Water Volume - BIAB

[skelrad]

Tomorrow will be my first attempt at a partial mash - BIAB! I'm a little confused about water volumes though, and don't know how much to use for the mash, and whether I add water for the boil to reach my volume or wait until the boil is over and I put it in the primary.

My recipe calls for about 8 lbs of grains, with the addition of 3 lbs of DME for the boil. I'm still learning to use Brewmaster, so don't know if I did it right - it gave me a little over 13 qts for a total volume (mash and sparge combined since I'm doing BIAB). That doesn't seem like all that much water to me for a 5 gallon batch. If it is right and that's the volume I mash in, am I supposed to add water prior to my boil to bring it up to 6.5 gallons or so (assuming boiling off a gallon + in the boil)? Or, do I just boil, then when moving to my primary, add water to bring the volume or gravity to the correct amount?

My extract kits alwasy just have me add the extra water to the primary, but I don' t know if that's the ideal, or if it's just the easy way to write an extract recipe for a kit.

 

[dcp27]

Generally you mash at 1.25-1.5qt/lb grain, so the 13qts is a little thinner, but I believe when you're going no sparge, you go at least 2qt/lb. Just cuz you're doing BIAB doesnt mean you dont sparge tho. If you want the full boil, I'd just sparge up to 5 gallons or so and let the DME take up the remaining volume.

 

[Golddiggie]

I would go with 1.5-2.0 quarts/pound of grain (not talking DME since that goes in at boil start)... If you intend to do a full volume boil, then you'll need to sparge with enough water to reach that level. Run the extra water through the grain, even if you need to use another pot/vessel to do it.

In my last AG brewing, I used 2 quarts/pound of grain for mash, then the balance to get my pre-boil volume in the sparge (in another pot)... I hit over 80% efficiency there.

In my partial mash brewing, I used less water, and hit about 74% efficiency... Both were using the BIAB method.

Use the Green Bay Rackers site/page (http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml) to figure out if you can mash the grain in your current pot(s) and how much water you can actually use. You can also do more than one sparge if you need more water. If you have a pot large enough, you could even use enough water in a single mash step to hit your pre-boil volume and not sparge at all. I've not done that, yet, but I might with my next AG brewing. I'll need to get a larger pot though, since I doubt my 32 quart will be able to hold it all.

I would recommend getting a solid way to judge how much water you have left in the boil pot/kettle so that you know when you're at the point where you can start adding hops, and such. My first AG brew I didn't have the measure calibrated correctly, and it threw off things. With my second AG (the brew I made on Monday) I did have it calibrated much closer. That one went much better...

How are you planning on cooling your wort? Do you have a chiller already, or do you plan to use the cold water bath/ice bath method? I did that for my PM brewing, but made an IC before my first AG brew... It makes a world of difference having a good/proper chilling method. I went from chilling with ice/cold water (for extracts) taking an hour (or more) to <15 minutes from boil to <70F... I can't see not using a chiller in any brewing now. I even hooked up enough tubing so that I can put it into the boil pot with ~15 minutes left in the boil, and still have it connected to the sink.

 

[skelrad]

Thanks for the info! My pot is only 7 gallons (which is why I'm going to use some DME instead of all grain), so I guess I'll just use as much water as I can for the mash and then simply do a small volume sparge if necessary to make up the balance.

I don't have a wort chiller yet. So far I've done the "I live in Wisconsin and it's January" chilling method - cover the pot and stick it outside on the deck in the snow. At 20 degrees outside and with snow, it cools very quickly. I'll probably have to make a wort chiller come summertime though.