So I got set up for my first biab, read all about it for a couple weeks. (I have done a dozen or so extract kits and they come out good) Ordered a 3 gallon dead ringer kit from northern brewer. Have a new wort chiller,8 gallon pot, and my old 5 gallon extract pot for a dunk sparge. Tested my digital thermometer on a pot of boiling water. It seemed perfect, water started boiling right at 212. do the mash, sparge,boil etc. got the wort chiller cooling it down, after 30min on 3ish gallons still reads 80 degrees. I touch the side of the pot and its really cold. pour the water into my fermentor and the tempstrip on there reads 55 degrees! anyways back to the thermometer, i start messing with it and another digital thermometer, i come to the conclusion my mash temps were around 140ish and my sparge 150ish. my og was 1.052. supposed to be 1.060. I also ended up with 3.5 gallons of water in my fermentor. I started with 5gallons, instructions from northernbrewer say to use 5.5 gallons. Beersmith said 4.6 gallons. Should have trusted it. So if i calculated my efficiency correctly, i came to %66(7.6lbs grain) After the temp screw ups, i wish i didnt have the extra gallon of water. It might not have been so off. Hopfully it still tastes good. At least i have a full keg of an extract ipa that is really good, to get me through to the next one!
First Biab brew day, didnt go as planned
- Thread starter rynb15
- Start date
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I always have two thermometers just in case, a digital one that goes into the pot during the mash and an analog one that comes out when I put the lid on for the mash since I don't have a thermowell in my pot. Since Temp control is usually the hard part I like to keep myself as informed as possible and also helps to have a dual verification prior to dumping in all the grain. You may want to do a couple of test runs with water to see what your volume looks like with the chiller in and out and hot vs cold so you know what 3 gallons will be in the fermentor. I did this for my 10 gallon pot and custom chiller, has been very helpful!
That would have been 1.06 if you hadn't ended up with an extra .5 gallons.
Your beer will be fine.
Don't sweat it though, it will take a few attempts to get the amount of water needed on your system dialed in.
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