BIAB 21# grain bill possible for 10 gallon batch?

[eluterio]

Ive been reading and searching and reading and searching on this subject. Ive seen several 5.5 gal batches with 17# of grains, this is the highest Ive seen so far. Im wanting to do as my first BIAB a 10 gallon batch to try 2 different yeast. My set up is a 15.5 keggle, 5 gallon ss pot for sparging.

My biggest question is should I do this big of a grain bill using Lowes/homedepot paint strainers?? Im thinking of splitting up the 21# in to 3 separate bags. I dont want to spend the money right now on the nice fancy bags that ive seen. Im figuring my strike water to be at 10.5 gallons, lose roughly 3 gallons leaves me with 8.5gal. Sparge each bag separate to make up the 3.5 gallons and add it to 12 each bag gets a gallon of water.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

 

[eluterio]

I should just relax and have a home brew however, Im out March Madness was that!

 

[tonyc318]

I recently started drinking a Belgian pale ale that I did BIAB. It was a 10 gal batch and the total grain bill was 22 lbs. I don't know about the paint strainer bags though. I bought one from a guy that makes them and has tested them with over 60 lbs of sand. I think his site is bagbrewer.com. Worth the money. He even custom makes them according to the dimensions of your brew kettle.

 

[eluterio]

Thanks for the info. How did you lift it out?

 

[tonyc318]

That was actually a big PITA and I probably will never do that again. Haha. I had a rope and clip set up to hold the bag slightly above the wort. Still a challenge. 22# of wet grain is very heavy and I'm a young guy that lifts weights. People use pulley systems to make it easier. U can find threads on this forum. Good luck!

 

[Bigscience]

I've done 2 blonde BIAB 10 gallon batches and they were a PITA. Volume is more the issue than the grain weight. Some tricks to hit your final volume are to boil less to reduce evaporation, hop less to avoid hip loss and to hold back some of the water until after you dough in. You'll be so full you can't stir.

Here is what I did but have since got a ratcheting pulley from Home Despot.

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

Just my personal opinion, and I have done a BIAB before, but when you get to the point where you need things like pulleys, hoists, ladders, etc., it is far simpler to just convert an old cooler into a mash tun. For about $12 or $13 dollars I converted an old 13 gallon Coleman cooler into a mash tun with a ball valve and removable manifold. I am still using it more than a year later and it can still be used for its original purpose if we need another cooler. BIAB is nice, but at some point it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[eluterio]

My intentions are to get my second keggle ready to be my mash tun. Only problem is the wife has put a limit on what i can get a month. So equipment or beer not both. Since i can fo a biab might as well. I was looking to see if i can do a ten gallon batch to carry me over for awhile. Last keg empty, my specialty beer is being kegged tomorrow so i need another one to replace. Pleasing the wife comes first to be able to brew. By next month i should have the mash tun ready.

 

[eluterio]

So question, for my first BIAB so i just do 5 gallon or go big and do 10?

 

[MikeyLXT]

Do 5 gallons. Learn your process first and it will be MUCH easier only dealing with 10 lbs of grains.

 

[kapbrew13]

Just my personal opinion, and I have done a BIAB before, but when you get to the point where you need things like pulleys, hoists, ladders, etc., it is far simpler to just convert an old cooler into a mash tun. For about $12 or $13 dollars I converted an old 13 gallon Coleman cooler into a mash tun with a ball valve and removable manifold. I am still using it more than a year later and it can still be used for its original purpose if we need another cooler. BIAB is nice, but at some point it just doesn't make sense to me.

+1 and this is how my 10 gallon mash tun was born. And this is why I do full AG now. Bad back, heavy bag, ladder setup with pulleys. Too much for me.

 

[eluterio]

Do 5 gallons. Learn your process first and it will be MUCH easier only dealing with 10 lbs of grains.

Thanks i think your right now i have to make adjustment for 5 gallons.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I'm a fan of BIAB and also a big fan of cooler MT's. The key to large grain bills and BIAB is to have an accessible spot to hook onto, as in a screw hook in the cieling, etc. With a simple locking pulley it can be quite simple.
Only 5 bucks......

 

[LowNotes]

I did almost 19# for a 3.5g batch, details are chronicled here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/og-iipa-little-high-1-115-a-386175/

I split the grain into 2 of the 5g Lowes paint strainging bags and it worked great. So...yes, it is definitely possible to do 20+ lbs of grain doing BIAB, and your idea to split the grain between multiple bags is a good one.

 

[RyeGuy]

I did a 10 gal pumpkin ale with 26 lbs of grain plus some cooked and canned pumpkin in my keggle. So you can do it no problem. Just be ready to do work on the lift and say some prayers for your stitching to hold. I did it with my homemade voile bag so the HD professional stitched ones should definitely work. +1 on holding back some of your water though, my keggle overflowed a little first time I did it.

 

[Bucks-04]

Another idea instead of a paint strainer bag is a laundry bag. I bought two off of amazon and it was really cheap.

 

[Bigscience]

Just my personal opinion, and I have done a BIAB before, but when you get to the point where you need things like pulleys, hoists, ladders, etc., it is far simpler to just convert an old cooler into a mash tun. For about $12 or $13 dollars I converted an old 13 gallon Coleman cooler into a mash tun with a ball valve and removable manifold. I am still using it more than a year later and it can still be used for its original purpose if we need another cooler. BIAB is nice, but at some point it just doesn't make sense to me.

For me it's not so much about having the equipment it's the time. I have a 3 keggle HERMS system but I don't always have the time for a full blown AG session. There are times I'll still brew up an extract batch just to get something in the keg. I do feel like my mash tun sitting next the the kettle is give me a dirty look though.

In this picture, that was my buddy's BIAB system. For him it's not a matter of cost or time, it's about space. He doesn't have room for a full blown system yet but plans to have 3 of these eventually on e he gets more space. It also works well because what you can't see off the picture is we're also doing a double batch on my system at the same time. His BIAB system is really portable so be can brew anywhere.

I guess I don't agree that BIAB is some kind of half assed way of brewing. It can fulfill a need for time/speed/portability that full AG systems have a harder time doing. But back to the OP, you can do 10 gallons of BIAB beer but it is tricky and you won't be able to make monster gravity beers without some sort of sparge but the you're not really BIAB anymore.

 

[looneybomber]

So question, for my first BIAB so i just do 5 gallon or go big and do 10?

Or, you could do 5 gal twice. Mash half your grain, sparge, pour wort in keggle, repeat with the next 5 gal. You can still do your 10gal boil.

I think those 5 gal paint bags can hold 18-19lbs of grain. Here was my first attempt at a biab partial mash. This was 16.67lbs of grain I believe...pretty full.

 

[eluterio]

So went with a 5.5 batch last night 10.5# of grains. Started out with 8.5 gallons of water at 160. Everything I researched ranged from 154 to 161. I figured I wanted to mash at 151 at min but would be happy at 154. Well, at 160 temp only dropped 2 degrees in 10 mins. I had some sparge water on the side at 135 raising up to 170 so I used a gallon and had the temp drop to 154, Golden!

Keep in mind I dont have a sight glass. Measured by using a long ss pole with my own dents to measure gal of water. So in my keggle had 9.5 gallons of water ok should figure after all the research and what I had for grains per pound and water loss was 1.2qt x 10.5# = 12.6 qt water loss. 3.15 gallon loss. I did the math and would end up with just under 6.5 gallons. Well have to say disclaimer now, It was late at night guys were over watching March Madness and drinking. I figured to use 1 gallon of sparge water to use to get my gallon up to 6.5 to 6 3/4 gallons of water. Turns out I didnt loose that as much as I should have and had about 9 gallons in. CRAP!!

Refractometer had a reading 1.030 SG, oh well I suppose I would use this as experience. Idea crossed my mind, :cross: since im not doing anything as I bring to boil and let boil longer before hop addition Ill lose water. I did but not enough, unfortunately. Finished off with 60 min hop additions ending with I think way too much wort however, SG raised to 1.040, Im ok with that.

Another new think I didnt take into consideration. 10inch SS mash screen isnt meant for screening out leaf hops like I thought it would. Plugged up the dip tube and rendered my valve useless. Not all loss, Auto siphon here we come!

End result I had 5 gallon fermenting bucket filled and 1.5 gals into my better bottle carboy that I will just dump yeast into and see what I get! No sense in letting perfectly good wort go to waste.

With all that said it was a great learning experience and doing it again next weekend. This time no home brew before and during the process. Total time from start to finished was about 3.5 hours or so. Member I had a few!!

Thanks for the input and suggestion and hope this post will help the next BIAB newbie! Should I post pics?

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

For me it's not so much about having the equipment it's the time. I have a 3 keggle HERMS system but I don't always have the time for a full blown AG session. There are times I'll still brew up an extract batch just to get something in the keg. I do feel like my mash tun sitting next the the kettle is give me a dirty look though.

In this picture, that was my buddy's BIAB system. For him it's not a matter of cost or time, it's about space. He doesn't have room for a full blown system yet but plans to have 3 of these eventually on e he gets more space. It also works well because what you can't see off the picture is we're also doing a double batch on my system at the same time. His BIAB system is really portable so be can brew anywhere.

I guess I don't agree that BIAB is some kind of half assed way of brewing. It can fulfill a need for time/speed/portability that full AG systems have a harder time doing. But back to the OP, you can do 10 gallons of BIAB beer but it is tricky and you won't be able to make monster gravity beers without some sort of sparge but the you're not really BIAB anymore.

I never said BIAB was "some kind of half assed way of brewing." I think it is a perfectly legitimate way to do batches with 10 or 12 pound grain bills, especially if you are brewing indoors on a stove. My personal opinion is if you start needing more equipment like pulleys, ropes, ladders, etc. so you can do a batch with a 20 pound grain bill, it just no longer makes sense to me when a cooler mash tun is so much easier. That doesn't mean it isn't right for someone else.

As to space and amount of equipment, you don't necessarily need more equipment to do AG with a cooler, especially if you can eliminate pulleys, ladders, etc. I don't have a fancy 3-tier or even single-tier system. I have a cooler mash tun (that I can still use as a cooler) and a keggle with a propane burner. I heat all of my water in the keggle and do my first runnings into a bucket. In fact, I don't think my system takes up any more room than your buddy's system in the picture. (Of course, this doesn't include my room full of grains, equipment, kegs, bottle, fermentors, etc.)

 

[BamaProud]

Something like this would be good for a big BIAB grain bill. Put the bag in it...no chance of a broken bag.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Something like this would be good for a big BIAB grain bill. Put the bag in it...no chance of a broken bag.

A well stitched bag doesn't break...I also like to mash full volume w/ no dead space under the basket...sorry, but I don't like using strainer baskets, and don't see the need. I actually have one and prefer not to use it FWIW.

BIAB strength test...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/biab-polyester-voile-strength-test-384445/

 

[BamaProud]

Yes of course no substitute for a quality bag, but he said he was using a paint strainer bag.

 

[Bigscience]

I never said BIAB was "some kind of half assed way of brewing." I think it is a perfectly legitimate way to do batches with 10 or 12 pound grain bills, especially if you are brewing indoors on a stove. My personal opinion is if you start needing more equipment like pulleys, ropes, ladders, etc. so you can do a batch with a 20 pound grain bill, it just no longer makes sense to me when a cooler mash tun is so much easier. That doesn't mean it isn't right for someone else.

As to space and amount of equipment, you don't necessarily need more equipment to do AG with a cooler, especially if you can eliminate pulleys, ladders, etc. I don't have a fancy 3-tier or even single-tier system. I have a cooler mash tun (that I can still use as a cooler) and a keggle with a propane burner. I heat all of my water in the keggle and do my first runnings into a bucket. In fact, I don't think my system takes up any more room than your buddy's system in the picture. (Of course, this doesn't include my room full of grains, equipment, kegs, bottle, fermentors, etc.)

I guess I'm not seeing home adding a rope, pulley and a ladder as an A frame is more equipment than creating a new mash tun in a cooler. When I BIAB, I hang the pulley off my garage door strapping. There is also a simplicity to just pulling a bag out of 1 container and starting a boil. The sparging into a bucket from a cooler and then into your kettle seems more complicated.

If I had it do all over again, I think I'd stop at a system like my buddies. While it doesn't have the capacity, it's faster, smaller and cheaper than a full blown system.

 

[GASoline71]

I watched one of these all grain BIAB deals with a friend of mine the other day. How it seems more efficient, and less complicated is something I failed to see. I don't want to start a pissing match here... but as I sat there with my mash in my cooler doin' it's thing, and I drinking a beer. I watched my friend struggle with lifting and straining this massively heavy bag of grain and make a mess on the driveway.

I then drained my cooler twice and started a boil...

Gary

 

[eluterio]

I cant tell you the difference i dont have my mash tun set up yet i need more equipment. I was out of beer have one keggle built figured what the hell. It was fun lets say experimental and doing it again soon.

 

[Hawaiibboy]

I have never brewed extract or PM. I used a three keggle system that my friends had back in Oregon. When I moved back to Hawaii I still wanted to brew but had to save money to do it. So as I began planning I decided BIAB would be the best way to go.

I have saved money on my equipment immensely. I have the ability to do AG (a requirement for me since I didn't want to "step backwards" and do PM or extract). Also the big deciding factor was the ability to brew various sizes, especially 3gal batches. I really like brewing every weekend (I've done 3 batches so far over the past 2 weeks) and it allows me to brew as often as I want really with out having to worry about having an obnoxious amount of 1 or two beers.

I use a custom made voile bag, a 10.5gal S/S polarware economy kettle and a darkstar burner from NB. With this set up I can brew "big" 3gal batches (like my most recent IIPA @ 1.097 with 5.5ozs of hops and 13lbs of grain) and 5gal beers with up to about 20lbs of grain.

 

[Hawkeye11]

So went with a 5.5 batch last night 10.5# of grains. Started out with 8.5 gallons of water at 160. Everything I researched ranged from 154 to 161. I figured I wanted to mash at 151 at min but would be happy at 154. Well, at 160 temp only dropped 2 degrees in 10 mins. I had some sparge water on the side at 135 raising up to 170 so I used a gallon and had the temp drop to 154, Golden!

Keep in mind I dont have a sight glass. Measured by using a long ss pole with my own dents to measure gal of water. So in my keggle had 9.5 gallons of water ok should figure after all the research and what I had for grains per pound and water loss was 1.2qt x 10.5# = 12.6 qt water loss. 3.15 gallon loss. I did the math and would end up with just under 6.5 gallons. Well have to say disclaimer now, It was late at night guys were over watching March Madness and drinking. I figured to use 1 gallon of sparge water to use to get my gallon up to 6.5 to 6 3/4 gallons of water. Turns out I didnt loose that as much as I should have and had about 9 gallons in. CRAP!!

Refractometer had a reading 1.030 SG, oh well I suppose I would use this as experience. Idea crossed my mind, :cross: since im not doing anything as I bring to boil and let boil longer before hop addition Ill lose water. I did but not enough, unfortunately. Finished off with 60 min hop additions ending with I think way too much wort however, SG raised to 1.040, Im ok with that.

Another new think I didnt take into consideration. 10inch SS mash screen isnt meant for screening out leaf hops like I thought it would. Plugged up the dip tube and rendered my valve useless. Not all loss, Auto siphon here we come!

End result I had 5 gallon fermenting bucket filled and 1.5 gals into my better bottle carboy that I will just dump yeast into and see what I get! No sense in letting perfectly good wort go to waste.

With all that said it was a great learning experience and doing it again next weekend. This time no home brew before and during the process. Total time from start to finished was about 3.5 hours or so. Member I had a few!!

Thanks for the input and suggestion and hope this post will help the next BIAB newbie! Should I post pics?

For that grain bill, I use about 7.25 gallons. Most of my grain bills are slightly larger, so my average is 7.5 gallons. Then I dunk sparge the grain in 1 gallon 170 degree water, squeezing as hard as I possibly can to extract all of the wort. With the squeeze I only end up losing about 1.5 gallons to grain absorption, leaving 6.5 gallons pre boil. The first couple of BIAB brews I did, I end up with way too much water like you after using the various calculators. My guess is that squeezing is not in their equations.

 

[Hawaiibboy]

For that grain bill, I use about 7.25 gallons. Most of my grain bills are slightly larger, so my average is 7.5 gallons. Then I dunk sparge the grain in 1 gallon 170 degree water, squeezing as hard as I possibly can to extract all of the wort. With the squeeze I only end up losing about 1.5 gallons to grain absorption, leaving 6.5 gallons pre boil. The first couple of BIAB brews I did, I end up with way too much water like you after using the various calculators. My guess is that squeezing is not in their equations.

That's about right on the money for me too. I just omit the dunk sparge and hold the bag over my kettle and let it drain with a little help from my hand. With my 13lb grain bill though I was standing there for a while...

 

[eluterio]

Im going for my 3rd attempt this weekend. My 2nd was slightly better but only had 4.75 gallons isntead of 5 but I was close to what I wanted for SG. Next batch Ill have a sight glass to helpme out on my water levels. Ill keep updating but this time Ill will take pictures of it for those who are visual learners.