First 5 gallon all-grain brew: some issues

[Ollie8000]

Perhaps foolishly, I'm attempting to develop a process for a five gallon all-grain on my kitchen stove. I've (mostly) successfully done a 3 gallon all-grain and and "mostly grain, almost full-boil" partial mash for a 5 gallon batch. Today I attempted my first full go, brewing the Centennial Blonde from the recipe section here. I'm using BIAB.

I have a three and a four gallon pot. I split the 8lb or so of grain in half and did a mash in each pot. My first problem was that I missed the temps by quite a bit on one and didn't fix it because I had to be somewhere else for 40mins. I just left it out and uninsulated. It didn't drop as much as I expected over that time (or, quite plausibly, I rushed the initial measurement and it started even hotter than the 163F I thought it was). After the 40mins it was at 159. At that point I used cold water to get it to the low 150s. The other pot was spot on, and I had it in the oven on warm so held its temp perfectly.

That's all fixable easily enough with more practice and more care. The boil is where I think I'm in more serious trouble as far as getting a good process going is concerned.

My stove struggles to keep a rolling boil when those pots are mostly full. It's close; definitely more than a simmer. I'd say that "gentle boil" is a fair description.

My original plan had been to squeeze and dunk sparge the bags and add this liquid to the heating/boiling wort as it became available (and as space was available in the pots) but I didn't want to make the boil worse. Plan B was to boil this separately and add it once it was boiling, but I couldn't fit the third pot alongside the first two. Plan C, which I used, was to give the last of it (it was about a gallon) a vigorous 20min boil on its own once the first pot had finished its 60min boil (the pots were out of sync because of heating times and where I'd added the first bits of sparge wort).

So, I'm looking for ideas, including some sense of what changes will make the biggest improvements (assuming that I can fix the mash temp problems, which I'm confident I can). Some specific questions:

* Would a longer gentle boil (90mins? 120mins?) help? As I understand it the two issues are boiling off DMS and utilising hops. How are these affected?

* I have two 3 quart saucepans that I think would both fit next to the big pots. Would it help to have half a gallon in each of these at a rolling boil, switching the wort between the big and little pots occasionally?

* Any reason why consecutive boils wouldn't work? That is, doing, say, three 2 gallon boils, with at most two going at once (with the third in the same pot as the first). I don't like how much time this would add, but if it might be worth it.

I ended up with a little under 5 gallons at an SG of 1.055. The target was 1.040 but is listed as a 5.5 gallon batch, and so the volume presumably accounts for some of the overshoot. I'm more worried about the FG as I was mashing high, but we'll see how it comes out. I'm sure it will be beer, so it's not all bad.

Any help or ideas gratefully received!

 

[IslandLizard]

A good simmer (surface ripples) is all that's required. No need for a wild rolling boil, it wastes energy while the evaporation rate is probably too high. A gallon an hour on homebrew equipment for 5-10 gallon batches is fine.

I read somewhere it's actually better to keep the lid on or part ways for the first 15 minutes of the boil, then remove it. It accelerates DMS formation while closed, then drives the whole shebang of during the next 30-45 minutes of a gentle simmering boil. May have been Martin Brungard, not sure.

Boiling more pots typically increases boil off, due to the combined larger open surface. So you can use that to your advantage, or turn the power levels down a tad on all of them. As long as you evaporate your intended volume, it's all good.

If they fit, you can put your mash kettles in a pre-warmed but turned off oven. Or wrap in a sleeping bag or thick (moving) blanket.

For better brewhouse/kettle efficiency, you can filter the leftover kettle trub through a clean and Starsaned fine-mesh hop bag placed in a funnel. Stick a large inverted spoon under the bag to help with drainage. Then reheat the reclaimed wort to 150F and keep there for 5 minutes to repasteurize. Keep a lid on. Chill and add to your batch. 2-4 quarts can be easily reclaimed that way in each brew session. No wort left behind!

60' boils (90' when using a large percentage of Pilsner malts) should be enough for most styles. After 60' boiling, bittering hops won't give off much more bittering if boiled longer. It's diminishing returns, but you could Time all your other hop additions back from flameout (0') and whirlpool and hopstand hops when chilled down to various degrees. There's a lot of new research on how hops contribute.

Sure you can do multiple consecutive brews and combine in the fermenter.

 

[GoeHaarden]

I read somewhere it's actually better to keep the lid on or part ways for the first 15 minutes of the boil, then remove it. It accelerates DMS formation while closed, then drives the whole shebang of during the next 30-45 minutes of a gentle simmering boil. May have been Martin Brungard, not sure.

I was thinking I remember Martin saying this before I finished reading, so I think you are correct...

 

[Rev2010]

I use a 1650w Hotrod heatstick combined with gas stovetop and let me tell you if I turn the gas up past mid way the rolling boil is more aggressive than when I boiled outdoors on a Blichmann propane burner. Plugs into a standard 120v outlet as well:

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/hotrodrtu.htm

Don't know if it would be ok to use with a bag however, guessing it would probably scorch the bag, but you can ask around. I don't BIAB, I go traditional mash tun, boil kettle, and HLT kettle, but I'm telling you the Hotrod heatstick is amazing and solved my dilemma of brewing in my apartment. I'm actually much happier brewing this way than when I had the backyard and mashed indoors and boiled outdoors. Plus I don't have to cancel brewdays cause of bad weather anymore.


Rev.

 

[Ollie8000]

Thanks everyone.

That a gentle boil is sufficient is great news. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get a full 5 gallon batch without unreasonable time/contortions, but I'm now confident I can get a system working.

That Hotrod looks awesome, I hadn't seen those before. And the bag wouldn't be a problem because it's out of the way for the boil, which is where I was struggling. However, probably not an expense I can justify at the moment. Ah well.

My oven has a warming setting, so I can set it to hold at 150F. I did this with one of the two mashes and it worked like a dream. Hit the temperature and maintained it perfectly. Now I think about it, the pair of mashes for this brew were probably my best ever and worst ever.

Thanks for the tip about getting a bit more wort too. Every quart counts when I'm pushing the limits.

My next brew will be a partial mash, but I'll probably try to do a full volume boil to practise.

 

[IslandLizard]

My oven has a warming setting, so I can set it to hold at 150F.

Make sure to verify those temps are very accurate. A few degrees more or less can have a large impact on fermentability and mouthfeel. If the oven overshoots and the actual oven temp is even as little as 10F over 150F (it will be at 160F in that case) you'll make a chewy dextrin soup that's almost impossible to ferment.

To reclaim wort from the leftover kettle trub you could make a filter bag from a piece of fine voile curtain material.

 

[Ollie8000]

I'm careful to measure to the degree on the thermometer I use for the mash (although now I think about it, I need to calibrate that one to be sure I'm aiming at what I think I am). I think it's fine for the oven though; as long as it's in the right ballpark all it will do is mean that the mash temperature doesn't change very much. That's my theory anyway, and it worked on the Blonde.

I get it up to temperature on the stovetop, so I'm not relying on the oven for any precision.

 

[IslandLizard]

I'm careful to measure to the degree on the thermometer I use for the mash (although now I think about it, I need to calibrate that one to be sure I'm aiming at what I think I am). I think it's fine for the oven though; as long as it's in the right ballpark all it will do is mean that the mash temperature doesn't change very much. That's my theory anyway, and it worked on the Blonde.

I get it up to temperature on the stovetop, so I'm not relying on the oven for any precision.

Just double check. Oven thermostats are not known for the kind of precision we'd like when it comes to mashing. That's why I'd rather turn it off. Even when it drops to 130-140F it's much closer to mash temp than 70-80F ambient air. Or give it a short boost a few times during the hour mash, if it tends to overshoot.

 

[Bubbles2]

I have a 60k BTU gas as one of my Burners. I use a Concord SS 7 gal pot. To get a rolling Boil is dependent if I have the A/C on 75º or not. I have a portable A/C unit I use in my Kitchen FWIW. I have to partial cover the pot to bring to rolling Boil. That being stated.
Your Mash is done at 145-152º if memory serves Beta and Alpha. So Boil is not needed.
Lock out is at 170º & All Dies at 180º so no need for Boil persay. Boil is 212º
I understand that Mashing full grain is full control of your brew. However Briess DME has really got a handle on your Base. I mention because it seems you want to brew in the house on the stove.
Now comparative economics, I have DME 50lb delivered for 3.30 a lb Organic Light. To make my base with Organic grain is 2.00 a lb delivered. However it takes 9lb's of grain to equate 5lbs of DME, plus an hour and a half, pots, mess, etc. Something to consider, to get around brewing in the kitchen.
Math- 9lbs x 2.00 a LB is 18.00 plus time and gear.
5lbs x 3.30 a LB is 16.50 no time other than measure and add.
A 5gal batch is done in a 7 gal pot without ever an over boil. Your flavors are done with your
added choice of grain on top of that base, where you can hold the crushed malt at Alpha or Beta as well if you want to before lock out. No Lautering ( I use a bag) No rinsing (unless you want to dunk your grain bag to rinse and add back in before DME). Something to consider.

 

[bracconiere]

i brew 10 gal batches on my stove....

just have a pot big enough to fit over two burners....

works fine, you just have to be single...and a homeowner....lol, because it looks like this afterwards...

and i also broke the safety rules, took a small knife, and bored my orrifices very slighty to get a bigger flame....

edit: if your doing BIAB on your stove, might want to think about a mash tun instead....i don't do BIAB, i use a 10 gal round cooler...

 

[Ollie8000]

More good info and ideas, thanks.

In my first go at the hobby (from about 10 to about 5 yrs ago) I did all extract or partial mashes where most of the fermentables came from extract, and made some very nice beers. I think it's fun to move towards all grain, even if I don't end up all the way there.

It's not really driven by the economics, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. I figure I pay about $1-2 for beer I buy. Provided what I brew comes in at under $2/bottle (12oz), including equipment, I'm happy. I haven't kept careful track, but I suspect the 5 batches I've made so far have already paid for the bits of new kits I needed with this rate. (This rationale might break down once what I make is so delicious I'm drinking five times what I used to. I'll worry about that if it happens.)

I'm also not factoring my time in. It's a hobby and I'm doing it for fun. If I stop enjoying it, then I'll stop brewing.

This has made me think about what /is/ driving me though. I think there are two factors. First, it's fun to make stuff rather than buy it. And it's funner to work back as far as you can. So brewing has an edge over buying beer (other things being equal, which quality-wise they're certainly not, but I'm working on changing that) and going with grain rather than extract for as much as possible is another step back towards doing it all myself. Obviously this has to stop somewhere. I'm not about to start growing barley. But maybe someday that will make sense. I /am/ growing hops, although we planted those a few years ago without immediate plans to return to brewing.

The second, which is not too different from the first, is to develop a skill. It's enjoyable to improve at something, and pushing the edges of what you can do is part of that. Perfecting mostly-extract brews could also fall under this heading, but I enjoy stretching into new ground.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few brews down the line I come to the conclusion that what I can do comfortably is, say, max 10lb of grain and max of 4 gallon batch size, and that I can push those numbers up to, say, 16lb and 5 gallons, with fiddly contortions. Then I'll take each brew as it comes, depending on what is best for it and what I'm in the mood for. I suspect in most cases it would be to do beers within the comfort-level and top up with a bit of water and DME.

My next one (a white IPA) is a partial mash with most of the fermentables coming from extract. I hope what I've learned so far will mean it's another better beer than those that came before it. I'll use it to test aspects of the procedure. The one after that is going to be a big beer (an India Brown Ale, if that is such a thing) that is pushing my grain limits /and/ needs 3lb of extract. I'll probably keep this one as a 4 gallon boil output.

On the need for a boil, if you only take it to 180F do your hops work? Are there bad tastes from DMS? From what I've read, you need the boil for these reasons.

And Bracconiere, how do you get that off?? Or maybe you don't and it builds up from brew-to-brew? Definitely not an option for me. I'm not sure I could live with it, before even asking my spouse's opinion.

 

[bracconiere]

https://www.meatprocessingproducts....XmqqO_UHL-jm2XFkZaqGTUz9yIXrvqF0aAuGkEALw_wcB

something like this would cover two burners and it says it's 40 qt....says it's 24-1/4" DIA, on another site...


and i buy a lot of cheap oven cleaner off ebay....and i go about 4 brews between cleaning.....even 'cheap' oven cleaner is expensive...(for me anyway)

edit: brewing on the stove this will be your friend...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Ecolab...097646&hash=item3d5ad150df:g:b9wAAOSwSrVakfjq

 

[lowtones84]

I think where you're going is fine. Don't be locked into 5 gallon batches if you can't quite manage it, and don't be afraid to stay partial mash, as you said. I actually did 4 gallon batches (as you're thinking you may do) for a long time because it was best suited for my equipment and kitchen stove. I could achieve all grain BIAB no problem, the recipes just looked weird. I also tended to brew relatively low gravity so I could fit the mash in one pot, then dunk sparge/mashout in another. If I wanted to make a bigger beer, I just brewed 3 gallons instead, or used sugar/DME to get gravity. I think you're on the right track.

 

[Bubbles2]

Hops work even when pitched after ferment. I thought you were challenged by trying to brew on a stove at 10 gallons for Base...Where you are getting a slow boil or strong simmer. Bittering will occur with your hops at a simmer, the longer the more bitter and of course the Hop itself.
My point was not Price in regards to Base, just that it is just about a push if not cheaper, but if you want to spend 6 hours brewing because it is a Hobby. You might just want to get a burner for outside and damn the weather if it is a hobby. I've seen people golf in the rain.

 

[bracconiere]

just to be fair to myself, and say it's not THAT bad...this is the way my stove normally looks, brewing 10 gal batches on it......

and yes, that toggle switch is for getting the oven to go lower to malt my own barley.....

 

[Ollie8000]

Wow, I'm going to get a pack of that cleaner. I'm already struggling ineffectively against much smaller spills than your first pic. Thanks for the tip!

Sorry for the confusion. 10 gallons is /way/ out of the question. The double burner idea is good, albeit my stovetop has two big burners and three small ones and the two big ones are not especially close to each other. The kicker is the height. There's an extractor fan that my 3- and 4-gallon pots are already getting close to. I guess there might be better shaped pots out there, maybe that would cover one big burner and two small ones if the dimensions are spot on, but I'll try a few more brews with what I've got before looking into that.

Family and job dyanmics mean that I'm likely to brew significantly more frequently in the summer. If I want to make the step up, moving to larger pots and an outside burner is definitely the way to go. I can see it happening too, but I'm not there yet. I'll spend this summer laying in what I can with the indoor system, see how much I brew through the winter, and decide next spring whether I want to make that step.

I love being outside in the winter here in VT. Cold and snowy, but on a sunny day it's glorious. I can imagine many a happy outdoor winter brewing day. Having moved to where there are beautiful hot summers, beautiful, bitterly cold, snowy winters, beautiful leafy falls, and, um, a beautiful few weeks of constant rain and car-sticking mud in the spring from somewhere that "year-round permadrizzle" is not too far from the mark, I rarely "damn the weather". I try to get out there and enjoy it. If it's not fun, it'll change soon enough.

The low-gravity comment is a good one Lowtones84 (as part of an encouraging post, thank you). I have my eye on a dark mild recipe. It's a style of beer I grew up on and one I can't buy easily here. Extract attempts at it just haven't have the body and mouthfeel. Maybe this is a flaw on my part, but I think all-graining it (or mostly-graining it) might be the only way to homebrew a rich dark beer that comes at around 3% ABV or less. Or at least an easier way for me. To be continued...

And thanks to all for the engagement and comments. During my last homebrew phase I didn't have internet at home. The ability to read a whole lot on this site at my leisure and have a thread like this one mean that I've probably improved more over the five brews I've done this time than I did over the 30-odd last time.

 

[lowtones84]

The low-gravity comment is a good one Lowtones84 (as part of an encouraging post, thank you). I have my eye on a dark mild recipe. It's a style of beer I grew up on and one I can't buy easily here. Extract attempts at it just haven't have the body and mouthfeel. Maybe this is a flaw on my part, but I think all-graining it (or mostly-graining it) might be the only way to homebrew a rich dark beer that comes at around 3% ABV or less. Or at least an easier way for me. To be continued...

Yup, I brewed a lot of dark mild and standard-special bitters. Quite a few lower gravity saisons too. You'll find what works for you. Although there are some people tied to certain ideas on this forum, there are many open minded people who will show you that there are many ways to successfully do this thing that we all love. I was toasting my own specialty malts and crushing malt on the tiny square of concrete that I called my "patio" outside my apartment door. Fermenting in a swamp cooler in my bedroom closet. Good times. That's when my current wife and I didn't live together, though...

Wasn't malting my own barley in the oven though, that's just crazy braconniere!

 

[wilserbrewer]

Two mashes seems like a hassle, one mash in your 4 gallon pot and sparge to gain volume needed.

 

[Ollie8000]

With the equipment I have, I think that mashing 5lbs of grain is going to be noticeably easier than 10lb. The question is whether it's so much easier that doing 5lb twice is easier than 10lb once.

My next one is easy anyway because it's mostly extract (~3lb grain). The one after is smaller than I thought, coming in at about 7 or 8lb of grain. Maybe I'll try that with a single mash and see how unwieldy it is. I'll have the two mashes I did for the Blonde to compare difficulty to (even though I messed up one of those, I think I have a reasonable sense of how tricky it should have been).

 

[lowtones84]

With the equipment I have, I think that mashing 5lbs of grain is going to be noticeably easier than 10lb. The question is whether it's so much easier that doing 5lb twice is easier than 10lb once.

My next one is easy anyway because it's mostly extract (~3lb grain). The one after is smaller than I thought, coming in at about 7 or 8lb of grain. Maybe I'll try that with a single mash and see how unwieldy it is. I'll have the two mashes I did for the Blonde to compare difficulty to (even though I messed up one of those, I think I have a reasonable sense of how tricky it should have been).

You can mash 10 lbs @ 1.25 qts/lb. in your 4 gallon pot (Will take up 3.93 gallons of space). You will just have absolutely no free space. But 8 lbs or so is no problem, you just have to be careful when you're stirring. If you bring down your qts/lb. a bit you have a bit more freedom too, you'll just have a thicker mash. At 5 gallons 8 lbs of malt will get you around 1.048 OG given a mash efficiency of 75%, or 1.060 for a 4 gallon batch.

This website is very helpful, especially the "Can I Mash It?" calculator toward the bottom when you're working with small vessels. https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

[IslandLizard]

my stovetop has two big burners and three small ones and the two big ones are not especially close to each other

What kind of stovetop is that? Glass?

 

[Ollie8000]

Enamel with gas burners. It looks very like Bracconierre's, but replace the two back burners with smaller ones and put a third smaller one right in the middle. The front two are probably a bit closer together than Bracconierre's, but it'd definitely be a stretch.

That's going to be a really handy calculator Lowtones84, thanks! Is there a rule of thumb for how far you can push qts/lb? Is 1.25 on the edge?

 

[IslandLizard]

Enamel with gas burners. It looks very like Bracconierre's, but replace the two back burners with smaller ones and put a third smaller one right in the middle. The front two are probably a bit closer together than Bracconierre's, but it'd definitely be a stretch.

That's going to be a really handy calculator Lowtones84, thanks! Is there a rule of thumb for how far you can push qts/lb? Is 1.25 on the edge?

In your case, I'd use 2 pots! Just brew smaller batches. You can brew 2 (same or different ones) at the same time probably.

 

[eric19312]

When I was a kitchen brewer I once split a batch into three pots to do a full volume boil. Worked great.

 

[lowtones84]

That's going to be a really handy calculator Lowtones84, thanks! Is there a rule of thumb for how far you can push qts/lb? Is 1.25 on the edge?

It is a handy calculator. Glad to help! I've done multi-step mashes, decoction, and turbid mashes all on the stovetop with boiling water or boiling grain additions. 1.25 qts/lb is the recommended basic mash ratio. You can go down to about 1 in my experience.

 

[Ollie8000]

Thanks all. It's hard to say exactly how much this thread alone has/will improve my brewing compared to stumbling along by myself as I used to, but it's safe to say that it's a /lot/. I'll keep coming back with progress reports and questions related to the process.

 

[Ollie8000]

On Tuesday I did a partial mash that was way with in the limits and everything went smoothly (even more so than it would have anyway, I think). Tomorrow I'm going for an "India Brown Ale" with lots of grain (about 14lb) some extract (A 3lb pack of DME) and a good amount of hops. This is definitely going to test the limits of the newly evolving system, but I'm feeling good about getting some beer out of the other end.

 

[IslandLizard]

14 pounds of grain in a 4 gallon pot?
That does not allow for much water to be added for a good mash. A water to grain ratio of 1:1, quarts to pounds, is about the absolute minimum, IMO, even 1.25 is darn thick. Or are you going to split it over more pots?

 

[Ollie8000]

Yes, definitely a two-potter. I haven't worked out the details yet, but I'll mash in the 3- and 4-gallon pots, and then generally squeeze and dunk elsewhere while boiling in those two pots and adding the runnings in.

 

[Ollie8000]

Successful brew day. Five and half hours from getting the first pot out to finishing clean-up, and that also included a load of laundry, a game of chess with my kid, and lunch for both of us.

I confused myself about how daunting it was going to be. The 14lb was the original recipe, but I subbed 5lb of that for 3lb of DME, so I only had to handle 9lb. I still used two pots for mashing, and I think that's my preference unless it's a really small grain bill.

I hit my numbers, more-or-less, and, with perfect timing, the oven cleaner that Bracconiere recommended arrived mid-brew. The only wrinkles were being a bit low on ice for chilling and giving myself a mild soaking during clean-up. I'll take that.

Thanks for all your help in this thread (and the forum more generally). It's amazing how much I'm improving with each beer compared to when I used to brew. Of course, the flipside of this is that I'm giving you all the blame if it doesn't turn out well.

 

[IslandLizard]

The 14lb was the original recipe, but I subbed 5lb of that for 3lb of DME, so I only had to handle 9lb.

That makes the whole process a lot more comfortable! Add the DME at flameout, it really doesn't need to be boiled, anyway.

 

[Ollie8000]

Yep, I got the DME-at-flameout tip from the LHBS when I got back into the hobby and have been doing that (mostly; I think I put some fraction of it in earlier with recipes where the mash had hardly anything in it, but I've moved away from that now).

I was there again today and picked up the ingredients for the next four brews. Two milds, one best, and an imperial stout. The first three are all-grain (one is 3 gallons, the others 5) and the stout is partial mash (5 gallons). All of the grain bills come in at under 10lb, so I'm confident that my system will handle it all OK.

It's good to go into a brew day with the biggest concerns being to fine-tune the process and get the numbers tight, rather than expecting to have to improvise. That said, don't be surprised by panicked posts here as things go wrong!

 

[IslandLizard]

Yep, I got the DME-at-flameout tip from the LHBS

Sounds like your brew store knows what they're doing.

the stout is partial mash

Just make sure there is a diastatic (base) malt included in the partial mash, and a sufficient amount of it.

Countless recipes (many from big online vendors) include Flaked Barley, Flaked Wheat, or Victory Malt, etc. to be steeped with the crystal and roasts, without a base malt being present at all.

 

[Ollie8000]

Yep, the partial mash is a re-do of one of the first ones I did on returning to the hobby. The original had 1lb 2-row (along with various other bits and bobs) and 9lb DME. I've kept the recipe the same, except that it's now 6lb 2-row and 6lb DME. So, even if the first one didn't have enough (and it came out well regardless), no worries this time.

But today is the 3-gallon mild. Mashing now.

 

[lowtones84]

Up that mild to 5 next time, I'm sure you can fit enough malt to mash in one pot for that one! Sounds like you're on the right track to successful stovetop brewing. What you're doing is basically how I brewed for several years.

 

[Ollie8000]

Yep, it's not a brew-day limitation, it's a carboy one. I have two primary buckets then an array of 3- and 5-gallon carboys I use for secondaries. Given what's in the pipeline I had to make one of those four brews a 3-gallon batch. The plan is that this 3-gallon one also provides a good lot of yeast for the big stout.

I'd prefer to do all 5-gallon batches, but once I reframe it as a choice between a 3-gallon one and a 0-gallon one, it doesn't feel so bad.

 

[IslandLizard]

For many "experimental brews" 2.5 gallon is plenty. But when they're good you wish you had 5.

Up that mild to 5 next time, I'm sure you can fit enough malt to mash in one pot for that one! Sounds like you're on the right track to successful stovetop brewing. What you're doing is basically how I brewed for several years.

Exactly! Low gravity brews require less grain, and are always good to have around. I dig that 3% Oat Mild, time to rebrew it.

@Ollie8000 You can always brew a half batch twice to get 5 gallons, or brew 2 different batches back to back, one prep time, one cleanup time.

Yep, it's not a brew-day limitation, it's a carboy one.

Of course, there's that!
I use 6.5 gallon brew buckets. 2 fit side by side in my ferm fridge, or in my "swamp" cooler in the lower level.

 

[Ollie8000]

Successful brew day. All well under control the whole time. 6hrs total time, but I wasn't rattling through things as quickly as I could.

I overshot the OG (1.055 vs. 1.043) which is partly because I very slightly undershot the final volume but mostly, I presume, because my efficiency turned out better than the BeerSmith defaults. Or is there likely to be some other reason?

To make the predicted OG come out in BeerSmith, after dropping the volume to 2.9galllons, I have to put 92% BH efficiency in to make the numbers match. Is that really plausible?

 

[lowtones84]

92% is possible but not likely. I think it has more to do with your volume, but BIAB brewers who have a good system dialed in tend to get high efficiency. Don't confuse that with better beer, however. Take measurements when you are spot on, or very close, to expected final volume.

 

[Ollie8000]

Another batch today that went pretty smoothly. 9lb of grain, 5 gallon boil (across the two big pots and a third saucepan contributing another useful half-gallon).

I stuck with mashing in two separate pots and bags. I think that 5lb in a bag is convenient to handle in a way that 10ish would not be. As I brew more maybe that will change, but I was happy with how it all went today.

OG was 1.052, which seems plausible for what I was brewing (a best bitter). I haven't entered it all into BeerSmith yet to see what I "should" be getting.

I am very pleased with how this is all coming together.