I don't know if you're interested in making bigger beers in the same pot, but a lot of the guys on the BIAB sub-forum will use a smaller kettle, but do a rinsing-type "sparge" to get the additional volume they need when their kettle can't hold a full-volume of water and grain. It's just a little tweaking with the recipe, but it's pretty awesome to be able to make big beers just by adding water to a high-gravity wort.
Yeah, I did the same thing twice. Then I sprang for a 15 gal pot8 gal pot
6.6 gal water and 14lbs of grain. Beersmith said it should fit and I had probably a half an inch of freeboard.
Brewed a RIS today. Pot is 5.75" diameter and 19" tall. Got 24lbs in and had room for a few more with ease.
Pot is 5.75" diameter ???
Brew on
I have repeatedly done 35-38 lbs of grain in a 20 gallon kettle, with some sparging to yield a 1/2 B or 15.5 gallon batch. Works quite well!
I typically sparge hot as I have the means to easily do so, if I didn't, I would not hesitate to cold sparge.
At home I let the bag hang and drain from a ratchet pulley, then slowly and gently pour sparge water through the bag. At my club / cabin, I use a commercial strainer to set the bag on top ove the kettle and pour sparge water over the bag.
I do add some sparge water to the mash to max out the kettle and stir well prior to removing the bag as well to minimize sparge quantity.
It's not difficult if you have a planned method for handling the bag.
Anyone on here have a nine gallon pot like me? About to do my first BIAB with eleven pounds of grain and think I'll just start with 6.5 gallons of water in the kettle and sparge with 1 gallon to be sure everything fits.
Do as priceless recommends and you'll be fine. If you don't want to spend the time testing your boil off then I'd just assume 1 gallon/hour this first batch.
Craig, I do something similar with a shortened perforated Homer bucket but I sparge right over the BK. My bag sits in a turkey basket. When my mash is done, I raise the basket with a pulley and rest the perforated bucket in the basket above the bag and pour my sparge water in the bucket. It all drains into the BK. Kind of a fly sparge. I arranged the perforations so it takes about 30 minutes to sparge 2 gal through the bucket. It increased my efficiency about 5%.
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