First try at Biab

[Toivo]

Brewed a Mexican amber lager for my first attempt at Biab and it went pretty well. My crankenstien mill was set so a credit card didn't quite fit through so I left it like that and didn't do a double crush. Started with about 7.5 gallons for a full batch with 12 lbs of grain. After draining had about 6.5 gallons for the boil and ended up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter. Calculated the efficiency at 75% so I was happy. Calculated water temp to be 164 to start but it stayed high after adding the grain so I will have to adjust for the next batch. Overall happy with the process and looking forward to the next batch. Photo of my crush is attached.

 

[MaxStout]

75% eff. - not too shabby! What were your targeted and actual mash-in temps? Not sure what calculator you used for strike temp, but I've found that some of them tend to overshoot the temp a bit. If I want to mash low, I go conservative on the strike temp and run a little heat on the kettle to bump up if it's too low.

 

[BruceH]

Any updates? I'm about to go from partial mash/extract to BIAB all grain and will be using a "meat grinder" style of mill like you did.

Previous to this I've been using pre-crushed grain. Found a commercial malt facility about 25 miles away and will be picking up a bag of pils malt tomorrow. In fact, finding the malter so close is what made the all grain BIAB seem cost effective. Gotta justify the new equipment coming in for full boil batches.

 

[Myron17]

Sounds like a win win situation for you Bruce.