My first BIAB experience

[jcdouglas]

I did a simple 5 gallon Cream Ale today for my first BIAB adventure.

7 lbs Pale Ale 2 Row
12 oz Honey Malt
4 oz Biscuit Malt
1 oz Cluster (60 minutes)

I tightly wrapped my aluminum pot with two blankets when I hit my mash temperature of 152 degrees F. However, when I returned, it surprisingly went down to 147 degrees F, whoops. Next time I plan on checking more frequently. Quick question, is it okay to turn on the propane burner or is it better to add hot water to maintain the mash temperature? I'm not concerned about burning my bag as it's in a large strainer. Second question, how will the lowering of the mash temperature affect the beer?

In addition, due to my underestimation of my efficiency (I predicted 70%, but I achieved 80%) and my underestimation of my boil off (I predicted 1 gallon/hour, but I was closer to 1.75 gallon/hour), my measured O.G. was at 1.052 (predicted O.G. was supposed to be 1.041). What affect might the increased O.G. have on the beer?

Overall, I had a lot of fun, and after making some corrections in my process, I think my next brew session will be a bit smoother.

 

[morticaixavier]

Given the lower mash temp and the higher OG you are going to get a much stronger beer. but you could still add water to dilute back to the volume you were after. Of you could overshoot your volume and get back to the OG you were after. either way I think you can expect a slightly drier beer than you were planning on. On the other hand I think the style usually calls for some corn which lightens the body quite a bit so it might actually be more to style with the lower mash temps. That being said a 5 degree drop is not to bad

 

[jcdouglas]

I thought about adding water to reach the volume I was after, but I'm going to try this recipe again with my corrections so I can taste the difference. I think it's helpful if I learn from my mistakes. Thanks for the info for what I should expect.

 

[cadarnell]

i use a 6 gallon pot and i set it in the oven on low for the first 15 mins of my mash .. then i shut the oven off .. I'm usually right on my mash temp at the end if I have the pot filled close to the top .. even if i have a little less in there, the temp will still only drop 1 or 2* over the whole hour .. your beer will be stronger than you wanted, but I am glad you didn't top it off for your first one .. best just to stay the course when you first start .. take good notes and make adjustments on the next brew .. good luck !!

 

[TopherM]

I BIAB as well - Welcome to the club!!

As stated, the 5 degree drop isn't a big deal at all. If anything, this will thin out your beer's body a bit, but a good mashout and/or sparge will add that body right back in. The fact that you undershot your final volume a bit means that you are going to have plenty of body in the end anyway. What you took away in the mash, you added right back in during the boil in the form of evaporation and wort concentration. In the future, you can definitely add hot water to get it back up to your target temp if you want.

Did you mashout and/or sparge? I sparged the first time I did BIAB, but found it very unnecessary as long as you do a 170 mashout for about 10-20 minutes after the 60 minute mash, then get a REALLY good bag squeeze/drain. I do my mashout on the propane burner. Some people add heated water (which you would subtract from your initial volume). Double milling your grains will also up your efficiency and final body of the beer.

Like the other guy said, you got a high efficiency because you boiled off too much water and ended up with a lower volume. If you had hit your proper preboil volume, your efficiency would have been closer to the 70&. Again, not a big deal, you are just going to have less volume and higher ABV, but if you want to more consistently hit your recipe and be able to duplicate recipes in the future, you can use top off water pre and post boil or even right before pitching to get everything back in wack. Just add water until you hit your target OG, compensating for whatever temp you are at. If you don't care about replicating recipes in the future, you really can wing it on most all of these heat and volume measurements, and as long as you are relatively close, you are going to make good beer. Precision isn't all that important.

Remember that for a full volume BIAB, your starting water volume is your target volume PLUS grain absorbsion, PLUS boil off. So, for this 5 gallon batch at a .70g/10lb absorbsion and a 1.75g/hr boil off, you would have started with about 7.5 gallons of water. There is also a SMALL amount of loss during cool down, something on the order to .2-.4 gallons. All equipment is different, so as long as you know your absorbsion rate and the boil off rate of your kettle, you can calculate your starting volume pretty easily.

That is going to be a heavy bodied, honey sweet cream ale. Sounds great to me!! Enjoy!

 

[thughes]

I check the mash temp @ every 30 minutes (I normally do 90 minute mash) and add a little direct heat if necessary. My bag sits directly on the bottom of the pot and I have never burned/melted it (voile bag). Be careful when adding heat and stir like crazy if you do, it is very easy to overshoot your temp. I usually stop @ 2 degrees shy of where I want to be because I know that's how much it will climb after I shut the heat back off.

If you do a full volume/no sparge BIAB and add water to bring the mash temp up you will have to compensate for the extra volume by increasing the boil time to get the extra boiled back off (and adjust your hop schedule accordingly).

If the drop is only a couple of degrees I don't even worry about it. Besides, we're only making beer here, not putting a man on Mars. If the Ancients managed to pull it off more than 5000 years ago it ought to be a walk in the park for us 21st century brewers.

 

[jcdouglas]

I mashed out for 10 minutes at 170 deg/F.

It's good to hear that it's not a big deal if my temp drops 5 degrees. I think that next time I will turn on the burner as needed to maintain my mash temp to see how that goes. However, it may be more trouble than it's worth.

I ended up with 4 gallons at the end, which actually worked out great since I put it in my 5 gallon carboy. I used to do secondary fermentation, but since I stopped, this is a great way to use my smaller carboy. Now I have an excuse to brew another batch and put it into my 6 gallon carboy.

I used Beersmith 2 for my calculations. I am going to update my equipment profile and hopefully that should work.

I BIAB as well - Welcome to the club!!

As stated, the 5 degree drop isn't a big deal at all. If anything, this will thin out your beer's body a bit, but a good mashout and/or sparge will add that body right back in. The fact that you undershot your final volume a bit means that you are going to have plenty of body in the end anyway. What you took away in the mash, you added right back in during the boil in the form of evaporation and wort concentration. In the future, you can definitely add hot water to get it back up to your target temp if you want.

Did you mashout and/or sparge? I sparged the first time I did BIAB, but found it very unnecessary as long as you do a 170 mashout for about 10-20 minutes after the 60 minute mash, then get a REALLY good bag squeeze/drain. I do my mashout on the propane burner. Some people add heated water (which you would subtract from your initial volume). Double milling your grains will also up your efficiency and final body of the beer.

Like the other guy said, you got a high efficiency because you boiled off too much water and ended up with a lower volume. If you had hit your proper preboil volume, your efficiency would have been closer to the 70&. Again, not a big deal, you are just going to have less volume and higher ABV, but if you want to more consistently hit your recipe and be able to duplicate recipes in the future, you can use top off water pre and post boil or even right before pitching to get everything back in wack. Just add water until you hit your target OG, compensating for whatever temp you are at. If you don't care about replicating recipes in the future, you really can wing it on most all of these heat and volume measurements, and as long as you are relatively close, you are going to make good beer. Precision isn't all that important.

Remember that for a full volume BIAB, your starting water volume is your target volume PLUS grain absorbsion, PLUS boil off. So, for this 5 gallon batch at a .70g/10lb absorbsion and a 1.75g/hr boil off, you would have started with about 7.5 gallons of water. There is also a SMALL amount of loss during cool down, something on the order to .2-.4 gallons. All equipment is different, so as long as you know your absorbsion rate and the boil off rate of your kettle, you can calculate your starting volume pretty easily.

That is going to be a heavy bodied, honey sweet cream ale. Sounds great to me!! Enjoy!

 

[gingerdawg]

Since most of the conversion takes place in the first 15min of the mash, the temperature you start out with is more important than the temperature you end the mash with. Starting out on temp and losing 5 degtrees over an hour, means that you were at the right temp for most of the conversion, and a little dry for the last bits. Starting out way off, can cause far worse problems.

 

[thughes]

I mashed out for 10 minutes at 170 deg/F.

It's good to hear that it's not a big deal if my temp drops 5 degrees. I think that next time I will turn on the burner as needed to maintain my mash temp to see how that goes. However, it may be more trouble than it's worth.

I ended up with 4 gallons at the end, which actually worked out great since I put it in my 5 gallon carboy. I used to do secondary fermentation, but since I stopped, this is a great way to use my smaller carboy. Now I have an excuse to brew another batch and put it into my 6 gallon carboy.

I used Beersmith 2 for my calculations. I am going to update my equipment profile and hopefully that should work.

If you are going to get into BIAB further you need to sign up here:

http://www.biabrewer.info/

The on-boarding process is a bit hokey but the info is fantastic (and they reference HBT quite often). There is a specific thread at biabrewer that gives some great tips and examples for setting up Beersmith2 specifically for BIAB.

 

[jcdouglas]

I read through the biabrewer site (and joined) and calculated my brewhouse efficiency for this batch to be 74.29%. I didn't realize that if you modified the loss to trub you also need to modify the efficiency. I also learned a lot on how to set up my equipment profile. A few more batches and I think I will have it fine tuned.

If you are going to get into BIAB further you need to sign up here:

http://www.biabrewer.info/

The on-boarding process is a bit hokey but the info is fantastic (and they reference HBT quite often). There is a specific thread at biabrewer that gives some great tips and examples for setting up Beersmith2 specifically for BIAB.