Modifying recipe instructions from traditional all-grain to BIAB?

[Bria]

Hiya
I'm planing my first foray into BIAB, working with a recipe (Papazian, oatmeal stout) that calls for a couple temperature changes during mashing, and am unsure on how to proceed. Instructions are as follows:

Add malted barley, oats, crystal malt and roasted barley to 6qt of 150-degree water. Temperature will stabilize to 130-135 degrees. Hold temp at 130 for 30 min.
Easy enough.
Add 3qt boiling water to bring temp to just below 155. Hold for 45 min
Again, easy enough to boil water in a separate vessel, add, and insulate. But then:
Add more heat to raise mash to 167, then sparge with 2 gallons 170-degree water

So my question for yall veteran brewers is: how critical is that last step of raising the temp before sparging? And if critical, how do I successfully raise the temp? More boiling water and hope I don't run out of room? Lift the grains, turn on the direct heat, then re-dunk before sparging?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[NSMikeD]

With BIAB you can go right to boil after pulling the bag. Pulling the bag is the sparge step so going right to boil negates the need to mash out.
Since BIAB can vary with additional steps, you can also hold back water and the rinse the grains when you pull the bag.

I recommend keeping it a simple as possible at first since simple results in very good beer. As you gain experience you can experiment to find the right balance of complexity to dial in your beer that works for you.

I find plugging in recipes into a software like BrewFather or BeerSmith helps with these decisions.

 

[RM-MN]

A lot has changed in brewing since Charlie Papazian wrote that recipe. I've brewed a lot of beers and have never once done a rest at 130. That would be a protein rest and it is most effective for under-modified malt. Try to find an under-modified malt these days. It's tough.

Instead I would do a single rest at 152-155. You don't need the 167 degree rest either, it is only valid for fly sparging and probably not very often even then. Same with the hot water sparge. The only thing it gains you is a quicker time to get to boil. Sparging with cool water does the same job as the hot, wet grains quickly warms the cool water anyway and avoid needing to heat more water.

 

[jdauria]

Grain bill wise, there is no difference between an all grain recipe or a BIAB recipe...except for your brewhouse efficiency, which you can dial in after a few brews. You can also mill the grain finer than with regular all grain since you don't need to worry about a stuck sparge and finer milled grain will help with efficiency.

As for the mash temps, as the others said, you don't need a bunch of steps and don't need to do a sparge. All you water goes in at once with BIAB. Drier beers you would mash at 148-149, most other beers 152-154...the higher your mash temp, the more body the beer has as you will get unfermentable sugars also from the mash. The lower the temp, the lower the body.