Need help on my BIAB day

[Firewalker11]

Yupper, its a HARD squeeze too!

When the grain is still saturated from the mash and is put into the bucket with 1/2 gallon of water, the water actually covers all of the grain in the bag. It's not really a "sparge" in that sense but a way to keep fluid around the grain while I wait for the boil temp to rise. In any case, its fast, no extra work as the sparge water is around 130° (never bothered to temp it) by the time the grain bag makes it into the bucket as the sparge water is drained off the pot when I am heating to my strike temp.

 

[mgr_stl]

When the grain is still saturated from the mash and is put into the bucket with 1/2 gallon of water, the water actually covers all of the grain in the bag.

Ah ha! Saturation was the part I was missing. So I guess a bottling bucket could work for this, right?

 

[Firewalker11]

IMHO, as long as the grain is covered with water, the sugars can leach out. I am going more for a rinse but I'll take any converted sugars that come from the dunk/sparge happily.

Next up is a room temp rinse to see if I can pull more sugars away with a cooler temp rinse.

 

[mgr_stl]

For those who have used this:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

I assume the "wort volume" is the amount you actually put in the fermenter?

If so, I got an efficiency of 73% for my first BIAB despite not double crushing. The folks at the LHBS told me not to because their grain mill won't really crush it more my doing that. It was some sort of double roller mill powered by a power drill. They said it would just make a terrible sound and accomplish nothing. Sounds suspect to me, but I respected their request.

Now I'll be looking to finding an online vendor that will double crush, though I'm certainly happy with the efficiency I got for my first go round.

I made "Da Yooper's House Pale Ale" and sparged with 1.5 gallons of room temperature water by pouring it over the grains. And I squeezed quite a bit.

 

[brewprint]

For those who have used this:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

I assume the "wort volume" is the amount you actually put in the fermenter?

If so, I got an efficiency of 73% for my first BIAB despite not double crushing. The folks at the LHBS told me not to because their grain mill won't really crush it more my doing that. It was some sort of double roller mill powered by a power drill. They said it would just make a terrible sound and accomplish nothing. Sounds suspect to me, but I respected their request.

Now I'll be looking to finding an online vendor that will double crush, though I'm certainly happy with the efficiency I got for my first go round.

I made "Da Yooper's House Pale Ale" and sparged with 1.5 gallons of room temperature water by pouring it over the grains. And I squeezed quite a bit.

73% is good and my guess is because you sparged.

There's debate about double crushing. Meaning that the only thing that it really could accomplish is crushing a grain that was missed the first time.

I don't have a mill but there are a few LHBS I shop at. One already has the mill set up to be almost like a dust and that's where it's only ran through one time.

I find that by stirring during the mash every 15 minutes instead of every 20 (total time 60 minutes) gets me above 70 and sometimes 80%. That's with a double crush. No Ph testing or any other stuff like that. Just plain ol city water.

 

[mgr_stl]

I used city water this time as a starting point, and also stirred every fifteen minutes.

 

[brewprint]

I used city water this time as a starting point, and also stirred every fifteen minutes.

I highly doubt that you'll get much better by doing anything else. Seems like guys that are using 3 vessels are strugging sometimes hitting 70%.

 

[mgr_stl]

I just hope I get about the same efficiency next time.

Consistency is king, right?

 

[doug293cz]

I just hope I get about the same efficiency next time.

Consistency is king, right?

As long as your efficiency is acceptable to you, then consistency is more important. Without consistency, there is no way to predict the outcome of a brew session.

Brew on