First All Grain BIAB - Critique My Process

[bradford0113]

I am about to attempt my first all grain BIAB. Due to equipment limitations, I am going with a 3 gallon batch. I have a 4 gallon stockpot for my boil kettle and will be mashing with a 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bag in a 5 gallon igloo water cooler. First recipe will be using 7.3 lb of grain with a mash thickness of 1.25 qt/lb.

Planned process...

01) Pre-heat the 5 gallon igloo cooler
02) Add 7.3 lb grain to bag and combine with 2.5 gallons of 168F strike water in cooler - mash at 154F for 60 minutes
03) Heat 2 more gallons of water to 177F and dunk sparge grains in bag for approx 10min - remove bag and squeeze
04) Combine mash and sparge water - I should have about 3.5 gallons of wort at this point, but I'm not sure I can boil all that in my 4 gallon pot so I plan to add as much sparge water as possible to the mash water and then continue to add more sparge water to the boil as evaporation occurs
05) Boil 60 min, cool, and transfer to fermentor

If I end up with less than 3 gallons in the fermentor after boil off, I will top off to the 3 gallon mark (shouldn't take much if needed).

I've really thought this out and think it will work well, just looking for any tips or advice others may have for this process.

Thanks - Brad

 

[Foosier]

This looks pretty good. A couple thoughts...

Mash thickness is not really important with BIAB. It is best to mash in a full volume if you can, but when that is not possible just mash with aas much of your full volume as you can and save the rest of your volume for boil.

Your dunk sparge temp is a bit high. You want to aim for 170 at the most. Too much hotter and you can start worrying about extracting tanins. There are some people who report success using cold water. So err towards the cool side rather than the hot side.

Check out a boil off calculator. You can find them on the web. I doubt you will boil off a gallon in an hour in a 4 gallon pot.

 

[RM-MN]

You really aren't doing BIAB, you're doing a conventional mash in the tun but using a bag as your filter instead of a braid or a false bottom but I won't tell anybody. It should work just fine the way you have it planned. Since you have a bag to filter the grain you can have the grain milled much finer than normal for a conventional mash tun and if you have them milled fine, you don't need to mash for an hour. I've been doing a 30 minute mash and get wort that is plenty fermentable and no starch left as tested with iodine.

 

[bradford0113]

Brew went well!!! I was calculating 65% efficiency and I did way better than that. My target OG was 1.064 and I got 1.080.

I am wondering if I should add a half gallon of water to dilute it down to 1.069 which would be closer to my target. Any thoughts on doing this?

 

[bradford0113]

Brew went well!!! I was calculating 65% efficiency and I did way better than that. My target OG was 1.064 and I got 1.080.

I am wondering if I should add a half gallon of water to dilute it down to 1.069 which would be closer to my target. Any thoughts on doing this?

I ended up adding another half gallon of boiled and cooled water and adding it to the fermentor. My 3 gallons that were at 1.080 came down to 1.066 after mixing well and taking another reading. The IBUs may suffer a bit but I don't think it will be noticeable in this milk stout. Now I have 3.5 gallons! :rockin:

 

[RM-MN]

I ended up adding another half gallon of boiled and cooled water and adding it to the fermentor. My 3 gallons that were at 1.080 came down to 1.066 after mixing well and taking another reading. The IBUs may suffer a bit but I don't think it will be noticeable in this milk stout. Now I have 3.5 gallons! :rockin:

Woohoo! More beer!

Now you know why some of us are excited about BIAB.