Grainfather BIAB Beersmith Equipment Profile

[rocket_man]

Hi all,

I've been brewing on a Grainfather for about two years with great success and recently decided to switch to a BIAB, no-sparge method to save time and space (new baby, busy with work, etc). Although it works fine, I am having trouble hitting my target numbers and dialling in a reliable equipment profile. I brew 11 litres batches and with the traditional sparge/mini-pipework set up, I always hit the numbers precisely and had an efficiency of around 75%. Since switching to BIAB, my efficiency seems to drop every batch (last one was around 52%) and I can never get the right pre-boil volume (always too much) and batch size correct (always too little). I understand that efficiency dropping in BIAB is normal, but I would imagine that Beersmith would take it into account when choosing a BIAB mash profile. Or is that not the case? In any case, I could always add a bit more of grain on each batch to make up for the efficiency loss, but I would really like that my numbers (not just gravity, but volume too) would match what Beersmith predicts once again.

Does anyone have any experience with that and have worked it out before? I've changed settings a few times but I feel like I am screwing it up further rather than making it better. Any tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[RM-MN]

Who mills your grain? That milling is the most important part of getting decent efficiency. The fact that you were getting 75% efficiency with a sparge suggest that the grain was milled too coarsely.

 

[rocket_man]

I mill it myself. I have a two-roller malt mill (see photo) that has always worked fine, so I doubt it's that.

 

[Oginme]

Brew house efficiency is a user set variable in your equipment profile. It is independent of the mash profile as far as the software calculations.

What is perplexing is the sudden change in volumes. Your basic equipment profile should be the same, with the above noted exception in efficiency. The only other change would be in the grain absorption which the software uses for a biab mash profile. The default would leave you shorter on volume and not with excess though.

RM-MN is correct that you can improve biab efficiency by tightening up your mill a bit. You just don't want to get too fine and end up with a stuck mash.

 

[rocket_man]

Brew house efficiency is a user set variable in your equipment profile. It is independant of the mash profile as far as the software calculations.

What is perplexing is the sudden change in volumes. Your basic equipment profile should be the same, with the above noted exception in efficiency. The only other change would be in the grain absorption which the software uses for a biab mash profile. The default wiuld leave you shorter on volume and not with excess though.

RM-MN is correct that you can improve biab efficiency by tightening up your mill a bit. Ypu just don't want to get too finr and end up with a stuck mash.

Yea, I am quite puzzled too. Mostly because I've done 3 brews since and every single time I get different numbers and can't figure out what's wrong. It's driving me crazy because I never had problems calibrating my gear before.

I might switch back to sparging and try doing a cold water sparge with tap water to see how that goes. Do you any of you guys have experience with that? My tap water is pretty hard.

 

[McKnuckle]

Not much to add here, except to agree that the volume discrepancies are very odd.

Given the same amount of total water, a full volume mash vs. a partial volume mash with a sparge should render the exact same amount of grain absorption and boil-off. The only difference should be a small drop in lauter efficiency, maybe up to 5%, with the full volume approach. But the pre-boil and ending kettle volumes should be identical regardless of the sparge method used.