First Biab need a little help

[TejasBrewing]

I am brewing my first all grain BIAB on monday and need a little help from my fellow brewers. I am brewing a blonde with some applewood smoked 2 row. My grain bill is 9.5 lbs and will be using a 9gal kettle. I have my grain bag and a pulley system to lift it out and let drip back into the kettle after 60min mash at 155 and bring temp up to 170 for a few minutes to sparge then lift out. I will be doing a 60min boil so I really need to know what my starting amount of water will need to be and so on. Any help would be great I thimk I got my plan but any advice would be great.

Drew

 

[RhythmSection]

http://beerreviewdude.com/biab-calculator/:mug:

 

[kcreiglow]

As you know, you will loose wort to evaporation, your yeast cake after fermentation as well as taking gravity readings. I always boil up 6 gallons of water for my 5 gallon batch to compensate for that. What you might not know, is that you loose ALOT of wort when using BIAB despite draining, and maybe just a little squeezing. That's why I take my wife's biggest pot and boil up at least another 3 gallons of water in addition to what I have going on in my kettle. You can sparge your grain with it or even just pour it in to make up the difference in preboil wort amounts. I mark the side of my kettle so I know what 5 gallons looks like as well as 6.
That's just the teqnique that works for me... Learning the ropes myself.

If you want exact numbers for your brew I suggest using Beer Smith's software free version. Just enter your brew gear info and methods and it will tell you exactly what you need to do.

 

[bucfanmike]

pretty good calculator here http://beerreviewdude.com/biab-calculator/

Dont be afraid to squeeze the bag, get as much out of it as you can.

 

[borden]

pretty good calculator here http://beerreviewdude.com/biab-calculator/

Dont be afraid to squeeze the bag, get as much out of it as you can.

Not a bad calculator, but there's always going to be variation. This could be a great place to start, but to the OP, take note of your results. For example, if I'm doing a 9 or 10 lb grain bill, I use a total of 7 gallons of water to end up with about 5.25 gallons after the boil every time. Makes it a lot easier for future batches.

 

[bschoenb]

My recomendation is to take good notes; use a software program with BIAB (Beersmith is what I use); Assume it will not go as planned since you don't completely know your boiloff, Grain Absorption Factor, Mash Eff (based upon Grind), Extraction levels for Sugars or Wort amount "gentily" squeezed out of Bag.

Hence the reason I used DME to make up the Difference my first three or four batches until I got all that establised and my system dialed in.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I would also suggest marking your kettle, or a brew spoon in gallons so you know what you have in the pot both pre and post boil. That way if your off you can make an adjustment, boil a bit longer or sparge more. Many times you read of a noob..."first batch only 3 1/2 gallons????"

Just guessing you will want to start w/ 7 to 7 1/2 gallons, will depend on how hard you boil and how much you boil off...a couple quarts either way is not a big deal...RDWHAHB

 

[TopherM]

I have been very curious about that applewood smoked 2-row. Sounds really interesting, but I've shyed away from it due to the significant price.

I'm sure the dry smell is amazing, and the mash smell is going to be even better.

Let me know how it turns out!!

 

[TejasBrewing]

Thanks for the help, the applewood 2row smells amazing, smells like bacon in the fridge.

 

[Grumpybumpy]

I'm about to do my first true biab (no sparge) with a grain bill of 10#. Two calculators have told me to use 7.75 gallons for a 5.5 post boil volume. Is that too much?

 

[bschoenb]

I'm about to do my first true biab (no sparge) with a grain bill of 10#. Two calculators have told me to use 7.75 gallons for a 5.5 post boil volume. Is that too much?

Again; it all depends on your crush and system; your OG.... For my Crush and a 1.050 OG beer with ~11 lbs of grain; I loose @ 1 gallon in grain absorption; and my kettle boils off 1.25/hour

 

[bschoenb]

I'm about to do my first true biab (no sparge) with a grain bill of 10#. Two calculators have told me to use 7.75 gallons for a 5.5 post boil volume. Is that too much?

Again; it all depends on your beer and system; For my Crush and a 1.050 OG beer with ~11 lbs of grain; I loose @ 1 gallon in grain absorption; and my kettle boils off 1.25/hour

 

[GTaylor]

I have done a couple of BIAB batches starting with 7.5 gallons and found out in order to get a final volume of 5.5 I need another 1/2 gallon. Used the calculator mentioned at the beginning of this thread and it worked pretty good, no learning to use Beersmith and it seems to be worth the money.

 

[cyclonite]

Again; it all depends on your beer and system; For my Crush and a 1.050 OG beer with ~11 lbs of grain; I loose @ 1 gallon in grain absorption; and my kettle boils off 1.25/hour

+1. Definitely depends on your system, kettle size/diameter, burner, environment and how hard you boil. I squeeze my bag and lose < 1/2 gallon from absorption in the mash, but I have a wide kettle and strong burner and in the winter (Colorado, cold/dry) I will boil off a bit over 2 gallons/hour. So, for a 5.75 gallon batch (I generally have 0.5-0.75 gallon trub loss in fermenter), I start with 8.5 gallons for a batch with a 60 minute boil. But, again, this will depend on your specs. I would suggest starting with 7.5 gallons for the mash, and then measure with 15 minutes left in the boil and top up if needed in the last 15 minutes (enough time to sanitize and deoxygenate water added). Then, base your future batches based on what you measure - it will stay fairly constant.

 

[tre9er]

Good point on the wide kettle. I'm converting and new kettles are much wider than 30qt. turkey fryer pot I was using. Boiloff was very low on that pot, near 0.5g/hr of course I had some full boils that I kept in check.

General rules are:
1.25qt/lb strike water.
0.19g/lb absorbed
Based on the above, calculate sparge water so that total water in BK is ~1g more than batch size for 60m boil.
With trub losses you should end up close to your batch size unless your system varies (like mine).

I made over 6g of beer once using these numbers on what was supposed to be a 5g. batch. You can boil-off, but it affects your hops. Monitor your water as you boil with a marked mash paddle or spoon. If you're getting low, add some preboiled water (so you don't stop your boil adding cold water). Better to end your boil at 60M or close if possible.

 

[cyclonite]

Good point on the wide kettle. I'm converting and new kettles are much wider than 30qt. turkey fryer pot I was using. Boiloff was very low on that pot, near 0.5g/hr of course I had some full boils that I kept in check.

General rules are:
1.25qt/lb strike water.
0.19g/lb absorbed
Based on the above, calculate sparge water so that total water in BK is ~1g more than batch size for 60m boil.
With trub losses you should end up close to your batch size unless your system varies (like mine).

I made over 6g of beer once using these numbers on what was supposed to be a 5g. batch. You can boil-off, but it affects your hops. Monitor your water as you boil with a marked mash paddle or spoon. If you're getting low, add some preboiled water (so you don't stop your boil adding cold water). Better to end your boil at 60M or close if possible.

I did the same, went from tall/skinny turkey fryer to a wide kettle and stronger burner - crazy difference in boil off!

Good point on pre heating the water. You also could just boil and cool a couple gallons the night before and top up directly in the fermenter if needed. In either case, hops utilization will suffer, but only very slightly.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I did the same, went from tall/skinny turkey fryer to a wide kettle and stronger burner - crazy difference in boil off!

Good point on pre heating the water. You also could just boil and cool a couple gallons the night before and top up directly in the fermenter if needed. In either case, hops utilization will suffer, but only very slightly.

Did my first Biab this past weekend, please be gentle.

Why boil and cool top off water? Is this to sanitize? I have done 12 Extract and steeping grains batches and just topped off with clean tap water. Any reason not to continue that practice with PM/AG? No infections thus far, so My tap water is OK.

 

[cyclonite]

Did my first Biab this past weekend, please be gentle.

Why boil and cool top off water? Is this to sanitize? I have done 12 Extract and steeping grains batches and just topped off with clean tap water. Any reason not to continue that practice with PM/AG? No infections thus far, so My tap water is OK.

Only reason is to sanitize, and possibly to remove some chemicals. Personal call here - I am in the habit of sanitizing everything.

 

[tre9er]

If you add water preboil or during boil, no big deal, but you'll decrease your temp and might lose a boil. End of world? Probably not. At least it's sanitary.

Topping in the fermenter should be done with distilled water or preboiled water. I made my first batch with tap water for topoff. No infections, but there's always that risk.

 

[tre9er]

I did the same, went from tall/skinny turkey fryer to a wide kettle and stronger burner - crazy difference in boil off!

Good point on pre heating the water. You also could just boil and cool a couple gallons the night before and top up directly in the fermenter if needed. In either case, hops utilization will suffer, but only very slightly.

My only reason for saying add it during boil was to keep volumes as accurate as possible for hops utilization. Ie. checking preboil volume and topping up. If you start to see your boiloff rate is more than you thought, top up with boiling water to not lose the boil you have going. Trying to keep a 60m boil and stay on top of volumes "real-time"

 

[Grumpybumpy]

Thanks for the input guys, it really helps both the op and myself. I think I'll start with 7.5 and keep a gallon of boiling water at the ready if I need it. I'll keep good track of my volumes the first time around and go from there.

 

[tre9er]

Make sure you mark your kettle or a spoon or dowel so that you can track volume when wort is hot.

 

[shuckit]

When your mashing and mashing out, don't be afraid to stir. I find the temp at the bottom of my bag is a lot different then where I take my temperature reading at the top.

 

[TejasBrewing]

Lots of good info here, im brewing on Monday and will take pics of my setup and day with results. Thanks again.

 

[Grumpybumpy]

I already have an aluminum bar to check volumes, & I'm a big fan of stirring all throughout the mashing process. I probably won't mash out

 

[bschoenb]

Make sure you mark your kettle or a spoon or dowel so that you can track volume when wort is hot.

+1; I use a Dowel; great for quick checks

 

[sivdrinks]

You'll probably not have a perfect first time, but it's no big deal. Having a refractometer is helpful to see where your brew is at and at what volume. I've been getting 71% efficiency by adding an extra pound of grain to my recipes. Although, I'm getting close to 5.5/6 gallons of wort too. My first brew was a simple cream ale to find out a little bit about my setup. That way if I screwed it up it was cheaper than nothing a nice IIPA or something.

 

[TejasBrewing]

Well everything flowed pretty good today. I hit my og of 1.044 but noticed my protien break was way bigger than the partial mashes I have done in the past. I did not bother with water treatments or anything for the first time. Sorry my pick is sideways.