First Time BIAB

[Grant McKinley]

Brewed a 2.5 gallon batch of my amber ale from a converted extract recipe using brewfather. I left the grains in the brew kettle to mash for an hour. Sparged with a gallon of 150 deg. water to clean the grain after mash and squeezed all that goodness out in the cooler and drained into the BK. It was a little cold and windy today in Phoenix (50 deg.) so keeping 150 deg. temp. in the brew kettle wasn't easy. May try putting it in the 10 gallon cooler next time, then heat up the sparge in the BK and rinse the grains. Anyway, it went well except for a little boil over with the first hop addition. I always do that for some reason.

I don't have water level marks on my brew kettle and my fermenter starts at 4 gallons so I won't know what the efficiency is until I empty the fermenter. I forgot to use my measuring stick after it chilled. Speaking of which, the immersion chiller worked great. I used my 10 gallon cooler with a pond pump and ice water. Cooled down to 78 Deg. in about 10 minutes. I think I yield less than the 2.5 gallons I was shooting for but the OG was 1.062 which was 0.010 higher than expected. Can't wait to get the electric element setup in a 15 gallon BK. Brew on.

 

[RM-MN]

If you have your grains milled fine for BIAB it won't matter if the temperature drops over the hour long mash because it won't take that long for conversion. You also can use cold water for sparging as the hot wet grains will heat it up quite a bit and you will extract nearly the same amount of sugars.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

Do you have an oven that will fit your kettle? You can preheat that to the lowest temperature it will do(170?) and then turn it off when you put your kettle in to mash. That holds temp well. If not you could just wrap the kettle in a sleeping bag or something.

Regarding water level, my cheap kettle doesn't have etched volume markings. After awhile I started to want to be able to see my pre-boil/post-boil volumes to try to dial in my numbers as precisely as possible. I found a metal ruler and measured where various water levels were on the ruler and use that to try to gauge the kettle volumes. It's not an elegant method but better than nothing

 

[Pappers_]

Congrats on your first BIAB brew day, sounds like it went well!

 

[Grant McKinley]

Do you have an oven that will fit your kettle? You can preheat that to the lowest temperature it will do(170?) and then turn it off when you put your kettle in to mash. That holds temp well. If not you could just wrap the kettle in a sleeping bag or something.

Regarding water level, my cheap kettle doesn't have etched volume markings. After awhile I started to want to be able to see my pre-boil/post-boil volumes to try to dial in my numbers as precisely as possible. I found a metal ruler and measured where various water levels were on the ruler and use that to try to gauge the kettle volumes. It's not an elegant method but better than nothing

Yeah, I like the metal ruler idea. Thanks

 

[Soyben]

If you know the diameter of your kettle there is no need to do markings. I use the priceless BIAB calculator. It will give you the height of one gallon of water as well as your height for total water needed, post sparge and post boil. I just use a clean measuring tape. Although if I could find a nice steel ruler I would use it.

 

[Bamos6928]

It was a little cold and windy today in Phoenix (50 deg.).

If I get a 50 degree day this time of year I'm brewing for sure!!! Try insulating with a sleeping bag or a heavy blanket over your kettle and you should hold temps just fine. I brewed Sunday morning and it was 31 degrees here in West Virginia. I used a quilt, a sleeping bag, and reflectix and only dropped two degrees in an hour

 

[Grant McKinley]

If you know the diameter of your kettle there is no need to do markings. I use the priceless BIAB calculator. It will give you the height of one gallon of water as well as your height for total water needed, post sparge and post boil. I just use a clean measuring tape. Although if I could find a nice steel ruler I would use it.

Yeah, I'll check that out. Where is the calculator located?

 

[Grant McKinley]

Yeah, I'll check that out. Where is the calculator located?

Found it

 

[Grant McKinley]

Well its been cold crashing at 40 deg. for 4 days. Move it a glass car boy last Sunday. Filled the carboy with CO2 and pressurized the brew bucket at 2 PSI while filling. Hopefully kept most of the oxygen out. Lots of stuff sinking to the bottom. Used the same yeast as my extract Safale US-05, but it looks lighter. Should be nice and clear in a few days.

 

[Grant McKinley]

Rack the keg today. Tasted good. A more caramel favor than the extract but better and little more haze. The finish OG was 1.012 for a 6.5% ABV. Now as soon as my Spike 15 gal kettle and BIAB control panel get here we'll be rockin some 10 gal batches.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

It has a really nice red color. What did your grain bill look like?

 

[Grant McKinley]

Pale base malt, 2-row Rahr
Chateau Special B Castle Malt
Crystal DRC
Wheat Malt Dark

 

[Grant McKinley]

Thanks Cascades. Now my false bottom and 30 Amp GFCI breaker and receptacle sit here waiting for the new kettle and control panel to arrive.

 

[k-os]

Thanks Cascades. Now my false bottom and 30 Amp GFCI breaker and receptacle sit here waiting for the new kettle and control panel to arrive.

Is that the Bayou Classic false bottom?

 

[Grant McKinley]

Its made by Gas One. Got it off Amazon.