Mashing 30lbs of grain in a bag... am I crazy?

[BrookdaleBrew]

I ordered ingredients for a 10 gallon batch of my IIPA last night. I have a 60qt cooler but no false bottom/manifold. I plan on mashing 30lbs of grain in a bag or 2. Single infusion, no mash out, then a single batch sparge.

I've gotten 80%+ efficiency using this technique on smaller beers, but was just wondering if anyone else had ever mashed that much grain in a bag before? What kind of efficiency can I expect?

 

[bullinachinashop]

70% maybe and I would spilt my sparge water. Extract as much as possible from your bags between sparging rounds.
Pick up some DME to make up for your losses.
Bull

 

[MacGruber]

I would also mash longer just to be sure you get complete conversion. I think it's going to be tough mashing that many grains in a bag. I'd just worry about doughballs and dry spots inside of the bag. I've never used the BIAB technique. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[mikeysab]

I'm curious about this one too. I've used BIAB with great results, but never with that much grain or in that big a cooler. I was thinking of using BIAB with my 52 qt coleman extreme, but never thought id find a bag big enough. I guess you could split it into 2 bags. I built a copper manifold, and I think you'd be better off going that route too. I think spitting the grain bill would be a pita, but maybe you have a good system .

 

[wilserbrewer]

I foresee no problem "ass-umming" both you and the bag are strong enough, and neither get a tear in the sack area....hahaha

 

[mikeysab]

Finally, I have a signature.

 

[mikeysab]

hey, what happened to my new signature

 

[jamesnsw]

I think this should be possible. My concern is that if you pack too many grains in to small a bag, you get terrible efficiency, at least in my experience. You'll want the biggest darn bags you can find.

Here's some of my calcs-

Maximum Kettle Volume in qts 60
Pounds of grain 30
Calculated Max Mash Thickness 1.68
Calculated Water to add in qts 50.4


So the mash thickness is a bit lower than I prefer for BIAB, but not terrible. So you should start with about 50 quarts of water to leave room for the grains.

But that probably will leave you with less than 10 gallons of wort- so you may want to do a simple sparge (put the bag in a bucket, pour water over it, pull out the bag) with a couple gallons.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I've got two 5 gallon paint strainer bags and I was planning on mashing with 1.5qt per pound, but if 1.68 will fit, I'll definitely go that route. Was also gonna sparge in the kettle for 15 minutes with as much water as I could manage. Thanks for the tips and words of encouragement everyone! Should be brewing this next weekend, I'll report back on how it turns out.

 

[jamesnsw]

By the way, here's the calculator I've come up with for my own use-

http://up.jamesnweber.com/_brew/biabcalcs.html

You set the max amount of water, and the amount of grains, and it gives you the max mash thickness, and how much water you can add from that.

It also calculates the strike temp.

These are all basically formulas from elsewhere, that I had to reverse to solve for what BIAB actually needed. Let me know if it's helpful!

 

[jfr1111]

I would suggest two things:
a) Lift with your legs and have a helper
b) Don't drink during the operation.

I'm not a big guy, but I used to be heavily into powerlifting. Holding a bag full of 12 pounds of soaked grains at arms length for 15 minutes is the most I can handle. You will also need a titanesque bag.

 

[MetallHed]

30 lbs?

Sure...if you look like this:

That is a truly horrible paint-chopped photo. lol

 

[hal2814]

I think 30lbs is going to be too much. I've done 16lbs before in a bag and that was a pain. I used a ratchet strap hung overhead to my upper deck to hold the grain bag up and it was still a pain. And the only bag I could find big enough was a nylon laundry bag which was too porous so I had to do a second strain through a nylon mesh bag in my Ale Pail for each set of runnings before going to the boiler. I love bag mashes but at some point it's just easier to slap together a braided MLT. I think that threshold is somewhere below 30lbs. For me personally, it was 12 lbs before I said forget it and gave up on the bag system.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I think what I'm going to do is just use the bags as a false bottom of sorts and drain the wort into the kettle from the cooler drain, so there won't be any major lifting.

Eventually I'll build a proper mash tun, but for the time being this will have to work.

 

[mikeysab]

I think what I'm going to do is just use the bags as a false bottom of sorts and drain the wort into the kettle from the cooler drain, so there won't be any major lifting.

Eventually I'll build a proper mash tun, but for the time being this will have to work.

EURETHRA, YOU'VE DONE IT. That's the answer......the part of using the bag as a false bottom. I've done this with my 5 gallon round rubbermaid. The only thing you have to do is prop something between the bag and the drain to push the bag away from the hole so the glorious wort flows. I don't know why I didn't tell you this earlier....sorry.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

Why use a bag? Any number of manifold and braid systems work well. and you can stir to equalise temperature and eliminate balls and dry spots, and temperature monitoring is far more accurate in an open mash.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I brewed this yesterday and ended up with about 60% efficiency. I was planning on 70% so I bumped my OG up with some DME. Pitched the wort onto the S-05 yest cake from my 1.040 blond ale and my airlock was bubbling in about 2 hours. My brewing room smells great today! Love me some simcoe hops!

I think it's time to just buckle down and build a real mash tun. Not sure why I've put it off for so long.

 

[hal2814]

I brewed this yesterday and ended up with about 60% efficiency. I was planning on 70% so I bumped my OG up with some DME. Pitched the wort onto the S-05 yest cake from my 1.040 blond ale and my airlock was bubbling in about 2 hours. My brewing room smells great today! Love me some simcoe hops!

I think it's time to just buckle down and build a real mash tun. Not sure why I've put it off for so long.

I kind of felt the same way too once I finally bit the bullet and built mine.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

Well, there it is, got my 10 gallon cooler in the mail today, now I'm just waiting on my fittings and steel braid from bargainfittings.com and I'll have a proper mash tun.