Help with first time BIAB / 1 gallon conversion

[PitRow]

Hi guys, I'm gearing up to do my first BIAB, and I'm also converting a 5.25 gallon recipe down to 1 gallon size, so I'm looking for a little reassurance that I'm doing everything right.

I'm planning on using this recipe Cappuccino Stout and I've made a spreadsheet to convert it down to one gallon, but if you all wouldn't mind looking it over and seeing if you think it'll work:

Cappuccino Stout (converted to 1 gallon)
US 2-row pale malt: 27.4 ounces (~1.7 lbs)
Flaked barley: 3 ounces
Crystal 60L: 3 ounces
Chocolate Malt: 3 ounces
Roasted Barley: 1.5 ounces
Carafa III : 1.5 ounces

3 ounces lactose at the end of the boil

Hops:
2.25 AAUs Magnum @ 60 minutes (my 13%AA works out to 4.9 grams)
0.4 AAUs Magnum @ 5 minutes (0.8 grams)

Yeast:
I've been doing some looking and it seems like for 1 gallon, half of the vial of WLP001 should be plenty, but should I just pitch the whole thing? I'm assuming a starter wouldn't be needed at this size batch.

Water volume:
Last time I did a batch, I didn't use BIAB, but I used 2 quarts of mash water and 4 quarts of sparge water for a total of 1.5 gallons, but with evaporation and other losses I only ended up with a half gallon of wort into the fermenter. Based on those calculations I figure I'm going to start with 2 gallons of water for the mash, and no sparging, just squeezing the grain bag. Does that amount of water sound ok?

Are there any other gotcha's I should look out for?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ski12568]

I would go about 2.3 gallons of water to account for fermentor loss.
Half a vial sounds like enough, I used 3 grams of rehydrated dry yeast in my last BIAB 1 gallon'er.
Once I get to my laptop I'll check the grains and hops in BeerSmith. Maybe plug the numbers in brewersfriend?

 

[PitRow]

I did run it through brewersfriend and the numbers are pretty close to the original recipe, except his comes out at 40 IBU and brewersfriend has mine at 55. If I drop the initial hops from 4.9 grams to 3.5 then it drops the IBUs do 40.08 which is closer I suppose. But I really don't know if I'm using brewersfriend correctly.

 

[PitRow]

Anybody else care to chime in?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Mike - this looks great ~ let me know how it turns out!

 

[azazel1024]

Looks good, though how vigorous a boil or how oversized of a pot are you using? Loosely covered my 5 and 6 gallon pots tend to only boil off about half a gallon at a moderate boil for an hour. My 90 minute boils are up around 3/4 of a gallon.

A full gallon seems like a heck of a boil off unless you are doing it at a crazy rolling boil the entire time, especially in something like a 2-3 gallon pot (I assume you aren't doing this in a 5-6 gallon pot).

 

[OswaldvW]

You could even use 1/3 vial of yeast. 1/2 is definitely safe.

As for the 2-row, you could just use 2 lbs rather than trying to calculate 27.4 oz. The first time I did BIAB I did not get great efficiency, so it doesn't hurt to round those numbers up a bit.

 

[PitRow]

Looks good, though how vigorous a boil or how oversized of a pot are you using? Loosely covered my 5 and 6 gallon pots tend to only boil off about half a gallon at a moderate boil for an hour. My 90 minute boils are up around 3/4 of a gallon.

A full gallon seems like a heck of a boil off unless you are doing it at a crazy rolling boil the entire time, especially in something like a 2-3 gallon pot (I assume you aren't doing this in a 5-6 gallon pot).

I'd have to look when I get home tonight but I think it's a 2 gallon pot. I didn't have a very vigorous boil at all. At least by my standards. I'm going to try to keep it even less this time though. I think a lot of my loss was water trapped in the grains. Hopefully the BIAB + squeeze will help with that this time.

 

[azazel1024]

I'd have to look when I get home tonight but I think it's a 2 gallon pot. I didn't have a very vigorous boil at all. At least by my standards. I'm going to try to keep it even less this time though. I think a lot of my loss was water trapped in the grains. Hopefully the BIAB + squeeze will help with that this time.

Ahhhh, I was thinking 1.5 gallons was making it in to the pot and all you were left with was .5 gallons after the boil.

Yeah, it sounds like you are getting a lot trapped in the grain. With squeezing the grain bag I find I typically only lose about 4oz per pound of grain. So around a quart for 8lbs of grain, maybe sometimes as much as 6oz if it is something rather sticky like wheat, rye and oats means I tend to have a little more loss to the grains.

I squeeze it like a politician with their last bond issue though. I let it drain for a few minutes till it slows down, then I squeeze as much as my hands can tolerate the heat. I then set it down in a large mixing bowl (probably a 4qt mixing bowl? It has been able to hold 16# of grain in it before, though it did over top it quite a bit, but the bag and gravity kept it contained). Let it cool for a couple of minutes and let the wort drain toward the bottom of the grain bag, then squeeze it some more and drain the mixing bowl in to the pot.

I tend to do this 2-4 times before I finally chuck the spent grains.

When I was only doing a casual press and chuck I'd typically lose more like 8-10oz per pound of grain.

 

[Calder]

Looks good. Don't fret about the IBU difference.

Seems like a lot of work for 10 bottles.

 

[azazel1024]

Looks good. Don't fret about the IBU difference.

Seems like a lot of work for 10 bottles.

Agreed. My usual smallest batch size is 2.5-2.75G. Especially now that I am moving to buying grain in bulk and hops in bulk, as well as reusing yeast, the general cost of a bad batch is maybe only $15-20. If it turns out good, then I at least have a case of good beer. If it is mediocre, I only have a case of mediocre beer to drink though. If it is bad, it's only a $15-20 loss.

I've only made a couple of actual dumpers (a cranberry stout that was a startch bomb because I added the cranberries in the mash, stupidly and over acidified so I got horrible conversion. Ended up at 52% attenuation. Also a cider that was just undrinkable). Maybe only 2-3 mediocre beers that weren't worth dumping, just just weren't that great.

So my odds are about 90% that I'll end up with at least a good beer.

 

[PitRow]

Well my thoughts for the 1 gallon batches are a) it's a good way to get my wife hooked on it without as much up-front expenses as full 5 gallon (or more) batches, b) for the amount of beer we currently drink it's just about right, and c) it allows me to experiment with a few different styles to see what she likes without having a ton of beer that neither of us care for.

I do plan on moving up to bigger batches eventually though.