First BIAB tonight! Any helpful tips?

[bechard]

I've brewed about fifteen batches of partial mash on the stove, but tonight I'm stepping up to my first all grain with the BIAB method.

I built my immersion chiller the last week, (50' 1/2" ID) and it's been leak tested at full pressure.

Grains are out with my gear, yeast starter looks great, and I've got a full tank of propane and have fully adjusted my new burner. I've installed a pulley and rope for lifting my grain basket, and it should easily take 50+ lbs.

Anything else I should consider? This batch is a hoppy American amber ale.

I have a hot water tap in my garage along with cold, and reason I shouldn't fill my mash pot from the hot water line (tankless water heater, 125f) to save on heating via the burner from cold?

 

[unionrdr]

Well,obviously you need a couple kettles that can handle the needed volume of water. Maybe dry some of the spent grains in a low oven to save for baking with. Here's a link to Brooklyn Brewery's Spent Grain Chef section; http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef/
I made the spent grain pretzel burger rolls with IPA grains I'd dried & saved.
Double the recipe for 12 burger-size rolls. I use a Mr Coffee burr grinder on the espresso setting to make a medium fine flour out of the grains for recipes. Good stuff!

 

[bechard]

I'll look into the recipes, never thought about them before.

I do have a big ten gallon brew pot, along with two fine gallons from the partial mash setup.

This will be the first brew for the new pot too.

 

[GenIke]

I've wondered about the hot water line myself. I have heard it's not good for cooking but I've never seen anything regarding brewing.

*edit* I didnt notice that you said tankless water heater. I assume that would be just fine. Might as well save the propane.

 

[unionrdr]

One 10G & two 5G kettles should be plenty to handle the volume biab style in the big kettle. The 5 gallon ones to heat sparge water in should do fine. Good thing you got a rope & pulley system to lift that much grains in the bag with. 6lbs of grains that are now wet is heavy enough by hand.

 

[bechard]

My understanding, following the main stickied BIAB post, was that you don't actually use a second pot for sparging, you just use more grain to make up for the loss in efficiency. I do sparge out at 168F for 10 minutes, while stiring the grains, acting sort of like rinsing with sparge, but in the original wort. Then spend 5-10 minutes lightly sqeezing out wort from grains, in the grain bag / basket above the 10 gallon pot with the wort.

Beersmith2 has the profiles for BIAB which I'm using to account for water needs / loss, etc.

If all goes well, beer! If all goes bad, slightly less good beer!

 

[unionrdr]

The only thing I use the 2nd kettle for is heating the sparge water during the biab partial mash in the big kettle. Trying to save time doing both at once. I pull the grain bag & put it in a SS collander perched on top of the BK/MT. Then slowly pour the sparge water over the bag of grains into the big kettle. Let it drain,& push on the grain bag to get more goodies out of them. Then onto cookie sheets in a 200F oven to dry for storage. Great for making flour out of for baking. I basically like to sparge with enough water to make wort up to my boil volume rather than just adding water. Along with a good crush from my grain mill,my OG's are def up a little. There are still some tings like that in BS2 that I'm still learning to tweak...

 

[nevertrustahipie]

I use a 10G kettle with a basket. After mash i rest the basket on top of a 5G kettle to drain while my wort boils.

 

[unionrdr]

I do something like that. I put the collander & grain bag in a big SS bowl to drain some more. Then dump that in the kettle.

 

[jtratcliff]

Hmmmm.. I'd say remember to fire your kettle as the bag drains to shorten time to boil, and don't take pre-boil gravity readings until you mixed in all your "runnings" from your dripping bag.

 

[bechard]

Thanks guys,

Based on this info, I'll leave my bag sitting on a collander over a 5 gallon pot to collect while I start firing up for boil. Guess after ten mins, I'll toss any drippings in.

 

[bechard]

Well after starting my mash, I've come to the conclusion that I'll need a bigger grain bag and no fryer basket, or keep the heat on low and leave the lid off due to the pulley attached to the basket holding the grain bag. Lid is closed now, but some grains floated, just a tiny bit but I'm sure I can do better.