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How do I adapt an All Grain Recipt to Brew in a Bag?????

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Nubiwan

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How do you convert All Grain to BIAB recipe?

I realize it may be a stupid question, but is it just a case of bagging all my grains, and following the BIAB procedure?

I was given this recipe:

This will get you pretty close. This recipe for 19 litres or 5 gallons.

3.6 kg Canadian Organic pale 2-row
600 g US grown Organic Crystal 60
600 g US grown Organic Munich
10 g Bravo (boil 60 minutes)
40 g Cascade (boil 5 minutes)
WLP830 German Lager yeast

Use spring water, or to city water add 1/2 Campden tablet in advance to dechlorinate if applicable.
A couple days before brewing, make a 3-litre yeast starter.
Mill your grains, heat 16 litres water to 79 C, mix grains and hot water to mash at 66 C for 1 hour. During the mash, heat another 12 litres water to 88 C. At end of mash, runoff then sparge with the 88 C water. Finally bring to the boil, adding hops per schedule as normal. Chill, aerate, pitch yeast, and ferment around 11-13 C for a couple weeks or until finished. Enjoy.

So, what changes if I want to drew in Bag?

Cheers

Brewer on the Rock
Newfoundland
 
BIAB is an all grain method. You just need to adjust for the efficiency and peculiarities of your system. So looking at that, you might have to adjust grain amounts and water amounts depending on whether or not you sparge, squeeze, etc.
 
Until you have experience with your system, don't change the recipe at all. If you have your own mill, crush the grains at a gap of about 0.025" (0.064 cm). If you get it crushed at a store, ask them to mill it twice. Let your bag hang and drain into the BK throughout the boil (or until it stops dripping) to get the max amount of wort out of it. If you can't hang over the BK, suspend it over a bucket, and add any collected wort with 10 minutes left in the boil. Or, you can squeeze the bag to get wort out faster. Be sure to measure your pre-boil volume and pre-boil SG, and post-boil volume and post-boil OG. These measurements will let you calculate your mash efficiency. If your OG is low or high, then you can adjust the grain bill up or down on your next brews to compensate. Or if your OG and efficiency are very low, then ask for help on improving your efficiency on HBT.

Brew on :mug:
 
I pasted this from American Homebrewers Association...it can help you determine your strike water volume for no sparge:

Because this method eliminates the need for a sparge, the standard 1-2 quarts of water per pound
of grain method when typically mashing is not followed. Instead, it is necessary to calculate the
correct amount of strike water that will produce enough wort for the pre-boil volume. Three variables are necessary when calculating strike water volume: grain weight, grain absorption, and
boil off rate.
The grain weight is determined by your recipe; simply add up all the grains and that will give
you the total. Grain absorption is best given as a range. It is commonly accepted that 1lb of grain
absorbs 0.1 - 0.125 gallons of water. This range will vary depending on grains used and the total
grain weight. We will be using 0.1 gallons lost per pound of grain for this example.
The boil-off rate is best determined by taking notes during prior brew days and learning about
how much water is lost per hour of boil on your heat source. For this example, we will simply
assume 1 gallon of water is lost per hour of boil.

Calculating Strike Water Volume
First it is helpful to determine the necessary pre-boil volume. To do this multiply your boil off
rate (in gallons per hour) by the duration of the boil (in hours) and add this number to the batch
volume.
With the variables above, this will give us a 6 gallon pre-boil volume.
(Boil Duration (hr) x Boil Off Rate (gal/hr)) + Batch Volume (gal) = Pre-Boil Volume (gal)
(1 hr x 1 gal/hr) + 5 gallons = 6 gallon pre-boil volume

Once you have determined your pre-boil volume, you can calculate the strike water volume by
multiplying the weight of the grain (in pounds) by the absorption rate (in gallons per pounds) and
add this number the pre-boil volume. This will give us a strike volume of 7.24 gallons (assuming 12.375 lbs of grain).

(Grain Absorption Rate (gal/lb) x Total Grain Weight (lb)) + Pre Boil Volume (gal) =
Strike Volume (gal)
(0.1 gal/lb x 12.375 lb) + 6 gal = 7.24 gallon strike water volume
 
Last edited:
Use recipes without any correction, if you full water volume BIAB and good squeeze bag. My efficiency with that method is over 75%.
 
I start with 7 gal of water. Pull and squeeze, then sparge back to 7 gal with ~ 1 gal of water at 180 degrees. I use volume calculations to control my time. Since evaporation rate is different constantly where I live (Georgia). I may have a shorter or longer boil as a result. Either way I hit my 5.5 gal target consistently. I also to make sure I have a vigorous boil for clarity. Otherwise I do what is mentioned above.
 
I start with 7 gal of water. Pull and squeeze, then sparge back to 7 gal with ~ 1 gal of water at 180 degrees. I use volume calculations to control my time. Since evaporation rate is different constantly where I live (Georgia). I may have a shorter or longer boil as a result. Either way I hit my 5.5 gal target consistently. I also to make sure I have a vigorous boil for clarity. Otherwise I do what is mentioned above.

You'll get the same results with cool water. That saves having to heat another vessel of water. The mash is hot and saturated with water. It will warm the gallon of cool water quite a bit.
 
You'll get the same results with cool water. That saves having to heat another vessel of water. The mash is hot and saturated with water. It will warm the gallon of cool water quite a bit.
Interesting, occasionally I forget to get it started ahead of time and it really slows me down. I'll have to try that sometime. Thanks!
 

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