First BIAB tomorrow - Help

[kevinb]

This is my first all grain attempt so I am trying a BIAB. I am making nut brown ale. I have been cruising the forum and I think I have this figured, but I was just hoping for some confirmation. I am trying to end up with 2.5 gallon since I have a relatively small pot. My recipe is:

Grains:
3.5# - 2-row malt
5 oz - victory malt
2 oz – chocolate malt
1 oz – 120L crystal malt

Hops:
0.5 oz – 60 min
0.25 oz – fuggle 10 min
0.25 oz – fuggle 1 min

Mash
Mash 152°F for 60 min
Mash out 168°F for 5 min

My questions:
1) Assuming 1.5 quart / pound of grain and 68°F grain I calculate my strike water to be 1.5 gallons at 163°F. Sound about right?
2) I plan to have a second pot of warm water as a sort of rinse sparge. I plan to do that at 160°F for 5 – 10 min. Correct?
3) I estimate that I will use 4 gallons total. 1.5 gallons mash + 2.5 gallons of rinse water. My assumption is that I will loose 0.5 gallon to grain absorption and about 1 gallon to boil off leaving me with 2.5 gallon of wort. Does this seem correct?
4) Should I dump the rinse water into the brew pot and then bring it all up to the mash out temp?

Any other tips or feedback would be appreciated. I am a bit nervous, but excited.

 

[C-Rider]

First of all how big is your boil pot?
If you are doing a BIAB usually people use full boil amounts to mash in.
What are u mashing in?

 

[BetterSense]

You are thinking too much and making it too complicated.

Put 5 gallons of water in the kettle and heat it 2C hotter than your mash temp. Stir in you grain and cover with blanket. Nap.

Lift your bag on a hoist, start heating to boil and pour a brew. If you want to sparge, dunk the grain bag in a bucket with a gallon or 2 of water. I use cold water.

 

[kevinb]

My boil pot is 5 gallons. Yes, I plan to mash in the pot.

 

[C-Rider]

My boil pot is 5 gallons. Yes, I plan to mash in the pot.

I'd just put the 4 gallons in the brew pot, then the bag and add the grain mixing as you pour.

Might be to much water for 4 lbs of grain but you can always boil a bit longer to reduce vol.

When the mash is over lift the bag and put a collendar under it. Let it drain the w/a ceramic coffee cup in each hand put all your weight into pressing every last drop out of the grain. When I use 4 lbs I loose only about 0.3 gallons to the grain.

Good luck, no need sparge, just mash full volume, drain and squeeze. Then boil add hops, cool and yeast.

Easy Squeezy!

 

[kevinb]

Thanks. That sounds easy.

 

[rmaloney86]

I'd recommend full volume biab. If you can fit it use 4 and 1/4 gallons of water, stir every 15 minutes during your mash make sure there are no clumps, I would extend your mashout time by another 5 minutes but regardless whether or not you decide to do that its important to stir for almost the entire mashout. Don't be afraid to gently squeeze the bag at the end of the mashout.

 

[weirdboy]

Your 4# of grain will absorb about 1/2 gallon of water, assuming you squeeze the bag. Which means if you are wanting to end up with 2.5 gallons at the end of the boil, you will need:

2.5 gallons + .5 gallons + 1 gallon (assuming 1 gal/hr boil-off rate) = 4 gallons water total between mash/sparge if you choose to make those separate.

4# of crushed grain will occupy about 1/3 of a gallon of space, so if you put all the water in with the grain at the beginning, you'll be very close to the capacity of your pot. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as you'll likely retain your target mash temp more easily that way.

Also, if you add the full volume of water, don't heat your strike water water to 162 or whatever you were planning. Heat it up to maybe 1-2 degrees hotter than your target mash temp. That should get you very, very close to your target mash temp when you dough in, and if you are still a bit low you can always gently heat the mash while stirring for a minute or two to get it to the right temp.

 

[kevinb]

Any other reccomendations on how to "squeeze"? The coffe cup idea above sounds interesting.

 

[weirdboy]

When I was doing mini BIAB stuff in my kitchen, I would suspend the bag from a handle on the kitchen cabinet above the stove and let the bag drip down into the pot. Once most of the liquid was out, I'd physically twist & squeeze the bag while wearing kitchen gloves.

 

[Tantalus]

I'd recommend full volume biab. If you can fit it use 4 and 1/4 gallons of water, stir every 15 minutes during your mash make sure there are no clumps, I would extend your mashout time by another 5 minutes but regardless whether or not you decide to do that its important to stir for almost the entire mashout. Don't be afraid to gently squeeze the bag at the end of the mashout.

Don't stir your grains during the mash, that's one of the surest ways to make sure that your mash temperature drops rapidly. To avoid clumps add your grains gradually while stirring them into your water.

 

[lebucheron]

My 5gal pot fits in my oven (just barely) which I set to 150ish. I don't worry about losing temperature!

 

[woknblues]

You may find this helpful.
http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/

 

[C-Rider]

I'd recommend full volume biab. If you can fit it use 4 and 1/4 gallons of water, stir every 15 minutes during your mash make sure there are no clumps, I would extend your mashout time by another 5 minutes but regardless whether or not you decide to do that its important to stir for almost the entire mashout. Don't be afraid to gently squeeze the bag at the end of the mashout.

Forget the "gently" squeezing. Press w/everything you have to get all the "goodies" out of the grain. No sense leaving that sweet wort in the grain.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Another tip I didn't see mentioned, If you are short of wort after raising the bag, you can simply pour a couple quarts of water through the bag as a simple sparge.

http://biabbags.webs.com/

 

[kevinb]

Thanks for the tips. I am going to start now!

 

[kevinb]

It turned out pretty well. My efficiency was a little low at 68%, but everything seemed to go OK.

 

[woknblues]

Curious about your low efficiency. What was your grain crush protocol? I was going to mention in my earlier reply to make sure you double crush or crush fine. Remember, there are no stuck sparges in BIAB!

 

[BetterSense]

68% sounds ok to me. Actually if I don't sparge I often get closer to 65%. When I do a good bucket-sparge I get up to 75%. I'm just mentioning this so that you know you might not be doing anything wrong. There are BIABers here that claim they get 75+% efficiency with no-sparge, but maybe they calculate their efficiency differently.

 

[kevinb]

Curious about your low efficiency. What was your grain crush protocol? I was going to mention in my earlier reply to make sure you double crush or crush fine. Remember, there are no stuck sparges in BIAB!

It was double crushed at my LHBS

 

[kevinb]

68% sounds ok to me. Actually if I don't sparge I often get closer to 65%. When I do a good bucket-sparge I get up to 75%. I'm just mentioning this so that you know you might not be doing anything wrong. There are BIABers here that claim they get 75+% efficiency with no-sparge, but maybe they calculate their efficiency differently.

Thanks for the support. That makes me feel better.