Random grain thoughts.

[joemc33]

^ Extract brewer here. I am about to do a BIAB in a 3 gallon carboy.

This is my plan if I choose to accept it. So far, I am excepting it!

I will be making a wheat beer. The grains and yeast have yet to be decided, but these are my thoughts on this.

The equipment:
3 gallon pot, 3 gallon carboy, a bag, a thermometer, other brew stuff to get it done.

The process:

3 gallons of treated water
4 pounds of wheat grain
2 oz of hops.
A liquid wheat yeast.

I will add 1 gallon of sparge water and top of if needed from there. I will ferment it for 2 weeks or as needed by Gravity, bottle for 2 weeks and refrigerate it for 2 weeks.

What do you see as pitfalls? Should the random grain guy do something different?

 

[twistr25]

You need a bigger pot, grains plus water you'll be overflowing.

EDIT: I take it back, may only need 1.5 gallons of water for the mash, but still seems like it'll be tight. And according to the mash calculator I used you'll need a couple gallons of sparge water, but I may not have set it up properly.

 

[feinbera]

Edit: crap, didn't see you only had a 3-gallon pot. Go buy a bigger pot, then follow the advice below...

Don't bother with top-off water, just sparge until you hit your desired pre-boil volume.

You can estimate the boil-off rate for your system by just boiling a comparable amount of water for 15 minutes and measuring it carefully (and at about the same temperature) before and after; wort boils enough like water, and boil-off rate is constant enough, that you can just multiply your 15-minute pure-water boil-off by four to figure out how much volume you'll lose from your wort in an hour's boil.

I know, I know, tannins, the horror! Unless you're brewing something *REALLY* low-gravity, you'll hit your pre-boil volume long before you sparge down to 1.010 and start having to worry.