Just wanted to bounce this idea off you guys. I have two 5 gallon drink cooler my thought is to use them both for a BIAB split the grain bill and the water in half. Thought/idea is two fold first have enough room for all the water needed for the beer plus what's soaked up by the grains and second increase efficiency. What's your thoughts?
2 BIAB bags
- Thread starter Dmmflys
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kesslerr1
Well-Known Member
It will work. I have never done it, but it will work. The key thing is to make sure you have an even distribution of grain types (base and specialties) in each cooler. Though I doubt you would run into a problem with starch conversion. I would also make your water in bulk or make sure your adding the same water to each cooler. But really there is only one way to fine out... All grain can be as complicated or as easy as you want it to be. As long as your not Spring water (something with ions and buffers in it) non Chlorinated water, 80 or percent base grains and you keep it at 145-158 for 1 hour you will be partying... Your mash efficiency will be low so add more base grain. Maybe shoot for 14+ LB of grain. Worst case your gravity is too high and cut it with some more water or you get a high gravity beer.
What size is your boil pot? You can split the batch like you mentioned with no problem but I doubt you will find more efficiency doing so. If your concern is keeping the temperature correct for your full hour of mash, consider milling the grains fine and then cutting your mash to 10 or 20 minutes. When you have the grains milled fine, your conversion will be done very quickly. I don't see why your mash efficiency will be any different than any other BIAB method. I've come to expect 85% efficiency with each batch.
Yes, sure you could do two mashes in two separate coolers. Could also mash in one, then move the bad and do a sparge in the other.
Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/
Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/
10 gal pot. I just got done reading some of the threads bout 10 min mash it's crazy to think its possible but it's hard to argue with the results ... from many different people. I'm going to have to talk my self into doing it.
I'm a bit concerned about the physical size of the cooler at 5 gal I wouldn't think there would be enough room for all the grain and all the water, especially for a big beer. Any experience use just a 5 gal cooler?
Start easy, do a 30 minute mash and see the results. If you like it, try 20 minutes. I'm scared to do less than 10, but iodine says the conversion is done in 3, refractometer done by Owly055 says even the beta amylase is done by 5.
DurtyChemist
Well-Known Member
With a 10 gallon pot you couldn't do a full 10 gallon boil but you could do two mashes and add them to one pot. Just make sure the temps are the same. I'd do one big batch of strike water, mash one and stir it up a bit, mash the other and stir it up, check the first one, check second one and rdwhahb.
At 10 gal pot, just brew a 5 gal batch, ditch the coolers with your BIAB.
See this sticky: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f244/biab-brewing-pics-233289/
See this sticky: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f244/biab-brewing-pics-233289/
Man if you've got a10 gallon pot why are you even considering using coolers? Mash in your kettle and use a sparge step to hit your preboil volume. No need to complicate things with a split batch. But maybe I'm missing something obvious...
