1st BIAB. Fail. Too much water?

[totland]

So I did my first all grain last week. It was a one gallon BIAB.

Grain bill was :
1.5 pounds 2 row
1 pound malted wheat
0.25 oz cascade hops.

I used 2 gallons water because I read to expect 1 gallon boil off per hour which should leave me with one gallon for my fermenter. I ended up with 1.5 gallons and a gravity of 10.32.

Did I use too much water? Did I not boil hard enough? It was not a full rolling boil, but a light boil. Should I use more grain for a BIAB?

I appreciate Any advice you guys have for me.. Thank you.

 

[totland]

Oh I forgot to add I did a online efficency test and it said I got 45%..weak..

 

[doug293cz]

A 1 gal/hr boil off rate is typical for a 5 gal batch being boiled in an 8 - 15 gal kettle. You likely used a much smaller kettle with a much lower inherent boil off rate. About a quart or less of your water should have been "lost" due to grain absorption, giving you a boil off rate of 1 - 1.5 quarts per hour in your pot. Next time for a similar batch size and grain weight, you should use about 1/2 gal less water, and/or boil a little more aggressively (but don't try to boil off a lot more water.)

Your efficiency was down around 50% by my back of the envelop calculations, but the extra volume had nothing to do with that. In order for anyone here to give you any ideas about what may have caused your low efficiency (other than too coarse a crush) we would need to know whatever details you have for:

1. Where did you get your grains crushed, and do you know what the mill gap setting was (unlikely a beginner would know to ask this of their supplier)?
2. Mash time and temperature (beginning and end of mash), and how much stirring was done from beginning to end of mash?
3. What kind of thermometer did you use, and did you do any kind of calibration check?
4. Did you squeeze the bag after the mash, and if so, how aggressively?
5. Did you do a full volume mash, or save some of the water for a sparge? If you sparged, how did you do it?
6. Pre-boil volume and pre-boil specific gravity?
7. Post-boil volume and post boil specific gravity?
8. Did you take your SG readings at room temp or elevated temp?

A very common thing leading to poor efficiency for new BIAB'ers is having a grain crush that is not fine enough. This leads to incomplete starch to sugar conversion during the mash, resulting in lowered efficiency. Coarse crush can be compensated for by doing a longer mash, but many people would rather go to finer crush to keep their mash times reasonable.

You can learn more about how to calculate efficiency, and what affects it by reading my posts here, here, and here. Although they may be a little too much too soon, if you haven't read a lot about all grain already.

Tell us more about your process, and the experienced folks around here will help as much as they can.

Brew on

 

[m00ps]

Yeah more info is needed to help. I saw a topic like this about a month back and the OP responded with "...wait I needed to crush the grains?"

 

[McKnuckle]

With an absorption of 0.06 gal/lb, starting with 2 gallons of water, you boiled off 0.35 gallons.

2 gallons minus (0.06 x 2.5 lbs = 0.15) = 1.85 gallons going into the boil. If you ended up with 1.5, you lost 0.35. Maybe some of it was trub, but for now we'll assume it was all evaporated.

It's estimated from those figures that your pre-boil gravity was 1.023, and your OG 1.032, yielding a mash efficiency of about 48% - which is extremely low.

Next time, yes - either adjust your evaporation to be way less, or boil harder, or a compromise. You simply have to dial it in. I boil off about 1 gallon outside with propane, but only 0.5 gallons with electric heat or on the stovetop.

You'll need to provide crush and mashing details (temp, time, pH, etc.) to get help on the poor efficiency.

 

[McKnuckle]

[Double post]

 

[pricelessbrewing]

With an absorption of 0.06 gal/lb, starting with 2 gallons of water, you boiled off 0.35 gallons.

2 gallons minus (0.06 x 2.5 lbs = 0.15) = 1.85 gallons going into the boil. If you ended up with 1.5, you lost 0.35. Maybe some of it was trub, but for now we'll assume it was all evaporated.

0.06 is pretty tight squeezing, but either way it looks like 2 things happened for sure. Depending on how much you squeezed, you're most likely somewhere between 0.10 and 0.06 gal/lb. This puts your boil off somewhere between 0.1875 and 0.35 gallons/hr.

1) the crush was bad.

2) You boiled off a lot less than you expected. Now don't take this the wrong way, a .35 gallon boil off is perfectly fine for a 1 gallon batch in a small pot. You just need to know it going in, so when you end your boil you end up with the right amount of wort. If you were closer to my average 0.08 gal/lb then you got 0.3 gal boil off, which is perfectly fine as well. 0.1875 seems a little low for the batch size, but would probably be fine too.

Take an hour or so, and go boil some water. Measure the interior diameter of your brew kettle, and measure the height and temperature when you start and when you end. Report back with those 5 numbers and I'll let you know how much you boiled off.

 

[totland]

Thank you guys this helps a lot. I figured I should have asked the local brew shop to do a double crush on my grains.
I will make adjustments and try again tomorrow..

 

[jaydlaw]

my efficiency has been low as well, which is why i will purchase a grinder in the near future. that way i can gain more control over that particular variable. until then, i probably stick to brewing saisons. it is a good season for them, and the yeast i have attenuates at a very high percentage (90-95). this makes up somewhat for the lack of efficiency.

 

[pdog44450]

I only get about a 0.6gal/hour boil off rate. It all depends on equipment and varies with each brewer.

Before you brew again just fill the pot you brew in with water and emulate a brew day. Put, say, a gallon and a half in and boil it at the same vigor as you would on brew day. Boil it for an hour, then let it cool. Once cooled measure how much is left subtract that from the original amount and that is your boil off rate per hour. You can then adjust boil time accordingly to reach your post boil volume.

Obviously if you boiled for the right amount of time your efficiency would be much higher than 45%, that's impossible if you do everything correctly. And as jaydlaw mentioned, crushing your own grain can increase efficiency significantly.

 

[doug293cz]

I only get about a 0.6gal/hour boil off rate. It all depends on equipment and varies with each brewer.

Before you brew again just fill the pot you brew in with water and emulate a brew day. Put, say, a gallon and a half in and boil it at the same vigor as you would on brew day. Boil it for an hour, then let it cool. Once cooled measure how much is left subtract that from the original amount and that is your boil off rate per hour...

+1 for doing a test boil to get a better measurement of your boil off rate.

Obviously if you boiled for the right amount of time your efficiency would be much higher than 45%, that's impossible if you do everything correctly. And as jaydlaw mentioned, crushing your own grain can increase efficiency significantly.

Actually, nothing you can do during the boil (other than spilling wort) can affect your efficiency. Efficiency is totally determined by accounting for the available sugar. How much water you end up with in the kettle has nothing to do with efficiency.

The primary determinate of efficiency is how much of the potential sugar in the grain makes it into your boil kettle. This is your mash efficiency, and is affected by how much of the potential sugar actually gets created in the mash by conversion of starch, and what percentage of the sugar created in the mash actually makes it into the boil kettle. These two items are your conversion efficiency and your lauter efficiency. Finer grain crush primarily improves conversion efficiency.

During the boil, no additional sugar enters or leaves the BK, unless it is intentionally added as additional ingredients, or wort is spilled. Doesn't matter how much water you boil off. Sugar added during the boil must be accounted for, but it doesn't affect efficiency.

After the boil, you lose efficiency any time you leave wort behind when going from one vessel to another. Discarded trub and hops contain wort, and therefor some of the original sugar. Loss of the sugar in the wort that gets discarded with trub and spent hops lowers your efficiency.

There is no way to increase efficiency during the boil.

Brew on

 

[pdog44450]

+1 for doing a test boil to get a better measurement of your boil off rate.


Actually, nothing you can do during the boil (other than spilling wort) can affect your efficiency. Efficiency is totally determined by accounting for the available sugar. How much water you end up with in the kettle has nothing to do with efficiency.

The primary determinate of efficiency is how much of the potential sugar in the grain makes it into your boil kettle. This is your mash efficiency, and is affected by how much of the potential sugar actually gets created in the mash by conversion of starch, and what percentage of the sugar created in the mash actually makes it into the boil kettle. These two items are your conversion efficiency and your lauter efficiency. Finer grain crush primarily improves conversion efficiency.

During the boil, no additional sugar enters or leaves the BK, unless it is intentionally added as additional ingredients, or wort is spilled. Doesn't matter how much water you boil off. Sugar added during the boil must be accounted for, but it doesn't affect efficiency.

After the boil, you lose efficiency any time you leave wort behind when going from one vessel to another. Discarded trub and hops contain wort, and therefor some of the original sugar. Loss of the sugar in the wort that gets discarded with trub and spent hops lowers your efficiency.

There is no way to increase efficiency during the boil.

Brew on

You are right, honestly not sure where I was going with that one