First BIAB - Need recipe conversion help from extract with specialty grains

[gregfreemyer]

I've done the below recipe as an Extract plus specialty grains 3 times now and it is fantastic. Now I want to try it as BIAB recipe, but I'm not sure I'm doing the conversions, etc. right. Also it is my first BIAB, so I'm documenting the details of what I understand the process to be below:

===Extract Recipe (5 gallon) ===
Extracts
4 lbs Pilsen LME
2 lbs Wheat LME

Grains:
10oz White Wheat
8 Oz Munich
6 Oz Honeymalt
1 lb Oats

Boil:
60 min 1 oz Hallertau Hops
15 min 1/2 Tablespoon Cinnimmon
15 min 2 teaspoons Nutmeg
15 min 1/2 oz bitter orange peel
5 min 1/2 oz Hallertau Hops
2 min 1/2 oz Hallertau Hops


I'm trying to use the BIABacus 1.3 beer calculator spreadsheet to assist in converting it to a BIAB recipe. It gives estimated water loss volumes for each stage and tells you how much you need. I'm only using a 7.5 gallon kettle, so I'm reserving 1 gallon of water to add during the boil as evaporation reduces the volume. BIABacus allows that option, so I assume it's a reasonable thing to do.

===============
BIAB no-sparge recipe (5 gallon batch using a paint strainer bag for the BIAB bag), also adding one gallon during boil due to limited kettle size

heat 6.5 gallons water to 152 degrees (strike temp),

add grains
Pilsen Malted Barley - 5.36 lbs
wheat - 2.68 lbs
flaked white wheat - 10 oz
munich - 8 oz
honeymalt - 6 oz
Oats - 1 lb

(Are the "wheat" and the "flaked white wheat" the same kinds of wheat. Do I just need to add the weights together and buy flaked white wheat?)

(Should the specialty grains be held out of the mash for now and added with 30 minutes to go?)

Remove heat and let mash for 60 minutes, hopefully temps don't drop more than a couple degrees. Add minimal heat via burner if required.

Lift paint strainer and let grains drain

re-light burner and bring remaining 5.8 gallons to boil (0.7 gallons absorbed by grains)

(I assume I can relight the burner immediately after lifting the bag and before I start the sparge / drip drain)

Since I'm using Pilsen grain and BIAB is a all-grain process, I assume I need a 90 minute boil? I will be adding the 1 gallon of reserved water slowly during the 90 minute boil.

90 min - boil (for all-grain with a pilsen grain)
Time left in Boil:

• 60 min 1 oz Hallertau Hops
• 15 min 1/2 Tablespoon Cinnimmon
• 15 min 2 teaspoons Nutmeg
• 15 min 1/2 oz bitter orange peel
• 5 min 1/2 oz Hallertau Hops
• 2 min 1/2 oz Hallertau Hops

End of boil volume - 6.1 gallons
20 min - cool (using an immersion cooling coil for the first time)
Ambient volume - 5.85 gallons

pour into fermenter / verify OG / add yeast / put away for fermenting

Kettle to fermenter loss - 0.85 gallons

volume in fermenter

===
Any thoughts, feedback, corrections very welcome. In addition to overall concern I have the BIAB recipe properly laid out, I'm very confused by the kettle to fermenter loss of 0.85 gallons. I typically pour everything in the kettle into the fermenter, so I have no loss on that step.

What am I supposed to be doing on that transfer that would cause a 0.85 gallon loss?

Thanks
Greg

 

[freisste]

Converting extract to grain is generally pretty easy. Replace 3 lbs DME with 5 lbs of equivalent grain. Or replace 4 lbs of LME with 5 lbs of grain. (DME is more concentrated than LME.)

It is slightly more complicated for you because you have wheat LME, which is not made purely from wheat. I believe it is half wheat and half pale. For your recipe, I would replace the 4lbs pilsner LME with 5 lbs of pilsner. Then I would replace the other 2 lbs with 2.5lbs of grain - 1.25 wheat and 1.25 pale (or pilsner, to keep your grain bill simpler).

Regarding wheat - I don't think flaked wheat and wheat are interchangeable. If they were, I can't imagine why anybody would use flaked wheat. I would keep them separate.

 

[ballsy]

My recommendation would be increase the grain bill slightly to accommodate your decreased efficiency with BIAB. Keeping the specialty grains with the base grains for entire mash won't hurt, and only helps by retaining the heat better. I heat up 2 gallons water to 170 and when mash is done, I do a dunk sparge and let sit in the 170 for 10 more min's, then give those grains a really good squeeze. Really does good to get all the fermentables out as possible!

White Dog Brewery

 

[chickypad]

Replacing the 6 lb of LME with only 7.5 lb grain would be good if you get 80% efficiency. I would plan for something more like 70% on your first BIAB and go with about 8.5 lb grain. 1.5 lb wheat malt/7 lb pilsner would be close enough to the original ratios of extract, then add in the rest of the grains.

 

[Aonghus]

My recommendation would be increase the grain bill slightly to accommodate your decreased efficiency with BIAB. Keeping the specialty grains with the base grains for entire mash won't hurt, and only helps by retaining the heat better. I heat up 2 gallons water to 170 and when mash is done, I do a dunk sparge and let sit in the 170 for 10 more min's, then give those grains a really good squeeze. Really does good to get all the fermentables out as possible!

White Dog Brewery

When I was using the BIAB method I used this same technique (you will need a 2nd pot). But it really does get you extra sugars and that helps efficiency. Also, just in case, it is always a good idea to have a 3LB bag of DME around when you are first trying this stuff. That way you can hit your expected gravity in the event of the unexpected. I spaced removing the Chlorine one time on my dunk pot of water and realized it before adding it back to the main pot. In that instance I made up the missing gravity with the DME.

 

[Clarke]

I use this chart

http://www.jaysbrewing.com/2011/11/17/lazy-chart-for-converting-dme-lme-grain/

 

[gregfreemyer]

I BIAB brewed yesterday and it was a great success I think.

I replaced the Wheat LME with 5 lbs grain for every 4 lbs lme. I used 2/3 of the replacement grain as white wheat and 1/3 as two-row, which is what I found online somewhere.

To allow for inefficiency of BIAB I put 1.053 in BIABulas as the target OG. My process must have matched the goal process pretty well because the OG I got was 1.0525 or so. Next time, I'll just put my real target OG.

The only big surprise is ended up using a makeshift bag that let a cup or two amount of grain sediment into the boil. Not sure if that happens with a good bag or not. Anyway, because of that extra grain, when I poured the cooled wort into my fermenter I left about 3 quarts of sediment/wort in the kettle. That was unexpected inefficiency for me.

But the BIABulas calculator said to expect water/volume loss at that point, so maybe that is just part of the BIAB process?

Also, I normally leave the hops from the boil in the wort when I transfer it to the fermenter. This time I assume most of the hops stayed in the kettle with the rest of the sediment. Do I need to add any dry hops to the fermenter to make up for that?

 

[freisste]

I guess you only have one question, so I'll answer that first. You don't need hops from the boil to get into the fermenter to achieve their effect. So whether they go to the fermenter or not, they have done what they are going to do. As such, you do NOT need to add dry hops to the fermenter to make up for your boil hops staying in your brew kettle.

Second, just a comment. Different forms of brewing result in different efficiencies. However, differences in process within a type if brewing have bigger effects on efficiency. I do BIAB with a good sparge and can easily hit 80% efficiency on smaller beers (<1.060 OG). So when people say to adjust the grain bill to make up for the lower efficiency of BIAB, it kind of pisses me off. (But I think that's just because a former brewer I work with clearly thinks my BIAB setup is somehow beneath his expensive three tier system that he no longer brews on. Sorry for projecting on the readers of this post .)

 

[chickypad]

I hit close to 80% as well BIAB'ing but I also do a small batch sparge rather than full mash. I only meant to point out that on a first run one might not expect to hit that. OP, what efficiency did you have it set at to calculate your 1.053? Looks like it must have been about 70% if I'm reading your numbers correctly. Whatever it was, sounds like you can go with that in the future if you don't change anything. I don't think it's BIAB giving you the extra trub, I think it's just the difference between all grain (whatever the technique) and extract.

 

[gregfreemyer]

I hit close to 80% as well BIAB'ing but I also do a small batch sparge rather than full mash. I only meant to point out that on a first run one might not expect to hit that. OP, what efficiency did you have it set at to calculate your 1.053? Looks like it must have been about 70% if I'm reading your numbers correctly. Whatever it was, sounds like you can go with that in the future if you don't change anything. I don't think it's BIAB giving you the extra trub, I think it's just the difference between all grain (whatever the technique) and extract.

I put my actual numbers into BIABacus and it is telling me:

73.7% efficient extracting sugars from the grains into the boil, and 63.3% efficient getting it into the fermenter.

The difference there is I discarded about 3 quarts of trub after the boil, so there was sugars in there that got wasted.

I'm not used to having that much post boil trub. Can I just pour that through a filter so I don't waste so much wort?

 

[chickypad]

Sure, you can filter if you want to. I find filtering too messy so I just dump everything in and let it settle out.

 

[dobe12]

I guess you only have one question, so I'll answer that first. You don't need hops from the boil to get into the fermenter to achieve their effect. So whether they go to the fermenter or not, they have done what they are going to do. As such, you do NOT need to add dry hops to the fermenter to make up for your boil hops staying in your brew kettle.

Second, just a comment. Different forms of brewing result in different efficiencies. However, differences in process within a type if brewing have bigger effects on efficiency. I do BIAB with a good sparge and can easily hit 80% efficiency on smaller beers (<1.060 OG). So when people say to adjust the grain bill to make up for the lower efficiency of BIAB, it kind of pisses me off. (But I think that's just because a former brewer I work with clearly thinks my BIAB setup is somehow beneath his expensive three tier system that he no longer brews on. Sorry for projecting on the readers of this post .)

Agreeing with your mini-rant. When I started all grain BIAB, I was around 70% efficiency. I've since moved to a larger 10gal pot, batch sparge in a 2nd slightly smaller pot, mill my own grains, and average 80-85% efficiency. 88% being my max so far. There is a misconception that BIAB yields a lower efficiency and I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe the idea is referring to full volume mashing with no sparge. I did try that a few times and did lose considerable efficiency. I dropped to 65-70%. But if you have a second vessel to sparge in, there's no need to lose all the efficiency. I do mash on the thinner side (1.5 - 2qt/lb) and try to collect close to equal runnings.

One big help with efficiency and BIAB brewing is that you can crush your grains finer. No stuck mash or sparges to worry about, so crush away!

 

[Foosier]

I also get tired of hearing "BIAB = Low efficiency". You can have low efficiencies but it is usually the result of using grains which have been milled by the LHBS for "conventional" mashtun set ups which require building up a grain bed.

When I have double crushed my grains myself, or applied a second crush to pre-crushed grains my efficiencies have been easily 80%. When I have been pressed for time and have just used the LHBS single crush I have gotten closer to 70%. The key is that with BIAB we can have a much more aggressive crush which will actually give you the same or better efficiency than 3 vessel brewing will.

On that note.... man do I need my own grain mill...

 

[JDGator]

i'm always around 75% and never sparge. i do it the lazy way. all grain in the bag, pull bag out, squeeze best i can, boil, add hops, cool to pitching temp, and pour the whole mess into my FV. but the key is grain crush. just that alone i went from average of 70% to 75% without doing anything else.

i like hops so it's only fair to treat my yeasties to some hop sludge at the bottom. lol

 

[Clarke]

I also get tired of hearing "BIAB = Low efficiency".

+1

If your efficiency is low, your not doing right... Just my sarcastic opinion.