Help with first biab

[trboyden]

OMG. His recipe calls for mashing 8 pounds of grain. If you can't fit in an extra pound of 2-Row in a 5 gallon pot, at a whole $1.30, that would more than make up for what you'd get in a sparge, you have a problem. Plus this is partial mash, not all grain. The most important fermentables are the DME in the boil pot. The grain is just for taste. So efficiency is a moot point. Now when and if he goes to all grain, yes, you'll want to get as much potential out of the larger volume of grain. So what you're saying then makes some sense, but has been mostly replaced by HERMS and RIMS practices, which again for most people, eliminate the need for a sparge. I do BIAB with a recirculating mash. I never have had to do a sparge to hit gravity/volume.

Really what should be being advocated, is having the OP mash in a cooler (a cheap investment), where he could do a full mash. He'd still have to do a higher gravity mash though, because he can only boil 3.5 to 4 gallons of wort (same 5 gallon pot). Which means he'd still have to add water to the fermenter anyways to get 5 gallons of pre-fermenter volume. So what do you want him to do, thin down the gravity of his boil wort, only to have to water it down again to get to fermenter volume? At some point he is going to have to make up the gravity short-fall, either up-front in the mash, or during boil with DME or corn sugar.

 

[Spelaeus]

What should be advocated is how the OP can get the most out of the equipment and recipe that he's already working with. Which is all anyone else has been doing. And yes, he's going to have to thin it down pre-boil, and then again in the fermenter. He'd have to with your method too. That's kind of unavoidable when all you're using is a 5 gallon pot. It's also not a huge issue... if you actually work with what you have instead of trying to force it to work better with somebody else's preferences and setup.

 

[trboyden]

What should be advocated is how the OP can get the most out of the equipment and recipe that he's already working with. Which is all anyone else has been doing. And yes, he's going to have to thin it down pre-boil, and then again in the fermenter. He'd have to with your method too. That's kind of unavoidable when all you're using is a 5 gallon pot. It's also not a huge issue... if you actually work with what you have instead of trying to force it to work better with somebody else's preferences and setup.

So you think it's better to let him go through all the effort to end up with a weak beer, rather than inform him of the issues he faces and help him fix it up front? Because that is what you are basically saying. He is going to be short on gravity because of the water additions (regardless how he does it), so he can either 1) do a stronger mash, or 2) add extra DME at boil time. That will help him out and he will enjoy his results more.

That's all I have been saying but you all want to jump all over me because I am not preaching your glorious sparge method, which isn't all it's cracked up to be in this case, because wort volume isn't the root issue here. It's having enough gravity to support the inevitable water/sparge additions so he doesn't end up with a weak beer. There are easy ways to address that, and I mentioned them all previously.

 

[chickypad]

OMG. His recipe calls for mashing 8 pounds of grain. If you can't fit in an extra pound of 2-Row in a 5 gallon pot, at a whole $1.30, that would more than make up for what you'd get in a sparge, you have a problem. Plus this is partial mash, not all grain. The most important fermentables are the DME in the boil pot. The grain is just for taste. So efficiency is a moot point. Now when and if he goes to all grain, yes, you'll want to get as much potential out of the larger volume of grain. So what you're saying then makes some sense, but has been mostly replaced by HERMS and RIMS practices, which again for most people, eliminate the need for a sparge. I do BIAB with a recirculating mash. I never have had to do a sparge to hit gravity/volume..

Please stop telling the OP the grain is just for taste. Yes it's a partial mash, but at 8 lb its a fairly good sized one and as big as some 5 gal all grain batches. There's only 3 lb of DME in the recipe, or 135 gravity pts. On the other hand the OP should get over 200 pts from his partial mash with average efficiency. You may not care what that efficiency is, but with this size mash it will impact his recipe if it's way off.

HERMS and RIMS are more about recirculating the mash and temp control than about the choice to sparge or not. Most folks with those systems either fly sparge or do full volume mash with no sparge. I haven't run into anyone routinely topping off with water unless they aren't doing a full boil.

 

[Spelaeus]

He's not ending up with weak beer. The point of sparging is to increase his efficiency. What you're being jumped on for is suggesting that he needs to change his recipe because you somehow have a misconception that sparging will ruin his gravity. It won't. With his recipe, he's looking at about a 1.063 OG in a 5.5gal batch at 75% efficiency. People have given him suggestions to best meet those very reasonable numbers. You've been telling him he should change his recipe so he can have a larger grain bill, where grain bill size is already an issue. There's no reason for it, and your initial claims that sparging would lower his OG are... outright false. You're not being jumped on for offering an alternative plan of action, it's for offering erroneous information to a new brewer on a tried-and-true method that would be useful here. Last time I'm going to respond here.

 

[trboyden]

Your erroneous information regarding sparging effecting gravity has already been disproved using the BeerSmith Dilution calculator in my previous posts. You've already admitted that by sparging he is going to dilute his batch twice - once at boil time and again to top off the fermenter. So why keep spouting this delusional nonsense? There is no way with that fermentables bill that he is going to get a 1.065 gravity beer. Again, already posted the calculations from BeerSmith that show that at best, he'll get a 1.049 beer, and that's if the yeast fully convert all of the sugars down to 1.012, which is highly unlikely, especially for a novice brewer.


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[Spelaeus]

... You have to dilute twice no matter what, this has been covered. The question is just whether you're doing it with sparge runnings or straight water the first time. And done now.

 

[trboyden]

And that is more erroneous B.S. If his fermentables bill takes the gravity into account for the fermenter addition, you do not need to do the pre-boil dilution step. Just the fermenter one.


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[Spelaeus]

I really should know better than to keep getting pulled back into this, but you're giving some seriously bad advice. It seems like you've forgotten that grain ABSORBS water. Quite a bit. As I already stated, he's looking at about 1.5 gallons pre-boil given what's left behind in the grain (you know, what you try to get back out with sparging). 2 gallons if he squeezes a whole bunch and gets lucky. You want him to do a 1.5 gallon, super-concentrated boil when he has a 5 gallon pot to play with? That's risking some serious scorching and caramelization. Also, your whole "two dilutions" issue is pointless. He has to add enough water throughout this process to reach his final volume. The pre-boil additions give the proven benefits of the largest boil his vessel can allow (yes, this does make a difference) as WELL as being able to improve his efficiency with the provided grain bill via sparging. Which is actually helpful. Adding some liquid pre-boil and some in the fermenter isn't diluting it any more than adding it all at the end. It just allows for a larger volume boil, and thanks to sparging, an improved efficiency.

Additionally, that 1.049 is a number you created by ignoring the specialty grain additions which DO produce fermentable sugars when mashed. Look at the image you yourself created just before that which includes the specialty grains. It lists 1.058 or 1.059 (can't quite see which). Why is that still lower than what I stated? Because you have a 65% total efficiency plugged in. Which is absurdly low.

 

[brent1769]

Ok this is what I did.
And everything turned out great so far.
I did a 3 gallon mash 1 gallon
sparge.
3lbs dme
Along with 1 lbs corn sugar
My target gravity was 1.079 and I got 1.070

 

[trboyden]

No, not quite a bit. Depending on the ratio you choose to use, between (.1 and .125 gallons) per pound of grain. So if you do the 1 quart of water per pound of grain like Northern Brewer recommends in their partial mash walk-through, with the same amount of water for sparge, you end up with around 3 gallons in the boil pot. But they account for that in their fermentables bills in their recipes, and make sure that the DME makes up for the lower gravity runnings of the sparge, as well as the addition you will do in the fermenter. They describe doing a 3.5 gallon boil and topping up to 5 gallons in the fermenter. I'm not arguing that a sparge can't or shouldn't be done, just that you have to account for gravity. I don't know why that's so hard to comprehend, it's a basic concept in brewing. Here is the link for the OP. I apologize to him for this nonsense. I suggest he do more research on his own elsewhere and invest in some good brewing books. Just like the news, don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

 

[Spelaeus]

Ok this is what I did.
And everything turned out great so far.
I did a 3 gallon mash 1 gallon
sparge.
3lbs dme
Along with 1 lbs corn sugar
My target gravity was 1.079 and I got 1.070

Sounds like everything went well! With the corn sugar, I'm calculating 1.071 at 75% efficiency so seems like you're spot on and doing quite well with efficiency for your first BIAB. Cheers!

 

[trboyden]

86.3% efficiency according to Beer Smith. Very impressive indeed.

 

[Spelaeus]

86.3% efficiency according to Beer Smith. Very impressive indeed.

I think you may be having some issues using Beer Smith that might have fueled a bit of the debate here as far as the efficiency calculations. That's not my usual calculator, I use Brewtoad primarily. Decided to second check with the Brewer's Friend calculator there to make sure I wasn't the one getting erroneous numbers here, every resource I check is in the same ballpark.

 

[trboyden]

I think you may be having some issues using Beer Smith that might have fueled a bit of the debate here as far as the efficiency calculations. That's not my usual calculator, I use Brewtoad primarily. Decided to second check with the Brewer's Friend calculator there to make sure I wasn't the one getting erroneous numbers here, every resource I check is in the same ballpark.

I'm man enough to admit that's possible. But I think it's the overall volume. I was basing on 5 gallons, not 5.5. BS defaults to 5 gallons. Change your setting to 5 gallons and it's closer to the BS calculation I posted. I also was basing on the original recipe without the corn sugar. That was an added fermentable, not in the original.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

I Like the fact that op did what the reasonable answers gave him, and got a good brew day and efficiency despite the almost 4 pages of bickering about thw evilness of sparging.
Apparently a partial mash with an oz of dme means the grains are for coloring and taste...

Yea there was a bit o useful info in there, but a lot more of it was just emotional backlashing and more confusing to a new brewery. You want them to start with eherms biab? Good luck with that