No Sparge Brew In A Bag Disaster

[jbrookeiv]

Hey guys,

Just finished my first No Sparge Brew In A Bag session, and ended up with some severely disappointing results. First, let me describe my method and let's see if we can figure out what went wrong.

I used the BIABrewer.info spreadsheet to calculate the strike water (which accounts for grain absorption and boil off), and it said I'd needed 9.14gal of strike water to end up with 5.4 gallons of wort. A screenshot of this spreadsheet is below. Ignore the gravities listed in the spreadsheet, they don't seem to make a difference in the calculations so I leave them alone.

I hit my strike temperature of 158 on the nose, and put in my 14lbs of grain in two separate 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bags. I stirred my grain well, checked my temp, and I was at 152.

I left the beer alone for an hour, came back and it was at 149. I bumped it back up to 152, let it sit for another 15 minutes and raised it to 169 for mash out. My total mash time was 90 minutes.

When my mash was done, I pulled the grain bags out, spun them to squeeze as much liquid as possible out, and let them finish dripping. I then dumped the grains in the garbage. After that, I raised my wort to boiling and added my first hop addition. I had a 60 minute boil, and added the hops according to the schedule below. I maintained a temperature of 210-213 the entire boil, and had the lid off.

After the boil, I chilled the wort with a wort chiller and put it in my fermenter. I ended up with some extra wort, probably ~1 gallon. I think that definitely accounts for some of the issue, and I will boil off more next time, but I still don't think that should have caused my efficiency to plummet like it did.

Below is my recipe. I bought the grains from MoreBeer, and even asked for a double crush.

8lb 2 Row
2lb Carapils
2lb Flaked Barley
1lb Roasted Barley
1lb Chocolate Malt

2oz Centennial at 60min
1oz Willamette at 60min
1oz Willamette at 15min
2oz Cascade at 0min

According to BeerAlchemy, my OG should have been 1.075, and I ended up at 1.037. What went wrong? I am brewing another BIAB batch next weekend for a friend, and he wouldn't be happy if it ended up half the strength of what it was supposed to be.

One other thing I thought of is could it be all of the hop particles in the wort? There were a good bit of hops added, and I could see a bunch of particles when I took the hydrometer reading. Could that have messed up the reading?

 

[theschick]

With two nylon bags in there, are they getting enough water through them? What about moving to a single, much larger bag? Everyone recommends using a bag that you can actually fit your kettle inside.

 

[jbrookeiv]

With two nylon bags in there, are they getting enough water through them? What about moving to a single, much larger bag? Everyone recommends using a bag that you can actually fit your kettle inside.

That's definitely my next upgrade, but do you think that'd really make that much of a difference?

 

[jbrookeiv]

Anyone else have any ideas? I need to rectify this issue before next weekend.

 

[broadbill]

Hop particles won't mess up the reading....did you correct the hydrometer reading for temperature?

 

[nutty_gnome]

So I put your recipe into beersmith as written. You said you shot for 5.4 gallons but ended up with around 6.5 gallons. at a mediocre 70% eff. your wort should have an OG of 1.046. This is no where near the target you had in mind. You said you ended up with 1.037 which suggests your eff was actually 56%.

Were I you, I would first calibrate my thermometers to see that you were getting the temps you thought you were. Then I would double check your water measurements and revisit your boil off percent. Then I would invest in the single kettle sized bag. And then I would start with a whole lot more grain to reach the OG's you want to reach. Also, I would invest in several pounds of DME to up your OG should you have the same issue this weekend. Good luck, I am sure more knoweldgable folks can tell you more about your process issues.

 

[Reelale]

I no-sparge with an MLT and I think the key is a thin mash if you are not sparging. You are not rinsing the grains, so it is imperative that you get all of the grain in contact with water. If your grain is compacted in 2 small bags, it's probably not happening. I'll bet if you use a larger bag, your problems will be solved. Nothing else in your process looks suspect.

 

[Sanspareil]

Definately use a bigger pot and one bag that fits that pot loosely. Meaning that the bag needs to be fit around the top of the pot,and that it touches the inside walls, not merely floating like a hop sack. BIAB needs sufficient volume to work properly. I regularly get in the 80+ efficiency range doing BIAB. I also stir the mash often.

 

[theschick]

Plus, are you sure you got a double crush? How fine was the crush? With BIAB, you can very fine. I have a cheap ($20) corona-mill knock off, and I think it works great.

 

[mychalg9]

I would think that adding 14 lbs of grain to 158 degree strike water would lower it below 152, no?

 

[dpittard]

My guess is a lack of efficiency due to the grain bags used. I used the BIAB method for the first time this weekend and hit 80% efficiency. I used the largest grainbag available for sale at AHS and a 9 gallon kettle. For the record, I did sparge twice, though. I just transfered the first runnings into my fermenter (using it as temp storage) and used my pre-heated sparge water (using another, smaller kettle on the stovetop) in the main kettle.

That's the great thing I found about using a bag is that I can just pick up all the grains and move them wherever and whenever I want. The hydro sample before pitching tasted A-MAZING and the IPA is happily fermenting away!

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

It looks like you have it set to 6.8 ltrs boil off? That's 1.8 gallons of boil off an hour. In order to boil off that much water you would have to use a system with an extremely wide kettle with very shallow depth. It also looks like you have your end of boil volume as 23.9 ltrs which is 6.3 gallons. If you only ended up with 6.5 gallons I'd be surprised. I'd guess you would have 7 or more gallons.

Even at 7 gallons at a 70% efficiency you'd still be around 1.047. At 6.5 gallons you would have to be at a 50% efficiency to get 1.037. You either have a lot more wort than 7 gallons or your efficiency was just horrific. Although the bags might be an issue I'd also look elsewhere, like how much did you stir the mash at the beginning, did the temp stay at conversion temps during the whole mash, did you mash at temp for a full hour, did you adjust the hydrometer reading for the temperature, etc.

I know some of the BIAB people don't sparge, but I think you'll get a lot better efficiency if you do...

 

[jbrookeiv]

It looks like you have it set to 6.8 ltrs boil off? That's 1.8 gallons of boil off an hour. In order to boil off that much water you would have to use a system with an extremely wide kettle with very shallow depth. It also looks like you have your end of boil volume as 23.9 ltrs which is 6.3 gallons. If you only ended up with 6.5 gallons I'd be surprised. I'd guess you would have 7 or more gallons.

Even at 7 gallons at a 70% efficiency you'd still be around 1.047. At 6.5 gallons you would have to be at a 50% efficiency to get 1.037. You either have a lot more wort than 7 gallons or your efficiency was just horrific. Although the bags might be an issue I'd also look elsewhere, like how much did you stir the mash at the beginning, did the temp stay at conversion temps during the whole mash, did you mash at temp for a full hour, did you adjust the hydrometer reading for the temperature, etc.

I know some of the BIAB people don't sparge, but I think you'll get a lot better efficiency if you do...

I brew in a 15 gallon pot, and it is very wide and shallow, so I think I really did get that much boil off.

So I corrected the hydrometer reading for temperature, and it is 1.041. I will make a larger bag this weekend and make sure to stir the mash more frequently.

I use a digital thermometer that is very accurate, so I don't think that's an issue. The lowest my temperature dropped was 149, so I was in the 149-152 range for around 75 minutes.

 

[theonetrueruss]

If you boiled off another gallon of water your OG would have gone up to about 1.044 so that would put you close to the 1.046 suggested by nutty_gnome as what your recipe would do at 70% efficiency.

 

[jbrookeiv]

I would think that adding 14 lbs of grain to 158 degree strike water would lower it below 152, no?

Not with 9 gallons of strike water.

 

[nutty_gnome]

Oops, I forgot to add 2 pounds of chcolate and roast. So my earlier numbers are a lil low, but not much. If you are confident that you got good circulation, then you should double check the calibration of your thermometer. Its easy with ice water and boiling water. Good luck.

 

[jbrookeiv]

Oops, I forgot to add 2 pounds of chcolate and roast. So my earlier numbers are a lil low, but not much. If you are confident that you got good circulation, then you should double check the calibration of your thermometer. Its easy with ice water and boiling water. Good luck.

I have checked the calibration, dead on. I actually leave my digital thermometer in my wort when it's coming to a boil, and have it set for an alert to go off at 208. That way, I can go watch TV and not have to worry about it boiling over while it's getting up to boil with the lid on.