Brewing 20ltr biab in a 21ltr pot

[johnstod]

I did this last night and I just want to check if what I did was the right thing to do. This is a 21.5 litre stock pot on my stove. I mashed about a cm from the top at at 69c for 60 mins ramped up to 76c for 10 mins. Added 5 litres more to boil so that it was about an inch from the top of the pot, after my hour boil I had 13.5 left which was at 1067 transferred to fv and topped up to 21ltr(stopped paying attention and went over a little) and hit 1044 with an estimated of 1045 at 20ltr.

Sorry things are in Celsius but there aren't many good Uk brewing forums and I haven't got anything with me to convert the temps.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Ramping up at the end of the mash is not needed.

After pulling the bag did you top up the kettle w water?

Better if you dunk the bag in another pot or bucket of fresh water and add the sparge wort back to the kettle.

Try and minimize the amount of water you are adding and maximize the amount you are passing through the grain.

One step further you can collect excess runnings and top up your boil kettle a wee bit as you boil off to really max out a kettle batch size.

 

[johnstod]

Hi wilserbrewer

I put the bag into a bucket with a colander underneath it and let it drain off for a few minutes then poured that I to the kettle. Then sparged the grains in the bucket with water from the kettle (kitchen one) this then got added to the kettle. At the end of the brew when adding to the fv was when I just added plain water to top up to the 21l mark.

I was just following some instructions with the ramping up at the end, what's the benefits of not doing this vs doing it? Apart from time.

Thanks for the help