Question about BIAB method

[Reggiegentry123]

I want to try all grain, and this seems like a decent segue way into that without having to purchase a lot of extra equipment. I want to try and brew a Hopslam clone, but it calls for 16 lbs of grain. My question is what size kettle would I need for this? I know my 5 gallon likely isn't going to cut it, but I have a larger one in the shed (not sure exact size) I could potentially use but it's not much larger. Maybe 7 gallons? Is this wayyyy to small for a beer with that sort of grain bill? My gut tells me it is lol.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Maybe 7 gallons? Is this wayyyy to small for a beer with that sort of grain bill? My gut tells me it is lol.

Not if you sparge. Likely you could do this using both your pots...and maybe also a bucket

Using this

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

16 lbs at 1.25 qts/lb yields 6.28 gallons of mash, so you could mash in a 7 gallon kettle, and sparge in another vessel, collect all the wort and boil it in one or two pots....

Do some reading in the BIAB section of the forum, this issue is not uncommon.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Not if you sparge. Likely you could do this using both your pots...and maybe also a bucket

^This

You could split up the grain after milling and do concurrent mashes. Or do a single big mash, do a pour over sparge with a little bit of the water, then do a dunk/batch sparge while you heat the first runnings.

Or pick up a little DME to cover the difference. Having some DME on hand for this type of beer might be a good idea anyway since the grain bill is so huge you may end up low on OG.

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Try the "can I mash it" calculator. I have used two 5 gallons pots for 5 gallon batches.
http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Wow beat me too it! Hahaha...good calculators.

 

[Reggiegentry123]

I was going to attempt this brew Saturday, but I'm looking at these calculators and I'm wondering what is meant by "mash thickness"? How do I determine that?

 

[Aristotelian]

Just use a calculator to scale the recipe to 12 lbs grain or something manageable.

 

[doug293cz]

I was going to attempt this brew Saturday, but I'm looking at these calculators and I'm wondering what is meant by "mash thickness"? How do I determine that?

Mash thickness is the ratio of strike water volume to grain bill weight. It is most often given in units of qt/lb in the US, and liters/kg elsewhere.

Brew on

 

[McKnuckle]

+1 on just scaling down the recipe. Nothing critical about 5 gallon batches. 12 lbs would be 75% and 8 lbs is 50% of your 16 lb recipe. Scale it to whatever works and use the kettle you've got.

A bit more about mash thickness: In BIAB we often don't worry about that, because we do a full volume mash with no sparge, so the water/grain ratio in the mash is not relevant. We just use all the water in the mash, remove the bag, drain, and begin boiling.

Of course if you have to sparge, you need to understand the way your water is distributed between mash and sparge, and the water/grain ratio becomes a useful/conventional means of expressing that.

 

[jjackel53]

I do biab ...I have a 10 gal kettle and I can do 14-15 lbs of grain and I feel that it's pushing it...but I love the biab !! It's fun to do and beer can be mighty good!

 

[SanPancho]

im with wilser and arkot. just use both pots. split your grains between them both and do full volume boils. extraction is better in a very runny mash, and you can double grind your grains for another 3-5% bump in efficiency since you dont have to worry about stuck sparge.

or if you only have one bag, then definitely go with the thinnest mash you can in the big pot, and then dunk sparge in the second pot to get your boil volume. sometimes i even boil each pot separately until the volume is low enough that i can combine them into the biggest pot.

 

[DaNewf]

I started BIAB with a 20 quart boil kettle. Scaling recipes down was the rule of the day.