My 1st BIAB brewday!

[meridianomrebel]

I have been brewing beer for years using extract. I had never done AG before, except at one of my buddy's house because he has a 3 tier system. I had avoiding AG because my wife would kill me if I purchased any additional pots. So, with that said, I finally decided to give BIAB a shot.

Note, my kettle is 8.5 so I did do a sparge dunk in another pot after pulling my grains out.

I had built a BIAB rig using the plans from BIABStands. I also purchased the Wilser BIAB bag. Here's how my day went:

I added all of my water to my kettle and brought it up to strike temperature. Because my kettle is 8.5 gallons, I knew I could not do a mash with the full water volume needed, so I drained 2 gallons out into another kettle. I double-milled my grains so a very fine crush. I then added my grains and saw I still had room left to add some more water, so in went another gallon (leaving 1 gallon left that I still had to use later on). I stirred like crazy, and waited 60 minutes (I did do another stir at the 30 minute mark).

At the end of 60 minutes, I then went ahead and brought my temp up to mash-out for 5 minutes.

Once that was done, i hoisted the bag and my grains on out:

I swung the arm over to my second kettle and did a quick dunk sparge for a few minutes, and then hoisted the bag up over my kettle. I poured the remaining 1 gallon of sparge water into my kettle and then I started squeezing like crazy several times to get as much as possible out of my grains. A pre-boil gravity reading of 1.032 at 152F = 1.051 adjusted.

I raised the temperature up to a very good boil and followed the rest of my schedule:

At the end of the boil I tossed in my immersion chiller and brought the temperature on down. I transferred my wort into my fermenter and airated it with oxygen and pitched my yeast: I and had 5.5 gallons of

I took a look at my fermenter this morning, and the yeasties are having the time of their life. I may end up having to put a blowoff tube on there.

My final gravity reading for my OG was 1.059 for my 5.5 gallons that I ended up with. I plugged in my numbers into Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator, and it gave me a 93.50% brew house efficiency, unless I used the calculator wrong.

Gotta say, i really enjoyed this entire process, and I am hooked on this method.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Good for you, glad you found success!

I wouldn't bother with the mashout, up to you.

If you are going to add heat while the bag and grain is in the kettle, I suggest med low heat and constant stirring to avoid scorching the grain or bag....if the heat is on you should be stirring IMO.

 

[meridianomrebel]

Thanks Wilser. I will skip mash out next time. Gotta say I was really impressed by how high of a quality your bag is.

 

[doug293cz]

...

My final gravity reading for my OG was 1.059 for my 5.5 gallons that I ended up with. I plugged in my numbers into Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator, and it gave me a 93.50% brew house efficiency, unless I used the calculator wrong.

Gotta say, i really enjoyed this entire process, and I am hooked on this method.

Congrats on your first AG. Sounds like everything went well.

93.5% brewhouse (or even mash) efficiency seems too high to be feasible for a 1.059 OG beer with a single batch (dunk) sparge. What was your total grain weight? And, who's brewhouse efficiency calculator did you use?

Brew on

 

[meridianomrebel]

I thought that was pretty high (it's very well possible I didn't do that calculator correctly). I used this one here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

And here's the kit I used: http://www.boomchugalug.com/downloadables/recipes/flat_tire_all_grain.pdf

 

[doug293cz]

I thought that was pretty high (it's very well possible I didn't do that calculator correctly). I used this one here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

And here's the kit I used: http://www.boomchugalug.com/downloadables/recipes/flat_tire_all_grain.pdf

Looks like your efficiency wasn't as unreasonable as I first thought. Using your grain bill, post-boil volume and OG, my mash/sparge simulator needed to assume a pre-boil volume of 7 gal (1.5 gal boil off), and 0.055 gal/lb grain absorption (quite low, even when squeezing) to hit your OG of 1.059. Efficiency was 91.5%. There is likely some level of measurement error in the grain weights, volumes, and SG's, as well as inaccuracies in the assumed grain potentials, so it's difficult to get perfect agreement between simulations and actuals. Also, a few of us around here think the Brewer's Friend efficiency calculations are a bit flaky.

In any case it looks like you got very close to everything possible out of the grain for the process you used. Well done!

Brew on

 

[Michigan_Wolfman]

Congrats! I'm looking to put together a BIAB system in the near future. Looks like a great way to brew.

 

[unionrdr]

I took a shot at PM/PB BIAB brewing a couple years ago with a nylon bag that stretches over the same 5 gallon SS stock pot I started kit-n-kilo with. It was a lot easier than I previously imagined! Never looked back after that! even did a one gallon all grain porter kit for review at Homebrew Supply Company. I've also found that a 5 gallon (20 qt) kettle can handle a max of 8.3lbs of crushed grains in like 2 1/2 gallons of water & be very near critical mass! So I could conceivably do some low OG beers in the AG format with what I have?
At any rate, my experience just goes to show you don't need lots of stuff top do PM or AG. And that it's a lot simpler than previously thought.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I thought that was pretty high (it's very well possible I didn't do that calculator correctly). I used this one here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

And here's the kit I used: http://www.boomchugalug.com/downloadables/recipes/flat_tire_all_grain.pdf

Oh hey, that's my LHBS! Are you in NH? Or did you just order online?

 

[meridianomrebel]

Oh hey, that's my LHBS! Are you in NH? Or did you just order online?

I ordered online (I'm in MS). I found them when I was looking for a DFH 90 min extract clone. That kit turned out really good so this was the second kit (first AG) I've ordered from them. They have several recipes that sounds really good that I'm trying to narrow down my choices. What kits of theirs have you tried out?

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I ordered online (I'm in MS). I found them when I was looking for a DFH 90 min extract clone. That kit turned out really good so this was the second kit (first AG) I've ordered from them. They have several recipes that sounds really good that I'm trying to narrow down my choices. What kits of theirs have you tried out?

I haven't personally brewed a lot of their kits, I mostly do my own thing. However a buddy of mine brews their kits and all of their stouts he's made are great. The Rathskeller kolsch is great too

 

[meridianomrebel]

They have a Founders Breakfast Stout kit that I really want to try.