2nd BIAB please critique/help

[TNTgill]

So I brewed my second BIAB today. First one turned out great. Today I felt like all went well. Planned everything out. Took excellent notes. But missed my numbers fairly big time.

Recipe: Grand Cru
7.5 lbs Pils
0.5 lbs Cara-pils

Mash:
10.5 g kettle with Bayou classic sp50 burner
BIAB no sparge
7.6 gallons RO water no additives
Strike temp 157 F
Target Mash temp 152 F actual 153 F at mash in. Dropped to 152 F and held steady for 45 minutes ( I did add a little heat there to get back to 153 F)
Mashed out at 169 F for 10 minutes.
Pre-boil 6.8 gallons at 1.030 (76 F)

Boil: 60 minutes
Hallertau 1 oz at 60 minutes
Honey 36 oz at 30 minutes
Orange peel 1 oz at 5 minutes
Coriander 1 oz at 5 minutes
Hallertau 1 oz at 2 minutes

Chilled to 76 F in 18 minutes
Post boil 5.9 gallons at 1.054 (76 F)

Target O.G. 1.063. at 5.5 gallons in fermenter

Wyeast 3944 pitched into 1.5L starter

My first BIAB I didn't keep great notes but used almost the same amount of water (tap water and added 5.2 ph stabilizer) and hit my numbers to a tee. Could the 5.2 actually worked in my case (first batch)? Or does anyone see anything I did wrong. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[JimTheHick]

Tell us about the crush of your grains. I run mine through my home mill twice and end up with about 75% eff.

 

[TNTgill]

Same crush as before. Double crushed by Midwest brewer's. When I plug the numbers into several online calculators I get an O.G. of 1.054 which is what I got when corrected for temp but the recipe said I should get a 1.063. So I may be ok.

 

[crocks86]

I've had some pretty big differences between the numbers in the recipe (mostly been doing ones from brewing classic styles lately) and the numbers from different calculators available, not really sure why but the beers turned out great either way with just higher or lower alcohol content

 

[rhamilton]

Well firstly, your numbers aren't all that far off. To hit your target OG, you'd have to boil down to 5.06 gallons which means you only came out less than a 1/2 gallon short which isn't too bad for a newbie. My first BIAB's were in the 50%-60% efficiency range

• #1 is your crush. Since you are a BIABer, you can crush the hell out of your grain. I suggest a Corona mill if you plan on milling your own grain. Having the right crush can get you 10%+ more efficiency.
• #2 is a sparge. I know BIABers don't like to sparge but it helps. In my case, it helps incredibly. I heat 2-3 gallons on my stove to 170°F and just pour it over the bag. A sparge + your mashout should get you 5%-10% more efficiency.

EDIT: After reading your post I found a few more issues:

Your mash time is too short. Traditional brewers mash for an hour, BIABers need more time. Without having a refractometer/hydrometer to verify gravity, I would definitely mash for 90 minutes with a thorough stirring every 15-30 minutes. One of the few downsides of brewing in a bad is the longer time it takes to mash.

If you fix everything above and you are still under-performing, consider not doing full-volume mashes. I had problems with it so I moved to a traditional 1.25-1.5 quarts / pound of grain mash volume. I then sparge until I hit my target boil volume.

 

[tre9er]

The 5.2 could have an effect. Mash PH can make a difference, yes. Personally I'd look into dunk-sparging in another pot, but not if you like your current process a lot.

Stirring like mad when you dough-in, and adding the grain S-L-O-W-L-Y as you do so, plus stirring like mad after the mash...these can help a lot, as can the aforementioned crush.

Corona mills are cheap if you think about crushing your own. $30 shipped most of the time. 2 buckets+a scrap piece of 2x4+a cheap 1/2" drill (or hand-crank) and you're in business.

I'd keep things the same and add the 5.2 again next time, then see what you get. Then you'll know if it's the PH or your process/crush.

 

[pvtschultz]

I'm not sure how you thought that you would get a 1.063 SG with that recipe. I plugged your numbers into BeerSmith and came up with a 5.5 gallon 1.054 SG assuming 75% efficiency which IME is pretty typical for no sparge BiaB. I had to jack it up to 90% to get the 1.063. It looks like you got 80% efficiency. I don't get "missed big time" since you're right in the ball park. Just adjust for your typical efficiency next time so your target gravity equals reality.

 

[TNTgill]

Well the numbers for the O.G. if 1.063 were from Midwest's Grand Cru recipe. I'm not sure how those are calculated but every other of there recipe kits have been spot on. The crush was very good from them. They will double crush if you ask and it was pretty finely crushed in my opinion. I did sparge my first batch so that may be one reason that those numbers matched more closely but I am ok with 75 % efficiency. It's happily chugging away now in the fermenter so we will see how it is in a few months. Thanks everyone for the suggestions and help. Any more tips would be great also.

 

[TNTgill]

Well after looking at the insert for the recipe from Midwest it says the OG is 1.054-058 which I hit. The outside of the box said 1.063 was expected so I hit my marks. Thanks everyone for the advice and support. The 3944 wit beer yeast is slowly getting the job done. 9 days in and still bubbling slowly. Gravity was at 1.016 yesterday and shooting for 1.010. I'll check again tomorrow. The krausen still hasn't dropped, how long should I give it. It gravity is stable I am going to rack to secondary for some bulk aging on Monday which will be 2 weeks if not stable I'll let it sit 3 weeks. Thanks again everyone.

 

[pvtschultz]

You might want to consider just leaving the beer on the yeast for a full three weeks, especially for larger beers. I've found that bulk aging on the yeast speeds up the maturation process, reduces the risks of oxidation and infection with no real side effects. Any longer than 3-4 weeks would warrant racking off the yeast to prevent autolysis (sp?).