First BIAB and first All Grain in progress now...

[flattie]

So after reading the forums here and elsewhere for months and slowly acquiring some equipment I finally took the plunge.

Grabbed the bayou classic 44qt ss kettle on special from amazon followed by a bayou sq14 burner and a wilser bag over the last 2 or 3 months.

Using the priceless biab calculator I filled my kettle last night with filtered water to a height of 12.04" @ 7.6 gallons.

This morning I began heating my strike water to 161 F around 8:45am.

Dropped in the bag. Poured the grains in stirring to prevent any dough balls.

Checked temp and right at 155 F just like the priceless calculator predicted.

Wrapped up the kettle in 2 heavy winter jackets and opened it up for a stir and temp check - right at 154 F after 15 minutes.

Just taking it easy right now waiting for another stir at 45 minutes in.

I've got a ratchet pulley all set up waiting for the big squeeze then it's boil time.

I will check back in when I get an OG reading and I see how much goes into the fermenter.

But I have to say that so far this isn't too hard - in large part to all the great advice on these forums and others.

Recipe is for an Oatmeal Stout put together by my local homebrew shop - shout out to Homebrew & Handgrenades.

8lb maris otter
1 lb flaked oats
8 oz chocolate malt
8 oz roasted barley
4 oz victory malt

1 oz willamette @ 60
1 oz east kent golding @ 30

Safale 04

expected OG 1.054
expected FG 1.012

Thanks all to who contributed to giving me the confidence to take the leap into All Grain.

 

[Oleary]

Good luck!

I'm in the middle of my 2nd BIAB , although on a smaller scale (1.25 gallons). First time I forgot the bag, lol, so maybe this is my first true BIAB.

How do you like the Wilser bag? Thinking about ordering one, but not sure if I'm going to start going larger...

Anyway, good luck again. Back to brewing...

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Sweet. The bag will be hot. I just let it hang above the pot for 20 minutes to drain and cool then give it a quick squeeze. Get out as much water as you can but no need to go Hercules on it. Don't sweat your water levels to much. If your off a little just add tap water to fermenter to get to your level. I go for 6 gallons for 5 gallons of drinkable beer.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Glad to be of assistance, welcome to the all grain world @flattie .

 

[flattie]

So the big squeeze has come and gone - the bbq gloves came in handy. I didn't check volume at this point. Just waiting for it to come to a boil for the hops additions.

After an hour my mash temp dropped from 155 to 148. I think that will be okay if I understand correctly most conversion happens in the first 15 to 30 minutes.

Thanks again - especially priceless that calculator got me comfortable that I could pull this off without too much effort.

 

[snathanb]

So the big squeeze has come and gone - the bbq gloves came in handy. I didn't check volume at this point. Just waiting for it to come to a boil for the hops additions.

After an hour my mash temp dropped from 155 to 148. I think that will be okay if I understand correctly most conversion happens in the first 15 to 30 minutes.

Thanks again - especially priceless that calculator got me comfortable that I could pull this off without too much effort.

Having just gone through this twice.. I've found the easiest place for things to deviate from the calculator is the water lost during boil. The first time, I didn't boil hard enough and ended up with an extra half gallon (which diluted the OG from 1.046 to 1.041) and the next time I tried to compensate by boiling longer and harder and ended up a half-gallon too low, which took the OG up to 1.052... I'm going to nail it the 3rd time

 

[wilserbrewer]

I didn't check volume at this point. Just waiting for it to come to a boil for the hops additions.

After an hour my mash temp dropped from 155 to 148.

.

Pre boil volume is a good check of how your doing....it will give you an idea where you're heading.

I wouldn't worry about your mash temp drop.

Did you grab a little sample to check pre boil gravity?

Along with preboil volume, this will give you a good idea where your heading.....

 

[flattie]

Pre boil volume is a good check of how your doing....it will give you an idea where you're heading.

I wouldn't worry about your mash temp drop.

Did you grab a little sample to check pre boil gravity?

Along with preboil volume, this will give you a good idea where your heading.....

I did not measure preboil volume or gravity. I will add that to the process next brew day.

 

[flattie]

All done. Missed OG by quite a bit. 1.041 vs 1.054. Oh well it will be beer in a few weeks.

I'm guessing the crush wasn't fine enough. When I bought the grains there were a few folks waiting to buy grain also so I didn't bother to ask my LHBS to double grind. I guess there's a corona mill in my future.

And a refractometer to make it easy to do preboil and post boil gravity readings.

I ended up with around 5.75 gallons into the fermenter. So about a 1/4 gallon more than I wanted. I don't think that explains missing OG by that much though.

 

[flattie]

Good luck!

I'm in the middle of my 2nd BIAB , although on a smaller scale (1.25 gallons). First time I forgot the bag, lol, so maybe this is my first true BIAB.

How do you like the Wilser bag? Thinking about ordering one, but not sure if I'm going to start going larger...

Anyway, good luck again. Back to brewing...

Sorry I missed this earlier. I have nothing to compare the wilser bag to. That said it seems to be a well made, well thought out product.

The drawstring held the bag securely to the kettle - the steamer ring on the bayou kettle seems like it was made just for that reason.

The shape of the bag (its tapered) made it easy to make sure the wort drained right into the kettle. The ratcheting pulley system he ships with it made it easy to suspend the bag over the kettle while I was heating the wort to boiling.

Cleanup was a breeze. I inverted the bag in the plastic bag my grains came in. Sprayed it with the hose / flipped the bag right side out and sprayed it again. Hung it to dry and was done.

If you are on the fence I say go for it and take advantage of his superbowl sale.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Get a refractometer if so inclined, I just keep a ceramic mug in the freezer, grab a sample and stick it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes and you can use a hydrometer.

Sometimes I check gravity, sometimes not....once you get a routine and a consistent good crush the results are pretty constant and predictable.

As you may have learned, grains that aren't crushed well don't typically yield well....

Just a tip....

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

If your going to stick with All Grain get one of these and never look back. Buy 50# sacks of grain and save money...do it once, do it right

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...wDjn8kw9jHeg9ScrF_cb4Q&bvm=bv.145822982,d.eWE

 

[flattie]

Thought an update was in order. I bottled today. FG was 1.01 so ABV will be around 4%. I missed OG coming in at 1.041 vs 1.051 which I think was due to my crush on the grain. This will be a "sessionable" oatmeal stout.

Lot's of trub but a cold crash settled it right out. I used wilserbrewers hop sock over my racking cane and ended up with pretty clean looking wort into the bottling bucket. The sample tasted pretty good. Now I just need to give it two weeks to carb up.

All in all I found doing all grain BIAB not too harder than a full boil extract.

Next brew day I'm looking to do an American Pale Ale. I'll be sure to pay more attention to my post boil volume and to the grain crush.

Thanks again to all the posters on homebrewtalk and elsewhere who gave me the confidence to go all grain BIAB. Special shout out to wilserbrewer for your BIAB bags and priceless for your calculator.

 

[BongoYodeler]

And thank you @flattie for documenting your process and following up. I'm going to be doing my first biab, I'm thinking Yooper's Oatmeal Stout, as soon as the weather warms up and the rains stop.

 

[TomVA]

Both your OG and FG look low for that recipe and mash temperature, perhaps by 0.010 or more. Did you make adjustments for the measuring temperature? If so, might want to check the accuracy of that hydrometer in water at its calibration temperature.

TomVA

 

[RM-MN]

Thought an update was in order. I bottled today. FG was 1.01 so ABV will be around 4%. I missed OG coming in at 1.041 vs 1.051 which I think was due to my crush on the grain. This will be a "sessionable" oatmeal stout.

Lot's of trub but a cold crash settled it right out. I used wilserbrewers hop sock over my racking cane and ended up with pretty clean looking wort into the bottling bucket. The sample tasted pretty good. Now I just need to give it two weeks to carb up.

All in all I found doing all grain BIAB not too harder than a full boil extract.

Next brew day I'm looking to do an American Pale Ale. I'll be sure to pay more attention to my post boil volume and to the grain crush.

Thanks again to all the posters on homebrewtalk and elsewhere who gave me the confidence to go all grain BIAB. Special shout out to wilserbrewer for your BIAB bags and priceless for your calculator.

I think you are right in thinking your low OG is from the crush of the grain. One way to counter a poor crush is to mash longer but there is still a limit to how much this will help. The other way is to get you own grain mill. This will also help with consistency with hitting your numbers because you can get the same milling every time.