Want to Try BIAB have BeerSmith question

[Adeering]

I want to try BIAB for my next beer, but wondering how to set up the equipment and mash profile to fit what im going to do. I have a 7 gal pot and want to do a 5 gal batch so was planning to do 5 gal mash then add water afterwards to bring back up to desired preboil volume of 6-6.5 gals. How exactly should I set that up in Beersmith to make my recipes accurate. Heres what im currently doing but getting weird numbers on the mash profile:

Equipment:
efficiency 73% (figured good starting estimate based on what ive read here will adjust with batchs)
MashTun Volume- 5 gal
MashTun weight- 2.2 lb
Mash Tun speicific heat- 0.12 Cal/gram-deg C
Lauter Tun Deadspace- 0.0 gal

Boiler:
Top Up Water-2 gal
boil Time- 60 min
Boil Off- 0.75 gal
Cooling Shrinkage - 4%

Fermenter:
Standard data not worried about that stuff

Mash Profile Im using the default BIAB, Medium Body

So when I go to the recipe it says I need 9.15 gal for Mash Volume Needed, how do I adjust this

 

[zacster]

You can create your own mash profile that adds a step of a water infusion.

I don't know how you would set it up though.

 

[WildBuffoon]

is this under the water volumes tab? i would think you would want to adjust the "kettle top up volume" since you're determining the pre-boil volume. the "top up volume" is for bringing your wort up to the desired volume in the fermenter before pitching the yeast.

 

[SocalNat]

Have you set up your own equipment profile? There is alot that can be personalized and a tutorial for it somewhere in the help section.

 

[Adeering]

Thanks, I think i figured it out, I had the top up in there, apparently it just hadnt refreshed with the changes so its looking pretty accurate, gonna try out a recipe next week so well see if its accurate.

 

[ScoobyBrew]

The first time I used beersmith for my biab batch I had something wrong because I ended up with 7 gallons instead of 6. So what I did was use a formula for my starting water and made sure my beersmith settings matched. (I'm still learning beersmith and allgrain brewing)

I started with my final batch size
+ my boil off (which is 1.5 gallons for a 60 min boil in my keggle regardless of how much liquid is in it)
+ grain absorption (I used .06 gallons times number of pounds of grain)

Using this formula my final wort going into the fermenter came out exactly.

Now I just need to work on my efficiency...

 

[Adeering]

Thats about the same as I got, my beersmith says the same, I think I have it worked out, im using 0.71 for grain absorption, but because im doing a sparge afterwards Im going to top it back up to my preboil amount which for a 5gal batch needs to be about 6.5 so grain absorption isnt too important to me right now, just making sure i can get the original gravity right

 

[wilserbrewer]

Now I just need to work on my efficiency...

If you can find a method to either minimize or eliminate top up water it might help, perhaps a dunk sparge, or sprinkling water over the grain bag. I would at least max out your mash volume up to the top of the kettle, thereby minimizing top up water.

Also look closely at your crush.

 

[ScoobyBrew]

Hmm, great idea to rinse the grain bag. I never thought of that.

I wonder of I kept my starting water short by a gallon or gallon and a half and then had that water in a separate bucket, maybe I could dunk the grain bag in the bucket of clean water to extract any residual sugars. Then after adding that water to the boil kettle I would be at my pre boil volume with max efficiency.

Does this sound viable?

 

[RM-MN]

It sure does but make sure you have a large enough bucket. I used my 20qt (5 gallon) boil kettle and put in about 1 1/2 gallons of water and when I added the bag of grains it overflowed. Now i put the bag of grain in first and then add the water.

 

[ScoobyBrew]

Oh ok. Then it also lets the water run through the grains to rinse them. Thanks for the advice.