Newbie question

[elijahroberts199]

I want to make a half batch of a recipe I found. The recipe is all grain and I want to do it through BIAB.
1.Can I half everything or do you not half the hop additions?
2. Do all grain portions change for BIAB? (Specifically for the mash).

 

[myndflyte]

For the most part, you can just half everything. The best way would be to put the recipe into a brewing calculator with the original volume, make note of the starting OG and IBUs and then reduce the volume by half and adjust the malt and hops to reach that OG and IBU. The software I use, Brewfather, will automatically adjust when you change the volume.

 

[Brushwood Brewing]

1. Yes, half everything. Though depending on the recipe, you can likely still use the full amount of yeast if you like.
2. When considering recipes, treat BIAB just like you would a three vessel system, for the most part. You may get a slightly lower efficiency with BIAB, so you could use a tiny bit more grain if you want to compensate, but not necessary. As @myndflyte said above, you could use software to help nail that down, but again that's not necessary.

No need to overcomplicate things early on in your brewing.

 

[hotbeer]

As long as all you wish to do is change the volume y wind up with then just figure the ratios. In your case half and half. Yeast too, though if you are using liquid yeast and half is half a package then I'd probably just pitch the entire thing. Over pitching is better than under pitching in most cases, IMO. Your target OG and FG will be the same.

If you ever want to change the ABV of your beer then things might need to be scaled differently with the hops to keep the same level of sweet to bitter tastes.

If you find you aren't hitting within a few points the target OG and FG of the recipe then you need to figure out why because then you are affecting that BU:GU ratio. Likely your mash efficiency isn't what the recipe was written for. And that can be corrected several ways. But you have to brew and track your amounts of everything including water to know what your mash and other efficiencies are.

But if you like the beer that results, then the other won't matter... till you have a bad brew and want answers.