This weekend, I completed my first BIAB in my newly finished electric kettle. It's a 60qt Concord Kettle with a 5500 ripple element. The recipe was Northern's Bourbon Barrel Porter.
I hit the gravity of 1.065 on the recipe after milling the grain twice with my Corona mill (which was much messier than expected).
Here are my questions:
1.) The mash temp dropped much more than I expected. 30 mins in I lifted the bag and turned the element back on - it was in the mid 40s. I had the kettle wrapped in a blanket and was inside (71F) but that didn't seem to help much. I picked up some Reflectix to add to the kettle. Will that be enough to hold the temps, or should I look into getting a pump so I can recirculate the mash with the element on?
2.) I'm assuming that hitting Northern's OG isn't actually that great of efficiency, and I know that consistency is more important than increasing my efficiency as long as it's not terrible. However, is the Corona Mill going to be good enough for BIAB, my crush wasn't what I would call uniform. After the first time, there was a lot of flour but also some grains that were completely uncrushed. The second time through eliminated almost all of those. Do I need to go finer? Is there such a thing as too fine for BIAB (at least with what I can do with a corona mill)?
Thanks!
I hit the gravity of 1.065 on the recipe after milling the grain twice with my Corona mill (which was much messier than expected).
Here are my questions:
1.) The mash temp dropped much more than I expected. 30 mins in I lifted the bag and turned the element back on - it was in the mid 40s. I had the kettle wrapped in a blanket and was inside (71F) but that didn't seem to help much. I picked up some Reflectix to add to the kettle. Will that be enough to hold the temps, or should I look into getting a pump so I can recirculate the mash with the element on?
2.) I'm assuming that hitting Northern's OG isn't actually that great of efficiency, and I know that consistency is more important than increasing my efficiency as long as it's not terrible. However, is the Corona Mill going to be good enough for BIAB, my crush wasn't what I would call uniform. After the first time, there was a lot of flour but also some grains that were completely uncrushed. The second time through eliminated almost all of those. Do I need to go finer? Is there such a thing as too fine for BIAB (at least with what I can do with a corona mill)?
Thanks!