Small Batch - BIAB Advise Request

[Norselord]

Dear HBT BIAB Brewers,

I am wanting to do some small 1-gallon BIAB batches. Normally I do AG 5-gallon batches.

The purpose of doing smaller BIAB batches is:
- shorter brew day
- can do it on stove top, instead of outside
- test out different yeasts
- test out impact of mineral adjustments on water
- test out styles i don't ordinarily brew
- become proficient at another way of 'skinning a cat'

I previously did one batch but missed OG badly and felt that i was going wrong in terms of pH and water/grain ratio.

Below is a brief summary of what BeerSmith tells me to do for a 1gallon BIAB:
Put the following in a bag:
16oz german wheat malt
12oz german pilsner malt
1oz acidulated malt

Add mineral adjustments
Heat 6.13quarts of water to 153.2F
Add grains
Temperature drops to 148F - mash at this temp for 90 minutes.
Raise temperature to 168F.
Add water to a boil volume of 1.4 gallons.
Goal for pre-boil gravity is 1.036 SG

Start boil.
@ 60 minutes add 1/8oz of Hallertau Mittelfrueh
@ 15 minutes add irish moss/whirlfloc/yeast nutrient
@ 5 minutes add 1/8oz of Hallertau Mittelfrueh
Post boil volume should be 1.15 gallons with a 1.045SG

Chill.
Add wort to fermenter, aerate, pitch 3638.
Ferment at 70F for ~2 weeks, bottle, etc...

What i am looking for is not a critique of the ingredients, but an assessment of the process. Does the water/grain ratio look right? Is the boil off reasonable for a 3-gallon pot?

Thanks in advance for your helpful input.

 

[Oginme]

If you have the room in your pot, add all the water in with the grain during the mash. This will make a big difference in your efficiency versus topping off the pot with straight water. If you do not have enough room for grain plus full amount of water, consider mashing with as much as you can fit and then either using another pot or even a bucket to soak the grain bag in with the additional water you need once you have removed the bag from the main mash.

 

[Owly055]

If the object is to cut brew day time and test ingredients, let me suggest no boil no chill. This can be done in well under 2 hours with a full hour mash (BIAB), and you can reduce mash time to 30 minutes with a fairly fine crush, particularly if you follow my "inline mash" technique where I dough into hot tap water and fast heat stirring frequently, up to beginning mash temp of 145, slowing down to 1 deg per 3 minutes up to 155. Conversion and fermentability are excellent doing this, but the price of cutting mash time down is babysitting it. When doing no boil / no chill, I pull off a small amount of wort immediately when removing the brew bag, go to high heat on another burner, and throw in my hops as called for, doing a 15 minute boil of less than a quart of wort out of 2.5 gallons, the remainder being raised to about 170F, which is below DMS formation temp. The hop decoction is returned to the main mash, which may already be cooling, in fact it can already be in the fermenter. With your ducks in a row, the entire process can be compressed to not much over an hour and done on the kitchen stove.

My kitchen stove has a main burner which I've modified for far more output than normal (gas), and when doing a full boil mash, using that burner and a 2500 watt floating heater, it takes only about 5 minutes to boil from mash temps for 2 to 2.5 gallons. I can also chill to pitch temp in about 8 minutes. There are many ways to cut down your brew day. For example, I often mash all afternoon while working, and rarely do more than a 30 minute boil. I frequently start mash water heating, go out and measure and crush my grains, deciding what and how much as I'm crushing (experience), while the water's heating, dough in, and then sit down on the computer and work up my recipe while mashing. I of course also measure hops while mashing when doing a "normal" mash & boil. I get things out and clean things up and put things away during the process so there is almost no clean up at the end.

H.W.

 

[NSMikeD]

you should be fine. beer smith is a full volume of water (3 gallon pot should be fine for 1 gallon brew) the water addition is merely an adjustment if you aren't at 1.4 gallons when you pull and squeeze the bag.

i was missing OG originally, but it turned out to be incorrect loss numbers (evaporation, trub etc) and not holding mash temp. I've since adjusted my losses to reflect my own equipment, and put the pot in a warm oven during mash. I used to keep LDME on hand to add to the fermentor is I missed OG, but haven't had to do that in a while.

make sure your pot information is correct in beer smith.

I use a dip stick, measure and plug the information in an excel (v = π^2 h) to measure my volumes


the mash out (168° for 10 minutes ) is debatable as necessary since your are doing full volume and will be pulling the bag and going right to boil. Some claim to get a point to two in efficiency, but I think dunking the bag before pulling so be fine (a lot of BIABs claim great efficiency without the mash out).


Holding back water and using it to sparge (pouring the water over the bag at the end) improves efficiency. This comes in handy when you decide to do a big beer (more than 1.050 OG) and can't fit the full volume of water in the pot. I do 2.5 gallon batches and find that holding back 1/2 - 1 gallon to sparge makes it much easier for the bigger beers. It's an additional step, but I don't worry ion my pot can handle the grain bill and It helps get the sugars out. But don't worry about this for now

 

[Norselord]

If you have the room in your pot, add all the water in with the grain during the mash. This will make a big difference in your efficiency versus topping off the pot with straight water. If you do not have enough room for grain plus full amount of water, consider mashing with as much as you can fit and then either using another pot or even a bucket to soak the grain bag in with the additional water you need once you have removed the bag from the main mash.

i am adding all the water in with the grain during the mash.

small 1-gallon BIAB batches.

Heat 6.13quarts of water to 153.2F
Add grains

 

[Norselord]

If the object is to cut brew day time and test ingredients, let me suggest no boil no chill. This can be done in well under 2 hours with a full hour mash (BIAB), and you can reduce mash time to 30 minutes with a fairly fine crush, particularly if you follow my "inline mash" technique where I dough into hot tap water and fast heat stirring frequently, up to beginning mash temp of 145, slowing down to 1 deg per 3 minutes up to 155. Conversion and fermentability are excellent doing this, but the price of cutting mash time down is babysitting it. When doing no boil / no chill, I pull off a small amount of wort immediately when removing the brew bag, go to high heat on another burner, and throw in my hops as called for, doing a 15 minute boil of less than a quart of wort out of 2.5 gallons, the remainder being raised to about 170F, which is below DMS formation temp. The hop decoction is returned to the main mash, which may already be cooling, in fact it can already be in the fermenter. With your ducks in a row, the entire process can be compressed to not much over an hour and done on the kitchen stove.

My kitchen stove has a main burner which I've modified for far more output than normal (gas), and when doing a full boil mash, using that burner and a 2500 watt floating heater, it takes only about 5 minutes to boil from mash temps for 2 to 2.5 gallons. I can also chill to pitch temp in about 8 minutes. There are many ways to cut down your brew day. For example, I often mash all afternoon while working, and rarely do more than a 30 minute boil. I frequently start mash water heating, go out and measure and crush my grains, deciding what and how much as I'm crushing (experience), while the water's heating, dough in, and then sit down on the computer and work up my recipe while mashing. I of course also measure hops while mashing when doing a "normal" mash & boil. I get things out and clean things up and put things away during the process so there is almost no clean up at the end.

H.W.

I NEVER EVER use hot tap water. Your hot water tank has all sorts of minerals in it that significantly alter your water chemistry. Even if you have really pure cold water, your hot water tank will add undesirables minerals. Your technique seems really unconventional, how do you figure your hop utilization? I don't get your "DMS formation" comment.

 

[TexasWine]

i am adding all the water in with the grain during the mash.

Add water to a boil volume of 1.4 gallons.

These statements seem to conflict.

Only a couple of comments. One, if you're maintaining the temp manually you might consider using a warm over to hold temp. Two, see if you can manage a lower boil off rate. You're knocking on 18% or so. If you could get down to a couple of pints, or about 10%, you'll be in the right range. The boil needs to be nothing more than a good simmer.

 

[Norselord]

These statements seem to conflict.

Only a couple of comments. One, if you're maintaining the temp manually you might consider using a warm over to hold temp. Two, see if you can manage a lower boil off rate. You're knocking on 18% or so. If you could get down to a couple of pints, or about 10%, you'll be in the right range. The boil needs to be nothing more than a good simmer.

It's a 1-GALLON batch.
Beersmith tells you that your pre-boil volume should be 1.4 gallons.
If for some reason after removing bag and grains you have less than 1.4 gallons, it tells you to add more.

After boiling you will lose some of the 1.4 gallons to evaporation, let's say 0.2 gallons.
Then, after chilling you will not put the trub in the fermenter, so let's say you put 1.1 gallons into the fermenter.
After fermentation, you leave 0.1 gallons behind in the fermenter.

I'm sorry if Beersmith or myself aren't clear on this.

 

[Owly055]

I NEVER EVER use hot tap water. Your hot water tank has all sorts of minerals in it that significantly alter your water chemistry. Even if you have really pure cold water, your hot water tank will add undesirables minerals. Your technique seems really unconventional, how do you figure your hop utilization? I don't get your "DMS formation" comment.

First the water............. Your water heater has deposits in it FROM THE WATER. It doesn't come that way from the factory............... The fact that it has deposits in it means that it is removing those minerals from the water...... NOT PUTTING THEM IN THE WATER. It may be ugly, but your interpretation of it is backward.

Hop utilization is the same as otherwise. Your decoction contains hops and wort. You adjust your hop additions for shorter boil times, and boil the hops exactly as you would otherwise, just not in the full brew. I add most of my hops late in the brew anyway because those are the flavors and aromas I want.

DMS precursors exist in wort, but do not form DMS except at temps of 180F and above......... You form DMS....... You have to boil it off. If you don't form it, you don't have to boil it off. This has been discussed before in the No Boil Raw Ale thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=540077

You will not get exactly the same brew doing no boil / no chill, and the clarity may not be as good, but you will get a good brew. I find that if I put whirlfloc in my hop decoction and cold crash, clarity is pretty decent.

I'm not advocating abandoning the way folks brew and going to no boil / no chill..... I'm offering options to save brew day time and get a good feel for what different ingredients add. I brew in a number of different ways as time and inclination leads me.

H.W.

 

[Norselord]

I think that the minerals that are left in the hot water tank is mostly calcium carbonate, since it is less soluble in hot water than cold water.

 

[NSMikeD]

It's a 1-GALLON batch.
Beersmith tells you that your pre-boil volume should be 1.4 gallons.
If for some reason after removing bag and grains you have less than 1.4 gallons, it tells you to add more.

After boiling you will lose some of the 1.4 gallons to evaporation, let's say 0.2 gallons.
Then, after chilling you will not put the trub in the fermenter, so let's say you put 1.1 gallons into the fermenter.
After fermentation, you leave 0.1 gallons behind in the fermenter.

I'm sorry if Beersmith or myself aren't clear on this.

For 1 gallon batches, a lot of trub in the fermentor can be painful. Since it's common to use one gallon glass jugs as the fermentor, you are limited to one gallon of total volume going into the fermentor.


In beersmith, I adjust the volumes to be generous in what I will lose in sediment in the boil kettle to make sure i net one gallon of clear beer into the fermentor.

Additionally, I use mesh bags for the hops so I can pull them out after the boil. After I chill, I whirlpool, cover and let it rest for at least 20 minutes before transferring into the fermentor to let the solids settle.

Since i was generous in calculating kettle trub loss, I get my gallon before getting too close to the solids.