Last minute first BIAB question - starting water volume?

[bucketheadmn]

So I am doing my first BIAB today - a clone of Deschutes Fresh Squeezed. I have sized down the recipe to 2 gallons as I am using my el cheapo 5 gallon kettle. I am confused on strike water volume.

Total grain is 4.91lbs with 60 minutes at 150. I am getting two different water volumes:

• Brewer's Friend says 4.91 gallons - which will not fit in my pot with the almost 5lbs of grain.
  
• Priceless says 4.19 gallons.

Which to go with? My kettle has a width of 12 inches, which I put into Priceless. I did not do a boil off trail, but I am assuming it is right around 1.2 gallons/hour as I will be burning inside on a stove and that seems like a good average to take. Thoughts and help? Thanks!

 

[Barley_Bob]

I BIAB, and I always use 1.25 quarts of strike water per pound of grain. So, that would be like 1.6 gallons of water to go with your almost 5lbs of grain (check my math, I'm doing 2 things at once). And then I'd probably sparge with a half gallon. And that's nowhere close to the 5 gallons you're coming up with.

 

[Biscuits]

I assume you're doing full volume mash (no sparge). The correct vlume of strike water will depend on your grain absorption (factoring how much you squeeze), boil-off rate, hop absorption rate (typically 0.04 gal/ounce), plus other losses your system may incur.

1.2 gal/hr sounds VERY high for a 5 gallon kettle, I don't even do that on my 11 gallon kettle. I'd say you're more likely in the range of .65-.75 gal/hr.

If I remember correcly, when I did no sparge BIAB..my numbers were:

Grain Abs: .08
Hop Abs: .04
Boil-off: .75 (I had a 5 gallon kettle at that time too)
Ferm Loss: I just did the default 10% so in your case it will be .2

Plug those numbers in and I imagine you will be close if you use pricelessbiab

 

[bucketheadmn]

I BIAB, and I always use 1.25 quarts of strike water per pound of grain. So, that would be like 1.6 gallons of water to go with your almost 5lbs of grain (check my math, I'm doing 2 things at once). And then I'd probably sparge with a half gallon. And that's nowhere close to the 5 gallons you're coming up with.

I am not going to sparge - just let it drip and maybe squeeze a little. So if I am understanding you right you would:

1.6 gallons for grain (includes enough for boil off?)
2 gallons to end with
0.5 gallons for sparge

Total of 4.1 gallons. That means I should be using Priceless.

 

[bucketheadmn]

I assume you're doing full volume mash (no sparge). The correct vlume of strike water will depend on your grain absorption (factoring how much you squeeze), boil-off rate, hop absorption rate (typically 0.04 gal/ounce), plus other losses your system may incur.

1.2 gal/hr sounds VERY high for a 5 gallon kettle, I don't even do that on my 11 gallon kettle. I'd say you're more likely in the range of .65-.75 gal/hr.

If I remember correcly, when I did no sparge BIAB..my numbers were:

Grain Abs: .08
Hop Abs: .04
Boil-off: .75 (I had a 5 gallon kettle at that time too)
Ferm Loss: I just did the default 10% so in your case it will be .2

Plug those numbers in and I imagine you will be close if you use pricelessbiab

Great, thanks! I am doing no sparge. I will have to measure my boil off tonight for mine to figure it out. I don't recall where I saw 1.2, but sounds like I'll be way off.

Looking at this I will be using Priceless and change boil off down a bit. And I went into Brewer's Friend and updated my equipment profile with your numbers, almost identical to Priceless. Thanks again!!

 

[Biscuits]

Boil-off is, as you seem to already have an idea, a funtion of kettle diameter/height...so the ladies and gents using keggles or 15 gal kettles are indeed boiling off north of 1.2 gal/hr...but when I was brewing 1.5 gal batches I used a 3 gallon kettle (sauce pot) and my boil-off was .65 gal/hr....with my 5 gallon kettle it was between .75 and .85 gal/hr and with my 11 gal kettle I am typically between 1 and 1.1 gal/hr.

I would just throw 2 gallons of water in and bring it to a boil...start your timer and boil for 30 mins. measure the water left over (after chilling) and multiply the difference in vlume by 2 to get your boil-off rate.

 

[pshankstar]

I just brewed the same recipe (5.5 gallons into the fermenter) last month and just kegged it today. I used my 20 gallon SS Brewtech kettle and it called for 10.03 gallons of water with 13.5lbs of grains. Granted I have a 2 gallon/hour boil off with my setup (Blichmann Burner) and I do a no sparge (but slightly squeeze the bag).

This gives me 40.12 quarts of water, with 13.5 lbs of grain. This comes out to 2.97 quarts/lbs of grain (40.12 / 13.5 = 2.97185). Never realized what my water to grain ratio is until now, but I have built my equipment profile in Beersmith and my recipes come out to an estimated mash efficiency of 74% or higher.

I would say go with what works with your equipment and keep good notes and see how the brew turns out and the numbers (efficiency and what not). I hope this helps and good luck.

 

[Barley_Bob]

So, I always use that formula for strike water. I "sparge" by just adding water to the mash at the end to try to thin it and extract a little more sugar. And then I top off the wort to get to my boil volume.

But there's a bunch of ways to do this. If you come up short on volume post boil, just top it off to get the volume you want. An easy way to do that is to just keep a gallon of spring water on hand.

 

[bucketheadmn]

Thanks all. I started my boil with an estimated 4.1 gallons. I was able to do a quick 30 min boil and it seems like I boil off around 0.9 - 1 full gallon per hour.

Ended up with 3.6 gallons roughly after letting bag drip a bit and doing a couple small squeezes.

 

[bucketheadmn]

Ok this is now sitting in a 5 gallon carboy - 4 hours start to finish, not too bad for 1st time I would say. Few thoughts and problems though:

1 - ended up with OG of 1.050 - should have been 1.067
2 - ended up with estimated 2.6 gallons instead of 2 gallons in carboy. I am guessing this extra 0.6 gallons effected the OG quite a bit. (Not sure how this happened as my 30 minute test earlier it looked like I boiled off almost 1 gallon per hour...)
3 - Efficiency ended up at 73% per Brewer's Friend - recipe assumed 75% so pretty close there even with the extra 0.6 gallons of water

So end result will be to update my boil off rate to 0.65 gallons (2.6 qts) per hour. Updating my information Priceless shows a start of 3.55 gallons which would have ended up perfect here. Brewer's Friend shows 3.97 gallons to start so it is a bit off yet.

Now to look for the next brew.....

 

[wilserbrewer]

It is wise to check volumes and gravitates throughout the process. If you are over volume and light on gravity you can extend the boil time, and time your late hops to flame out. This would have put you closer to your planned recipe without affecting the beer much if any.

 

[Morrey]

This ^^^^ is the voice of experience.

Take careful notes and you'll quickly develop a trend to know instinctively what water volumes are going to do what in your setup as all are different. Within a few brews you won't even have to think about it since it becomes second nature.

 

[Biscuits]

Ok this is now sitting in a 5 gallon carboy - 4 hours start to finish, not too bad for 1st time I would say. Few thoughts and problems though:

1 - ended up with OG of 1.050 - should have been 1.067
2 - ended up with estimated 2.6 gallons instead of 2 gallons in carboy. I am guessing this extra 0.6 gallons effected the OG quite a bit. (Not sure how this happened as my 30 minute test earlier it looked like I boiled off almost 1 gallon per hour...)
3 - Efficiency ended up at 73% per Brewer's Friend - recipe assumed 75% so pretty close there even with the extra 0.6 gallons of water

So end result will be to update my boil off rate to 0.65 gallons (2.6 qts) per hour. Updating my information Priceless shows a start of 3.55 gallons which would have ended up perfect here. Brewer's Friend shows 3.97 gallons to start so it is a bit off yet.

Now to look for the next brew.....

If you did the 30 minute test and are confident in the results, I would suggest you look at other steps throughout the process to account for losses, or lack therof. At the end of the day you can shift the numbers to whereever and get the right volume to fermentor, but I think it helps to know which step in the process losses come from.

Like wilserbrewer said, if you start the boil with a low SG and high volume, you can simply extend your boil to get to the right gravity...this might mean you need to let it boil for X amount of time before adding your first hop addition. But if you don't know your volumes throughout the process you can't make these adjustments.

Things you should record..at minimum:
- Strike water Volume
- Pre-boil: Volume/SG (after bag squeeze/drain but before boil) STIR!
- Post-boil: (before chilling) Volume/SG
- Volume/OG after chilling (evap. still happens until wort is cooled and thermal expansion when wort is still hot will lead you to believe you have more than you really do)
- Volume to fermentor (trub left behind from settled hop/grain/cold break)
- Volume packaged (sediment left behind from dry hop/trub/settled yeast)

Armed with this information you should be able to make most on the fly corrections throughout your brew day if any are needed. Ultimately, you should be able to look at your grain/hop bill and know almost instinctively what these volumes/gravities should be and you won't have to make corrections...as much.

 

[bucketheadmn]

If you did the 30 minute test and are confident in the results, I would suggest you look at other steps throughout the process to account for losses, or lack therof. At the end of the day you can shift the numbers to whereever and get the right volume to fermentor, but I think it helps to know which step in the process losses come from.

Like wilserbrewer said, if you start the boil with a low SG and high volume, you can simply extend your boil to get to the right gravity...this might mean you need to let it boil for X amount of time before adding your first hop addition. But if you don't know your volumes throughout the process you can't make these adjustments.

Things you should record..at minimum:
- Strike water Volume
- Pre-boil: Volume/SG (after bag squeeze/drain but before boil) STIR!
- Post-boil: (before chilling) Volume/SG
- Volume/OG after chilling (evap. still happens until wort is cooled and thermal expansion when wort is still hot will lead you to believe you have more than you really do)
- Volume to fermentor (trub left behind from settled hop/grain/cold break)
- Volume packaged (sediment left behind from dry hop/trub/settled yeast)

Armed with this information you should be able to make most on the fly corrections throughout your brew day if any are needed. Ultimately, you should be able to look at your grain/hop bill and know almost instinctively what these volumes/gravities should be and you won't have to make corrections...as much.

I thought I was confident in my numbers, but I had to be off as it did not match my wort boil off. The tough thing is measuring the boil off. I created a measure stick using a small wooden dowel and then marked at 2 gallons using the markings on my el cheapo kettle. Then measured and added half gallon markings up to 5 total - so in between halves is an estimated guess.

I did take a few readings throughout, but might not have been the best after reading your post:

-Strike Water estimated at 4.1 gallons
-Pre-Boil water estimated at 3.6 and Gravity of 1.042 (but I did not stir, just took from middle with thief)
-Post Boil volume on 90 minute boil before chill was estimated 2.6 (checked at flameout addition)
-OG after cool and before pitching yeast was 1.050 - but realized I took sample from kettle before transferring to carboy and aerating...
-Did not take a volume after chill, did not think about evaporation still and my 5 gallon glass carboy is not marked so cannot take it now.
-Volume to fermentor is full volume after boil so estimate 2.6 gallons - I dumped all of kettle into it using funnel (I think I am going to upgrade to a kettle with a valve to leave the trub behind and make it a bit easier on me)

The nice thing is that I will learn from this and get better. Couple/few weeks and I will brew another batch of something.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Like wilserbrewer said, if you start the boil with a low SG and high volume, you can simply extend your boil to get to the right gravity...this might mean you need to let it boil for X amount of time before adding your first hop addition.

While this will certainly work, I find it unnecessarily confusing...

I don't think there is much difference boiling your initial bittering hop addition for 60 vs 90 minutes, so therefore I just would add the 1st addition then monitor volume as the boil proceeds. When your close to post boil volume begin your 5 or 10 minute hop addition, total boil time is kinda irrelevant compared to other more important things like gravity, volume and late hop timing.

Imo the important part of boil timing is the final hop additions, not so much the initial hop charge.

 

[doug293cz]

Ok this is now sitting in a 5 gallon carboy - 4 hours start to finish, not too bad for 1st time I would say. Few thoughts and problems though:

1 - ended up with OG of 1.050 - should have been 1.067
2 - ended up with estimated 2.6 gallons instead of 2 gallons in carboy. I am guessing this extra 0.6 gallons effected the OG quite a bit. (Not sure how this happened as my 30 minute test earlier it looked like I boiled off almost 1 gallon per hour...)
3 - Efficiency ended up at 73% per Brewer's Friend - recipe assumed 75% so pretty close there even with the extra 0.6 gallons of water

So end result will be to update my boil off rate to 0.65 gallons (2.6 qts) per hour. Updating my information Priceless shows a start of 3.55 gallons which would have ended up perfect here. Brewer's Friend shows 3.97 gallons to start so it is a bit off yet.

Now to look for the next brew.....

Having too much or too little volume will not change your efficiency. Efficiency is all about how much sugar you got vs. how much you could have gotten if you didn't lose any along the way. If you end up with five pounds of sugar out of a max potential of seven lbs, your efficiency is 5 / 7 = 71.4%. Doesn't matter if that five lbs of sugar is in three gal of wort or five gal of wort. The efficiency is the same.

The amount of water you start with, and how you split it between strike and sparge, will affect your efficiency, because it will affect how much sugar you extract from the grains (how effectively you dilute the sugar and rinse the grains.)

The previous two paragraphs may sound like they conflict with each other, but until you understand why they don't, you don't really understand what efficiency is.

Brew on

 

[pricelessbrewing]

I'm so glad to see so many people using my calculator online and recommending it to new brewers!

You can always message or email me if you have any issues, comments, or suggestions on my software.