Need help with small batch BIAB

Hello all,
I've brewed 6 extract batches so far, but have been upgrading my equipment and process along the way (just added a stir plate and temp controlled fermentation freezer to my setup for my last batch). I washed the yeast from my last pale ale and wanted to try my hand at BIAB brewing. My limiting factor right now is that I only have a 5 gallon pot and I think that the most I can boil on my stove is about 3.5 gallons anyway, so until I upgrade my kettle and burner I'm limited to this.

My problem is that I'm completely lost in how to build a recipe (or where to find a recipe) for a small batch BIAB. I don't even know how big of a recipe I could do...I'm guessing that if I can boil 3.5 gallons I might be able to do a 2.5 gallon BIAB batch. Is this pretty close (assuming I can boil sparge water in a couple of smaller pots)?

Can anyone help me out by pointing me in the right direction? I've read a bunch of threads but still feel pretty lost on how to go about this. If it helps, I'd probably like to do some sort of IPA or something to make use of the American Ale II yeast I washed last week.

Thanks,
John

Ok,first of all you don't have to be stuck with small batches. Just do Partial Boil/Partial Mash BIAB,that's what I do. I have a 5G SS BK/MT. I put a cake cooling rack in the bottom so the paint strainer bag/grains don't burn on the bottom of the kettle.
I heat 2 gallons of local spring water to 150F,then stir in 5lbs of grains. Stirring to break up dough balls & evenly wet the grains. This is an important step to higher efficiency. The grains have to be loose,not clumped up & wetted thoroughly. Working quickly,when the temp goes up to 152-155F,place the lid on the kettle (with floating thermometer inside lashed to the kettle handle). I wrap mine in a thinsulate/down lined winter hunting coat for the one hour mash. It holds heat so well,it goes up one degree when 5lbs or more are mashed.
While it's mashing,heat 1.5 gallons of sparge water to 165-168F. When mash
is done,pull grain bag,place collander over BK/Mt & put grain bag in it. Slowly pour sparge water over grains,allowing to drain well. I don't think a light squeeze would hurt. But since these paint strainer bags are course mesh,squeezing to hard squeezes the gunk through & into the kettle. Just squeeze out the sugary grain juice. Fish cake cooling rack out of the BK/MT with sanitized tongs.
Now you should have 3.5 gallons of fresh wort for the boil. Bring to a boil,stirring occasionally. When it looks close to boiling,keep stirring,as this is foamy hot break time,right before it boils for about 3 minutes.
When it boils,add the bittering hop addition in a muslin hop sack to keep things cleaner & start timer for 60 minutes. Do your flavor & aroma additions at recipe times. Since the grains make up 50% of the fermentables,the couple pounds of extract can all be added as a late addition. I use 3lbs of plain DME,or 3.3lbs of plain LME at flame out to get OG where I want it When topped off to 5 gallons in the FV. These amounts wil give you 1.044-1.050,depending on efficieancy,actual amounts of grains & extract used. Generally 1.046-1.048OG is pretty easy to get. Partial boil partial mash is a great way to use grains in your 5 gallon BK like I & several others are doing. The only thing I didn't have was the 5G paint strainer bag. Although it's LDCarlson & course mesh.
I'd like to try a medium mesh paint strainer bag if that's available,since I wind up straining out about 1/2-2/3C of grain gunk straining into the FV from the chilled wort in the BK/MT.

Grain and hops scale 1-1, so find a 5 gallon batch and just divide the grain and hops by 2 for a 2.5 gallon batch. Go ahead and use all the yeast.

Boil off is a factor of the surface area, so basically the diameter of the pot, so it will boil off the same amount in that smaller batch as it did for the larger batch. You will need to factor in that you are going to lose some water to grain absorbtion. In a 2.5 gallon batch, I'd guess about .3-.35 gallons loss to grian absorbtion, so factor that in as well to your total water volume calculation.

Worse case, just use top off water to get back to 2.5 gallons after your are done, just like you'd do in extract brewing.

Good luck!

Thanks for the quick reply, unionrdr, and for the step-by-step. If I use brewers friend or beer smith and formulated a recipe with 5 lbs of grain, I'd be in the right ballpark? Do you have any recipes posted that use this method that I could reference?

How big of a batch do you think could I do if I wanted to do all grain, no extract?

I did a small partial mash for my last batch, mashing 2 lbs of grains because I wanted to use some munich malt, but I added another 3lbs DME and 4lbs LME. This one is in the secondary now, but OG was actually a little higher than I calculated it'd be, which is fine with me!

John

I do 2.5 gallon batches in two 4 gallon pots. I just put a recipe in beersmith, scale it down, and then split the water into a separate mash and sparge.

Easy breezy.

I made centennial blonde last weekend.

I started out this way and quickly learned an unconventional process that worked for me, as well as to design my own recipes through reading and experience. After about a year of brewing via this method, I realized how much of a hassle it was and found ways to brew 5.5 gallon batches with 90 minute full volume boils. My beers have signficantly improved and I'm still brewing indoors on a gas range for the most part.

Your only true limit is if you have a weak electric range. Everything else can be worked around and you could even borrow another kettle if need be. For a vigorous boil, try splitting the wort in two kettles, straddling each kettle over two burners.

Wyeast 1272 is a good IPA yeast. The grist for American IPA's are really quite simple, usually consisting of a 2-row base with minimal (and sometimes optional) support from light crystal malt, light munich, pilsener malt, vienna malt, wheat malt, rye malt, etc. Stick with American high alpha hops and you won't have an issue. The hop schedule is where things can get complicated. We will need to know your specific goals to recommend an IPA recipe suited to your tastes.

PM me if you're ever stuck in a rut. I've brewed a couple hundred IPAs via extract, partial mash, and all grain of varying boil and batch sizes.

In a 5G kettle with a 5G paint strainer bag,you could mash maybe 7 pounds of grain. But you'd be limited to maybe a 3-4 gallon brew in the fermenter. I prefer to do partial boil partial mash BIAB for 5-6 gallons myself. Adding the extract at flame out makes it easier to get bigger batches. But a 3-4 gallon AG with a 5G kettle is about the limit. I read once where a member did AG partial boil for a 5 gallon batch. It's on here somewhere. I don't see how they did it though. you need concentrated wort to thin down to a good OG.

Thanks again. I have a 15,000 BTU burner that takes about 45 minutes to bring 3.5 gallons to a boil, and I might be able to boil a bit more if I had a larger pot and a more time, but from the research I've done this is too small for 5 gallon full boil. My plan is to go all-grain over the next year or so. I've already got a 10 gallon cylindrical cooler (freebie from work) that I'll convert, but when I do go full boil AG I want to get a bigger burner.

One boil-off calculator I used indicates a .82 gallon boil-off for a 60 minute boil in my 12" pot, so if I start with 3.5 gallons I'll end up 2.5 gallons.

Now I'm trying to wrap my head around how many lbs of grain I need to start with (of course this is recipe dependent), how much water to sparge with, and how to get 3.5 gallons of wort into my pot at the right gravity to reach my target volumes and gravity. I guess this is what Beer Smith or brewers friend helps with, it's just a little overwhelming at first. I'm starting to get it, I just want to understand where my bottlenecks are for volumes. It's clear that mashing won't be the limitation (I can use my cooler for this if necessary), but that my 3.5g boil volume will be.

Thanks again,
John

I can vigorously boil 8 gallons on my home gas stovetop when straddling two burners. The kettle material is important in this regard. Those 10 gallon capacity aluminum stockpots that restaurants use will conduct more heat than a more expensive stainless steel kettle.

This is my range (I think), which has an 17,000 BTU burner, not 15. It's an awesome range for cooking and the best part of our kitchen makeover. I'm not so sure about straddling the burners, I've never tried. I'm using the economy SS pot from midwest...nothing fancy but I needed something inexpensive to get going.

My 2.5 gallon centennial batch used 4.5 pounds of grain, I mashed with 6.75 quarts and dunk sparged the rest to make up the preboil volume which was roughly 3.75 gallons of wort.

Hey,
Thanks again for all the input. Is a volume calculator like this one at Brew365 applicable to BIAB brewing or are they different calculations than your normal mashing process?

Thanks,
John

I was in the same boat that you are. I was trying to use calculators too much and it got confusing. The only number you really need is the preboil volume. Take your pounds of grain multiplied by 1.25 to calculate your mash volume. Subtract the mash volume from the preboil and you have your sparge volume.

I had a ***** of a time trying to get any calculator to know that I was working with a 4 gallon boil pot. I'm not sure if my method is the most scientific but it worked fine and my OG matched beersmith both times I tried. I did get a higher rate of boil off than I anticipated and topped of with a little water at flame out.

A story stick helps measure the volumes.

I've been taking grain in pounds times 1.25-1.5 quarts divided by 4 to get the number of gallons for the mash. Then 1/2 to 2/3 or so sparge volume. I basically have to wind up with 3.5 gallons in my 5 gallon BK/MT for partial boil volume.

GenIka, I've been looking at all the calculators and am realizing that your advice is the simplest way to go. If I start with 8.25lbs of grain, at 1.25 qts/lb my mash water volume will be 2.5 gallons (10 qts) and my total mash volume will be about 3.14 gallons. So far so good.

Then, in order to get to my pre-boil volume of 3.5 gallons, I'd need to sparge with .36 gallons of water. This doesn't seem like enough water to rinse the grains. So if I were to increase my pre-boil volume to 4 gallons (which I think I could boil but would be cutting it close for boil-overs), I'd end up with .86 gallons of sparge water, which still doesn't seem like enough for a second dunk.

It's looking like this grain bill is just too much for my 5 gallon pot. Unfortunately, I've already bought the grains (pre-crushed and blended), so I'd like to figure something out. If I were dunk sparge (batch sparge?) the grains in another 2 gallons of water and use only part these runnings to top of my wort, what would the results be? Are there a lot of sugars extracted in the second sparge, or do I get most of them in the first runnings?

Other options would be to leave out some of the grains or to split the wort into a two-pot boil, maybe a 3.5 gallon boil and another 1-gallon boil.

Thoughts? Thanks for the help so far...I'm sure after I do this once or twice it'll be a walk in the park.

John

I'm just into the boil of a 2 1/2 gallon batch BIAB so I remember pretty well how it goes. I start with about 3 3/4 gallons of water in the 5 gallon pot. I heat it to "strike temp" and stir in the grains. Yes the pot will be pretty full but it still should have nearly an inch of freeboard. Put the lid on and let it sit for the mash period. Pull the bag of grains out and set them into a bowl with a colander inside it. Let it drain for a bit and while holding the bag of grains in place, dump the collected wort into the pot. Turn the burner on to start heating the wort you have collected and continue to collect the wort from the bag of grains, dumping it into the heating pot when you have some collected. Use a lid from a smaller pot to squeeze more wort out of the bag. This helps collect the sugary wort that would have been left in a conventional mash tun when it is drained.

Look at the amount of wort collected now and see if you want more in the pot to account for the water you boil away. I typically need another quart or 2 so I set the bowl into the sink and run some cold water into the bag of grains, stirring it whatever I can without spilling the grains. Back to the squeezing and draining routine, I now should have enough wort collected and it will be well on its way to boiling. You can dump the bag of grains now. Notice how dry the grain is? You have very little water absorption because you squeezed almost all of it out.

RM-MN,
Thanks...sounds simple enough. Out of curiosity, how do your measured original gravities compare to your calculated gravities? I'm not incredibly concerned over "hitting the numbers" since I don't really care if the beer is 5% or 7%, just wondering what to expect.

Thanks,
John

JohnK93 said:

RM-MN,
Thanks...sounds simple enough. Out of curiosity, how do your measured original gravities compare to your calculated gravities? I'm not incredibly concerned over "hitting the numbers" since I don't really care if the beer is 5% or 7%, just wondering what to expect.

Thanks,
John

Click to expand...

http://hopville.com/recipe/1698182

This is the recipe I used today. I set the expected efficiency to 80% when I was building the recipe to fit the "mild" category and overshot my OG anyway, coming in at 1.043 instead of the predicted 1.038. That has happened fairly often for me. Note that I use a Corona style mill and have it set as tight as it goes so my grains are ground up pretty fine.

JohnK93 said:

GenIka, I've been looking at all the calculators and am realizing that your advice is the simplest way to go. If I start with 8.25lbs of grain, at 1.25 qts/lb my mash water volume will be 2.5 gallons (10 qts) and my total mash volume will be about 3.14 gallons. So far so good.

Then, in order to get to my pre-boil volume of 3.5 gallons, I'd need to sparge with .36 gallons of water. This doesn't seem like enough water to rinse the grains. So if I were to increase my pre-boil volume to 4 gallons (which I think I could boil but would be cutting it close for boil-overs), I'd end up with .86 gallons of sparge water, which still doesn't seem like enough for a second dunk.

It's looking like this grain bill is just too much for my 5 gallon pot. Unfortunately, I've already bought the grains (pre-crushed and blended), so I'd like to figure something out. If I were dunk sparge (batch sparge?) the grains in another 2 gallons of water and use only part these runnings to top of my wort, what would the results be? Are there a lot of sugars extracted in the second sparge, or do I get most of them in the first runnings?

Other options would be to leave out some of the grains or to split the wort into a two-pot boil, maybe a 3.5 gallon boil and another 1-gallon boil.

Thoughts? Thanks for the help so far...I'm sure after I do this once or twice it'll be a walk in the park.

John

Click to expand...

You need to factor in grain absorption too ~ .075/.1 gallons per pound of grain. I would heat up extra water, just in case.

Other than that it looks fine to me. I will be doing 6 pounds in a four gallon this afternoon, so you should be fine with your 5 gallon.

OK...had to put off brewing this until next weekend, but I'll post how it goes.

John

I brewed this batch today and it went pretty well, although punching my numbers into brewers friend indicates my efficiency was only about 46%. Instead of an OG of 1.071 I got 1.056. I wasn't expecting 1.071, but I thought it might be in the 60s. I think this was partially due to me pushing my pre-boil volume a little higher than planned so I'd get a few more beers. Fortunately I threw in the extra pound of 2-row and still got an OG of 1.056, so it won't be too light.

All-in-all, it went pretty well. My first all grain batch and my first time re-pitching yeast. I washed the yeast from my pale ale 3 weeks ago and had it in my fridge, made up a 1 liter starter. My biggest problem was cooling...I usually top off my wort with cold water to get to 5+ gallons, which helps get the temp down to pitching temp. Since I wasn't adding water today, it took a while. It got down to 80 in about 30 minutes, but that last 10 degrees took forever. In fact, I had to run some errands while it cooled, so it was a few hours between getting down to 80 and pitching.

After only a few hours I see some airlock action. I remember hearing Jamil say that some lag time is good, but whatever. It is what it is....now I wait.

Thanks again for the help,
John