BIAB - too small of a pot

[BrettGoldstein]

I’ve jumped into BIAB, with a 10 gal pot for 5 gal batches. I’m finding that for higher OG recipes my pot isn’t quite big enough (maybe 1 gal too small) So without buying a bigger pot, I guess I have two options: scale my recipe down to fit the pot (and have extra air space in the fermenter) or just add extra water after removing the bag (trying to sparge thru the bag while it’s suspended). I’ve tried the 2nd option, resulting in some water spillage and low OGs.

Suggestions?

Thanks

 

[azmark]

Get second pot/bucket, add your sparge warter to it. When you remove your bag from the main kettle, place it into the second bucket and do a second mini mash/dunk sparge in it while you're bringing your main kettle up to a boil. Once dunk sparge is over, just pour the additional wort into the main kettle.

 

[z-bob]

I do 4 gallon batches in an 8 gallon pot. For higher OG recipes, that just means I have to do a sparge (which I'd want to do anyway to keep the efficiency up.)

For low gravity beers I mash with the full volume of water (almost 6 gallons) For high gravity, I mash with 4 gallons, then squeeze the bag and move it to a bucket. Pour 2.5 gallons of water over it and let it steep for ten minutes while my kettle is coming to a boil with the first runnings. Drain and squeeze the bag again, and add the squeezins to the kettle. I'm pretty sure I could do a 5 gallon high-gravity beer in the 8 gallon kettle this way.

 

[user 125772]

Yep, if you don't want to scale the batch down, you need to find an effective way to do some sort of sparging operation, the "dunk" and the "pour-over" are prolly the two most popular.

 

[rhys333]

Get second pot/bucket, add your sparge warter to it. When you remove your bag from the main kettle, place it into the second bucket and do a second mini mash/dunk sparge in it while you're bringing your main kettle up to a boil. Once dunk sparge is over, just pour the additional wort into the main kettle.

I do basically the same. I mash indoors in a 5 gallon pot and heat up the sparge water outdoors in my 10 gallon BK. A quick dunk sparge, then pour in the first runnings and boil.

 

[Kent88]

Get one of those strainer-scoop deals with a handle (I'm blanking on the name and too lazy to google), big enough to handle the grain bag and all. Start with a little less water in the mash. When the mash is over, lift the grain out, place strainer on/above kettle, put grain bag in strainer, pour a little warm water through the grain to top up to desired pre-boil gravity (unless you're making a really strong or weak beer, then you might want to just top up with water or add some extract [unless you want to boil for forever]).

Don't be afraid to add a little extract while you get your system dialed in.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I use a 10 gallon kettle for 5 gallon batches. If my grain bill is higher that about 11 or 12 lbs., I will use a second, smaller pot with a paint strainer to mash any overages. It's kind of a pain, but I don't do a whole lot of bigger beers that require more than 10 or so lbs.

Furthermore, I modified a serving bowl to drain my bag after after pulling it. Here's the link to it. I just drilled a series of 3/16" holes in the bottom. It's wide enough to sit on my kettle to drain and or sparge.

 

[BrettGoldstein]

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

 

[wilserbrewer]

All good suggestions, the simplest red neck solution that I’ve used a few times, is to place your mash paddle brewing spoon or other long kitchen or grill utensil to span the top of the kettle, then take another long utensil and make a cross or a tee spanning the top of the kettle, place the bag of grain on the cross of utensils then gently and slowly pour over the volume needed effecting a fly sparge or pour over the bag sparge...works pretty well and likely tools you have at hand.

 

[user 125772]

All good suggestions, the simplest red neck solution that I’ve used a few times, is to place your mash paddle brewing spoon or other long kitchen or grill utensil to span the top of the kettle, then take another long utensil and make a cross or a tee spanning the top of the kettle, place the bag of grain on the cross of utensils then gently and slowly pour over the volume needed effecting a fly sparge or pour over the bag sparge...works pretty well and likely tools you have at hand.

Dang, that sure enough IS redneck!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Papazian zapap is my solution. Bag in zapap, zapap in another bucket, can use another bucket up top to squeeze the crap out of it.

https://mainebrews.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/zapap-lauter-system/

 

[gatorjj]

I’ve jumped into BIAB, with a 10 gal pot for 5 gal batches. I’m finding that for higher OG recipes my pot isn’t quite big enough (maybe 1 gal too small) So without buying a bigger pot, I guess I have two options: scale my recipe down to fit the pot (and have extra air space in the fermenter) or just add extra water after removing the bag (trying to sparge thru the bag while it’s suspended). I’ve tried the 2nd option, resulting in some water spillage and low OGs.

Suggestions?

Thanks

I tried my first BIAB sparge this weekend on a higher gravity brew (OG 1.083). I held back 2 gallons which I heated separately, and tried a few different methods but found the easiest and least "spilly" was actually to unhook 1 loop of the suspended bag and pour the hot water in with a 1L pyrex cup until I hit my preboil volume.

The last time I did this beer the mash nearly maxed out the 10 gallon kettle (16.5lbs grain), and I only hit 65% efficiency so I was quite a bit lower than I wanted on OG. This time it was much easier to handle and I hit the 75% I was looking for. The mash sure was a lot thicker than I'm used to seeing with BIAB, but it all worked out!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I've found that it's fairly easy to come up with an adequate sparge solution for smaller grain bills. Like the zapap I posted earlier. My 23# 12 gallon batch last weekend? Not so much! Massive PITA and wish I'd tossed a couple extra pounds of base malt in and maxed out my 20 gallon kettle rather than reserve sparge water and try to make up the volume and save some efficiency. I had one pulley on the bucket handle, one on the bag, and it was very much like a monkey fu@&in a football! I did get around 70% efficiency but I won't do that again. Would've been easier to just mash and sparge in my cooler!

 

[jtratcliff]

I do 6gal batches in a 10G pot... I max out the capacity of the pot using a mash calculator, then dunk sparge in a separate pot for the remainder of the needed volume... Temp doesn't seem to matter, so you could use a smaller pot over heat or a spare bucket w/cold water. Pull the bag, squeeze, put in 2nd vessel for a few minutes while 1st vessel is heating to boil... pull bag again & squeeze, then add "2nd runnings" and off you go!

 

[hammy1983]

All good suggestions, the simplest red neck solution that I’ve used a few times, is to place your mash paddle brewing spoon or other long kitchen or grill utensil to span the top of the kettle, then take another long utensil and make a cross or a tee spanning the top of the kettle, place the bag of grain on the cross of utensils then gently and slowly pour over the volume needed effecting a fly sparge or pour over the bag sparge...works pretty well and likely tools you have at hand.

this is brilliant. I am about to start BIAB and I am probably going to use this method with a slight modification. instead of spoons... use an old clean stainless steel oven rack.

 

[Morrey]

Even though I actually do have room in my BIAB kettle for full volume mashes including those with large grain bills, I do a pour over rinse sparge since this helps to wash residual sugars off the grains. This is a fairly simple way to get around buying a new kettle with the added benefit of increasing your efficiency.

 

[Morrey]

this is brilliant. I am about to start BIAB and I am probably going to use this method with a slight modification. instead of spoons... use an old clean stainless steel oven rack.

If you happen across a metal colander that fits or hangs on the lip of the boil kettle w/o going down into the wort, this is ideal. I found one at a restaurant supply store, and this keeps the grain bag contained whereas if it sits on top of a rack, there is a likelihood some of the wort will spill over the sides of the kettle.

 

[chickypad]

I'll just chime in to say that for me the dunk sparge gets much better lauter efficiency than the times I tried pour over. Dunk the bag in your second pot or bucket, stir the crap out of it, then lift and squeeze again. I also just found it less messy.

 

[JimRausch]

Caveat- I don't BIAB.
I do however have a 5G Denny-style mashtun cooler, and occasionally run into the problem of more grain than it can handle without having too thick of a mash. My solution= split mash (it actually has a real name, but I can't remember it).
Mash 1/2 of your grains in the normal manner, then use the runoff of the 1st mash as brewing liquor for the 2nd half. Yes it does double your mashtime, but it works. The one time I did a duplicate batch by the two different methods, I even got an increase in mash efficiency by 15% with the split mash.
I'm sure it would work for a BIAB method.