Grain Bill question

[jzelina]

This may be a very simple and super noob question, but I have tried to find a clear answer, but have not as of yet. Here goes thinking of moving up to BIAB, I am a little confused about the amount of water to start the mash with. If I am thinking this right. To do a five gallon full boil, I would have a grain bill of about 4.7 pounds given a water to grain ratio of 1.5qt/pound, and use about 7 gallons total to end with a final 5 gallon boiled wort figuring loosely for a boil off and loss to the grains. And one more thing if that was right: cross: I have read that a wheat beer does not go well with BIAB any thoughts. really want to do a witbier next.

 

[PRE66_6TART]

Don't worry about the water to grain ratio like you would on a traditional AG setup. Your grain bill will be whatever the recipe calls for. Then you add however much water you need to end up with 5 gallons. The water to grain ratio will be determined by the other factors, not the other way around. Depending on how much grain your recipe calls for, and the amount of water your system uses, the water/grain ratio will vary, but usually be higher than the 1.5 quart/lb ratio that traditional AG brewers use. Up to 3 or 4 quarts per pound possibly. If the ratio is that high, you might need something to help lower the ph, since the grain might not be enough on its own.

Another option is to use the smaller ratio, and keep the rest of the water aside to do some sort of sparge with. I like to keep a couple gallons in a separate container to dunk sparge with, but it's not necessary.

Either way, you'll need to figure out how much total water to use. Your system will be different from mine, but I figure a gallon for grain absorption, a gallon for boil off, and a gallon between hop loss and trub loss, so I start with 8 gallons to get five gallons at the end. For example: say your recipe calls for 10 pounds of grain. And you decide to start with 7.5 gallons of water. You just add all the water and grain to the mash, and the water/grain ratio is whatever it is, in this case 3 to 1.

I've never heard about wheat beers being a problem for BIAB. The only thing I can think of is that for me, if my water/grain ratio is high, and I have a beer with no dark grains, my ph ends up being a little high. So you might want to have some ph test strips and acid on hand, or if you know your water profile use one of those water spreadsheets. Or just mash with less water and sparge with the rest.

 

[RM-MN]

Wheat is usually a problem for a conventional tun because it has no husk to help for a filter bed. As the percentage of wheat goes up, the chance of a stuck sparge does too. With BIAB that isn't a problem because the bag forms the filter instead of grain hulls.

The other problem with wheat is the fact that the grains are smaller and harder than barley which makes it harder to crush properly and then the efficiency goes way down. If you can mill wheat fine enough, it works out really well BIAB.

 

[jzelina]

Thanks for the replies just trying to get my head wrapped around the whole thing especially with creating a recipe from scratch the while figuring OG and such. pre66 6tart said the grain bill will be what the recipe says but how do you tell what the recipe will say if your creating it. or am I over thinking this

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[RM-MN]

I start with a recipe that has been proven so I know what the grain bill should be for a given output, then modify it to meet what I want from the beer. Then I put the ingredients into a calculator like Brewtoad (www.brewtoad.com) or Brewtarget (my preferred) (www.brewtarget.org) and let the computer do the calculation for OG, FG, IBU, and SRM.

 

[jzelina]

Thanks I guess I am making this harder than it needs to be

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[PRE66_6TART]

I know where you're coming from. I skipped doing extract beers and went straight to all grain, and making my own recipes from the start. I had some success but I also had to drink a bunch of not that great beer. Even knowing that, I wouldn't have done it differently. I have the personality type that I just wanted jump right into the deep end and figure it out as I go.

I found that if you want to make your own recipes, the best way to do it is pick one style to focus on, read a bunch of recipes to get an idea of what you want, then start with something simple, and brew it multiple times changing one variable each time. If you take good notes you can identify exactly what effect each change has on the beer and you can learn pretty quickly that way. If you're jumping around doing totally different styles all the time, it's probably best to find a proven recipe and not tweak it too much, otherwise you end up with mediocre beer and you're not really learning anything because you're changing too many variables. I try to do a little of both, so I'm learning how to craft a good recipe, but also have some variety. Anyway, that's my take.