weeple2000
Well-Known Member
Last night my girlfriend and I did our first BIAB batch. I have done extracts before but never all grain. Needless to say the process leaves much room for improvement, but I thought I'd post about it and see if anyone has any suggestions.
First off, I know I messed up because I can't remember if I milled 10 lbs of grain or 11 lbs of grain. I know that will have an effect on temps and efficiency and such.
I figured we'd want to allow a good 4 hours for brewing, and it wound up being closer to 6+ with the time spent cleaning and preparing. I should have thought out the process a bit more.
when I look here: http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/ it doesn't seem like there is much of a difference for 11 lbs vs 10 lbs. One improvement to my process is probably a more accurate thermometer. My thermometer dial is probably about an inch in diameter, and the numbers go up 2 degrees per notch. I wanted my strike water to be 158.7 F. I thought the temp was at this when we turned off the burner. We added the grain and I took another reading, and it appeared as though it was too low so we turned the burner back on.
***I suspect this is one place we erred, because I put a winter parka over the pot and we left to make dinner, and when I came back to check it, it read 165 F. We finished making dinner and did an iodine test and when we were done with an hour of mashing it read 158 F. So I am thinking we will wind up with a full bodied beer that may not ferment completely dry here. The iodine test did not turn the wort black, so I guess the mash worked.
The rest of the process I had done before, just not with boiling as much wort so I am not as concerned about it.
Here are some times
7:55 - started heating mash water
8:40 - mash in
10:25 - started heating for boil
10:37 - boiling, first hop addition
is that how long it should take to heat the water?
We heated 7.86 gallons, preboil was supposed to be 6.61 and post boil 5.61. I think we came pretty close to that judging by what went into the carboy when it was all said and done. I also mashed out at 170 for 10 minutes or so by heating the water with the burner.
The recipe was a maris otter SMASH with cascade. Wanted to keep it simple.
1 oz 60 min
1 oz 15 min
1 oz 0 min
10 or 11 lbs of maris otter (can't remember)
Gravity preboil was 1.040 and post was 1.051, although I did not think to correct for temperature for the post boil reading so that was another error.
I have a bayou classic pot, 13.5" diameter, 11 gallon. The burner is an SQ14.
Sorry for the ramblings.
First off, I know I messed up because I can't remember if I milled 10 lbs of grain or 11 lbs of grain. I know that will have an effect on temps and efficiency and such.
I figured we'd want to allow a good 4 hours for brewing, and it wound up being closer to 6+ with the time spent cleaning and preparing. I should have thought out the process a bit more.
when I look here: http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/ it doesn't seem like there is much of a difference for 11 lbs vs 10 lbs. One improvement to my process is probably a more accurate thermometer. My thermometer dial is probably about an inch in diameter, and the numbers go up 2 degrees per notch. I wanted my strike water to be 158.7 F. I thought the temp was at this when we turned off the burner. We added the grain and I took another reading, and it appeared as though it was too low so we turned the burner back on.
***I suspect this is one place we erred, because I put a winter parka over the pot and we left to make dinner, and when I came back to check it, it read 165 F. We finished making dinner and did an iodine test and when we were done with an hour of mashing it read 158 F. So I am thinking we will wind up with a full bodied beer that may not ferment completely dry here. The iodine test did not turn the wort black, so I guess the mash worked.
The rest of the process I had done before, just not with boiling as much wort so I am not as concerned about it.
Here are some times
7:55 - started heating mash water
8:40 - mash in
10:25 - started heating for boil
10:37 - boiling, first hop addition
is that how long it should take to heat the water?
We heated 7.86 gallons, preboil was supposed to be 6.61 and post boil 5.61. I think we came pretty close to that judging by what went into the carboy when it was all said and done. I also mashed out at 170 for 10 minutes or so by heating the water with the burner.
The recipe was a maris otter SMASH with cascade. Wanted to keep it simple.
1 oz 60 min
1 oz 15 min
1 oz 0 min
10 or 11 lbs of maris otter (can't remember)
Gravity preboil was 1.040 and post was 1.051, although I did not think to correct for temperature for the post boil reading so that was another error.
I have a bayou classic pot, 13.5" diameter, 11 gallon. The burner is an SQ14.
Sorry for the ramblings.