First BIAB brewday - success!

[andycr]

Today was my first BIAB brewday. 2.5 gallon batch size, 5 pounds of grain. I used BeerSmith 2 to do the calculations, and it hit absolutely everything dead-on, with the exception of recommending a slightly high temp for the strike water (only 3º too high). Had a steamer basket thingy for a false bottom and a paint strainer bag. Got about 72% efficiency pre-boil, but lost a lot to hop solids and hot break so went down to 67% (strainer next time!). Oh well, gravity was high for style anyway, planned for 65% in recipe.

Best tasting wort yet, can really taste the grainy goodness. Hit all my numbers, and currently waiting for fermentation to begin.

 

[sculpin]

5 lb. Congratulations!

 

[andycr]

Thanks! Didn't really expect to do all-grain before leaving the apartment behind for a house, with the huge towers and mash coolers I saw everyone with. BIAB has opened up a whole realm of possibilities...

 

[RM-MN]

Good job and you did it in limited space with limited costs.
I'm sorry you had so much loss to trub though. I avoid that by just dumping it all into the fermenter. The yeast will use anything they want from it and then it settles to the bottom of the fermenter and gets covered by the flocculating yeast and you leave it all behind when you rack to the bottling bucket or keg.

 

[mb82]

Wtg.

 

[divrguy]

Good job and you did it in limited space with limited costs.
I'm sorry you had so much loss to trub though. I avoid that by just dumping it all into the fermenter. The yeast will use anything they want from it and then it settles to the bottom of the fermenter and gets covered by the flocculating yeast and you leave it all behind when you rack to the bottling bucket or keg.

+1
I do too most times but you can also use your paint strainer to strain out the Wort. Sometimes since its only a small amount of trub in a small batch, you just have to move the bag around (while not letting any trub leave the bag) so it will filter. I hope that makes sense. It's sort of like rolling the bag up and down by picking it up from the bottom. Then the wort has a chance to slide out a part of the strainer that's not plugged.

Congrats on your brew day!

 

[tknice]

Grats andycr!

Welcome to the world of recipe creation!

Fun times.