BIAB and no-boil questions

[mykrausenhurts]

Ok folks, first post here and hopefully I don't make a complete fool out of myself by posting this in the wrong section. I currently am living in a small apartment and have wanted to start doing some brewing (something I have 0 experience in although I do have a gallon of JAOM as a test going right now). I am considering a BIAB set up and cutting in half some of the 5+ gallon recipes. With that, I also have some odd questions regarding no-boil. I am looking into doing a Hefeweizen and am wanting to do a no-boil version if that is possible. Is it possible to do a standard all-grain mash and then take out some of that wort to boil the hops in so that I don't have to boil the entire wort? I guess I could liken it most to making a hops tea concentrate and then adding it back into the remaining wort. I am trying to produce as little smell and use as little equipment as possible. Any help or guidance towards reading material on the no-boil and BIAB process would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[C-Rider]

Ok folks, first post here and hopefully I don't make a complete fool out of myself by posting this in the wrong section. I currently am living in a small apartment and have wanted to start doing some brewing (something I have 0 experience in although I do have a gallon of JAOM as a test going right now). I am considering a BIAB set up and cutting in half some of the 5+ gallon recipes. With that, I also have some odd questions regarding no-boil. I am looking into doing a Hefeweizen and am wanting to do a no-boil version if that is possible. Is it possible to do a standard all-grain mash and then take out some of that wort to boil the hops in so that I don't have to boil the entire wort? I guess I could liken it most to making a hops tea concentrate and then adding it back into the remaining wort. I am trying to produce as little smell and use as little equipment as possible. Any help or guidance towards reading material on the no-boil and BIAB process would be appreciated. Thanks!

Why No Boil? If you are doing it on a stove indoors you could do small batches. I do 2 gallon batches in 2 gallon paint buckets from HD. Although I use a propane burner you could do it on a stove. Check out this video. I've changed a few things over the years but basic system is the same. Gives 3 six packs.

 

[Sadu]

I was surprised with the lack of smell. If you start with a spotless kitchen, use a range hood / exhaust fan and clean up properly afterwards there should be no smell. Especially for a hefe with a tiny hop profile.

I find the fermenters to be a bit smelly though, especially for hoppy brews.

I have been looking into 15 minute partial boils, for me that's more about time than smell. Might be worth looking into.

Then there's always the pre-hopped extract kits which don't need boiling. Not as much fun but the beer is drinkable and cheap.

 

[mykrausenhurts]

I was surprised with the lack of smell. If you start with a spotless kitchen, use a range hood / exhaust fan and clean up properly afterwards there should be no smell. Especially for a hefe with a tiny hop profile.

I find the fermenters to be a bit smelly though, especially for hoppy brews.

I have been looking into 15 minute partial boils, for me that's more about time than smell. Might be worth looking into.

Then there's always the pre-hopped extract kits which don't need boiling. Not as much fun but the beer is drinkable and cheap.

Thank you for the advice on the partial boil. I will certainly look into that. Do yall think it would be possible for me to split at 5 gallon batch in half in two separate pots and then do BIAB on both with the electric stove? I could poor 1 pot into a 5 gallon #2 HDPE white food grade bucket and then boil the hops in just half of the total recipe. After that I could combine the two in the same bucket. Is that an option or would the two being separate produce some bad bacteria or off flavors?


Although now that I think about it, the main concern to the regular set up was not being able to bring up the wort to a boil because of the size of the pot on an electric stove. With the recipe split in half I may have a better chance this way to bring both portions up to a boil.


Thank yall for your quick responses and willingness to help the new guy.

 

[BenCL]

boil the hops in just half of the total recipe. After that I could combine the two in the same bucket.
.

Although now that I think about it, the main concern to the regular set up was not being able to bring up the wort to a boil because of the size of the pot on an electric stove. With the recipe split in half I may have a better chance this way to bring both portions up to a boil.
guy.

This is the most important, and repeatedly unanswered, part here, and I would like to know the answer as well.

The hardest part sometimes on a home stove is getting a full wort amount to a good rolling boil for the hops.

This is bittering hops.

Split it, rolling boil the hops in 2.5gal...what happens?

What if it takes 1gal to get a good boil?

can you small batch a hop boil and add it to the other part of the wort ? and is it ok?

What are the limits? 5gal wort, can i do a 1gal with hops and add it? or is 2 or more better?

thanks

 

[BenCL]

If you dont get an answer here dont fear posting in the All grain/Biab thread next.

Use your knowledge here and post away.

 

[Dracunculus]

My suspicion is that you would not get good results with only boiling part of the wort, since the boil does more than just isomerize the bittering hops. The boil is important for volatilizing some compounds which you do not want in your fermenter as they can lead to off flavors. More importantly, the boil is needed to eliminate potentially contaminating organisms. While I think that your proposition would be an interesting experiment, I think that it opens up too many potential problems to give good results in the end.

 

[Sadu]

I can do a good 6G boil on my gas stove using 2 burners. I would think you might have trouble with electric.

If you have a kettle just fill it with water and try it out, see how much water you can bring to a good boil in a time you are happy with. You can also look at wider pots which cover more elements, although these lose more watercto evaporation.

Partial boils are normally an extract technique, my understanding is that biab normally needs a full boil. But do some reading on partial mash brewing where you use less base malt in your mash and make up the difference with a can of extract.

Also nothing wrong with 3 gallon batches if thats all your stove can handle.

You dont have to pick a single technique. I do full biab batches when I have time and extract kit batches in between to keep the pipeline full.

 

[SunnyDownSnuff]

Have indoor, electric, and I'll second what Sadu says above. Nothing wrong with 3 gallon batches...in fact three gallons worked out so well for me that I now just do 2 gallon batches!

Will also chime in that yes, boiling is the way to go, however don't know of any hard and fast rules that say you can't try a different approach, test different things, you may come up with some hybrid boil method that works for you.

 

[mykrausenhurts]

Once again, thanks for all the extra input yall. I went to a home brew supply store here and picked up the necessary equipment I need to get started. I bought 4 gallon pots and will be doing two separate 2.5 gallon BIAB batches in them on the stove and then combining them as 1 5 gallon batch in my better bottle before pitching. The only thing I am waiting on is my corona grinder to get there and I think I may give this the ole college try. Although I do need to figure out a way to cool down the worst after I get it out of the pots.

 

[mykrausenhurts]

I am going to be that guy, and bump for further answers.

 

[Dracunculus]

With smaller batches, you could just put each pot in an ice bath in the sink. That usually cools things down fast enough with smaller boils.

 

[mykrausenhurts]

I think at this point, after doing further research, I will be going with a split in half batch in two pots and boiling. I will be doing no-chill in kettle and then taking a bit of that wort out to use as a starter. Then combine everything into 1 fermenter.

 

[jamina1]

I don't have the equipment to do large all grain batches either, but I wanted to do all grain so I started small instead. I've successfully completed 3 all-grain batches, two of which were BIAB. It's pretty easy to do - I have a 4 gallon pot and usually do 2.5 gallon mash / 2 gallon boils. This ends up giving you about 1.5 gallon into the fermenter and about 1 gallon of finished beer after trub / yeast loss. And the best part is that ingredients don't cost so much - it's great for experimenting with new styles and complex recipes but on a small scale.

The most complicated was our IPA which had many many hop additions and dry hopping as well. It came out amazing, and we need to make it again.

The *best* thing that you can do in any case is take meticulous notes so that when you do end up getting larger equipment you can scale up your successful recipes

Another thing to consider is that with smaller pots you can do large batches with extract and just add extra water to the fermenter to hit your OG.

 

[mykrausenhurts]

Wow I am blown away by how little you got out of the starting water. So when a recipe says that it is a 5.5 gallon batch... does that mean that I start with 5.5 gallons of water before putting my grain in? I am a little confused or that.

 

[jamina1]

Wow I am blown away by how little you got out of the starting water. So when a recipe says that it is a 5.5 gallon batch... does that mean that I start with 5.5 gallons of water before putting my grain in? I am a little confused or that.

Most recipes will have a higher amount to start with because for one, the grain will suck up a lot of water and two, the boil will reduce your volume quite a bit. This is exacerbated with smaller amounts of liquid and long boil times.

Larger volumes of water don't reduce quite as much

Every recipe is different and will have different volumes for each step.

Basically, your strike water (what you steep your grains in) is assumed to be a certain volume.

After you collect your wort you re-measure and add water as needed for your recipe's assumed pre-boil volume.

Then when you add to your fermenter you adjust based on the measured OG and how much your fermenter can safely hold.

The more batches you complete the more you'll see how this works in your particular equipment set up and you can dial in your recipes more accurately.

Edit to add: With extracts since you don't need to sparge the grain you can complete your boil with a smaller amount of water and dilute it into the fermenter. This lets you complete the boil in smaller kettles but still do a complete batch.

And normally what is listed as batch size is the volume that goes into the fermenter, so a 5.5 gallon batch would have to be topped up to 5.5 gallons or boiled down to 5.5 gallons depending on the type of recipe and equipment you're using.