Mashing small grain bills

[Tom R]

Tomorrow I'll be brewing 5 gals of Nanny State, a 1.007 OG, .5% "beer" (I have a good friend who can no longer drink alcohol).

The grain bill is very small, only 1-3/4#. Beersmith wants .41 gal of mash water, then sparging with 8 gal. I doubt that my 10g false bottom MLT will work well with this recipe since the grain bed would be very thin, so I'm asking for ideas.

I have hop bags that the grain will fit in, should I just mash it in a pot on the kitchen stove, then batch sparge by swirling it in 8 gal of 168F sparge water?

Did I just describe "brew-in-a-bag"? My normal rig is a 3V fly sparge setup, and haven't used anything else since my extract days.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Did I just describe "brew-in-a-bag"?

Yes.

I have hop bags that the grain will fit in, should I just mash it in a pot on the kitchen stove

That can work. Some people preheat an oven to about 160, then put the mash in a container in the oven to help with temperature control.

then batch sparge by swirling it in 8 gal of 168F sparge water?

"Dunk sparge" is a technique that is often mentioned. You could use around 1/2 gal water (cold water works for extraction), then dunk the bag a number of times.

One can also squeeze the bag (some say "like it owns you money") to improve efficiency.

For me, either of these techniques will add a small number of gravity points to the wort when I brew small batch BIAB.

5 gals of Nanny State, a 1.007 OG, .5% "beer"

• 35 gravity points needed.
• 1.75 lbs * 36 GP potential = 63 GPs potential
• 75% efficiency = 47 GPs;
  
• 60% efficiency = 37 GPs

You may not need to dunk sparge.