but it doesn't have to be an exact amount of time either. If it finishes early, great! If it needs to boil longer, then you'll know. And all that without needing to pull a big sample and chill it!

2. I do no chill and just dump the entire contents of the boil kettle into the fermenter. It simplifies my life. I think more people could use more simplicity.

 

[watermelon83]

I dig this beer. Doing my first BIAB soon any chance of sharing the recipe?

 

[GearDaddys]

Watermelon,

This is what I used.. So far it's looking great!

Recipe: Stone Enjoy By Clone
Brewer: The Brew Ruler
Asst Brewer:
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) The Best IPA I've brewed Hands down.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 10.28 gal
Post Boil Volume: 7.28 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.082 SG
Estimated Color: 5.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 118.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 88.8 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 47.1 %
8 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 47.1 %
2.00 oz Calypso [13.00 %] - Mash 90.0 min Hop 3 14.3 IBUs
1 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4 5.7 %
0.75 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 5 28.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 6 11.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Delta [6.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 8.3 IBUs
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 16.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Target [11.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 14.0 IBUs
1.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 10 5.3 IBUs
1.25 oz Citra [14.10 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 11 13.7 IBUs
1.25 oz Motueka [7.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 Hop 12 6.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg Super San Diego Yeast (White Labs #WLP09 Yeast 13 -
1.50 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Da Hop 15 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 16 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.50 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Da Hop 17 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 17 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 24.62 qt of water at 158.9 F 147.0 F 75 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 7.10 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------
Enjoy!

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[GearDaddys]

With these volumes and gravity you would have needed to boil that 9 gallons down to about 6 to hit you desired OG of 1.082. So with that in mind I'd keep everything the same except for a small adjustment of boil off rate, and next time just boil down to 6 gallons, put 5.5 into the fermenter, and bottle/keg 5 gallons.

And you squeezed the bag and got more gravity points (~1.050 to 1.054). That means your gravity after the boil would have been even lower than it was if you didn't squeeze. So squeezing actually helped you in this situation.

Other things to think about for next time:

1. A refractometer is an extremely handy tool. Just pull samples as you're boiling and when the gravity hits the number you're looking for you can stop. It's good to have an idea of how much time it will take because you'll be adding hops and what not as you boil, but it doesn't have to be an exact amount of time either. If it finishes early, great! If it needs to boil longer, then you'll know. And all that without needing to pull a big sample and chill it!

2. I do no chill and just dump the entire contents of the boil kettle into the fermenter. It simplifies my life. I think more people could use more simplicity.

Texas,

Hey, I do have a refractometer.. Actually this was the first time I'd used it and LOVED it.. Next time, I'll continue to boil if I need to to get my numbers correct.. Didn't think about doing it the first time.. So far this brew is looking good.. Gravity is down to 1.008, and it's dry hopping now.. I'm going to brew again in a few weeks (Oaked Arrogant Bastard Clone).. Changes I've made for next time:

1. Tightened up grain mill rollers from .039 inches to .02 inches.
2. Lowered boil off rate from 1.8 to 1.66 (actual from last brew)
3. Lowered brewhouse efficiency by half of what I needed from last brew to get estimated mash effiency and actual mash efficiency to equal numbers.. I only went 1/2 way on this because I tightened up my grain mill, and that should push up my overall efficiency a little bit..

Thank you and everyone else for all of the replies and thoughts!

 

[watermelon83]

Tyvm sir!