BIAB Thin mash?

[globe]

Im going to try my first all grain/biab brew this upcoming weekend. Confused about the mash ratio. I have a 15 gallon kettle and just tested the boil off rate. It is 2gal per hour as its dry and cold here now. My starting volume according to simple biab calculator is 9.51 gallons. I lose about .625 g in my kettle during siphoning. The grain bill is 10.5lb for a 5.5g recipe. Im worried mashing in 9.5 gallons of water will be too thin. Should i start with half the volume for the mash and then add the water before the boil? Or can i just go ahead and do a full voume mash?

 

[mb82]

Full volume and don't worry about it. The extra water will help hold temp better.

 

[lawle102]

What MB82 said. BIAB is geared towards full volume mashing.

And here is a link to a calculator I use. Once you get your boil off down, it's pretty damn accurate. http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/

 

[TopherM]

+1. Full volume!!

 

[Hopper5000]

are you going to sparge it at all? the only issue with mashing thin is that the wort will be very fermentable as enzymes are more active in thinner mashes. if you like dried beers then it should be fine. Usually you don't want to do much more than 2 quarts of strike water per lb.

 

[christpuncher123]

Since it's your first BIAB I strongly recomend knocking about a gallon of water out of that mash! This Way if your crush isn't so good you can still get a good S.G and if you don't boil off 2 gallon you will still have a good O.G. You can always add water after the boil to get your correct volume. Record everything from start to finish and soon you will learn to be verry consistant with your setup!

 

[newnick]

I would use 8gal. with my setup for 5.5gal in the fermentor. The calculator would tell me to use about 8.5gal. If your leaving a little more than 1/2 gal. in the pot I'd use about 8.5 gal. Do you plan on squeezing the bag out?
If so you should be alright with less water to start with.