So, I've read all 103 pages of this thread via the HBT app on my ipad over the last week. To everyone who has contributed to this, thank you. And a big thanks to Seven for the awesome original post and pictures - I'm a visual learner so I probably learned more from those first page than I could've imagined!
I'm an extract brewer with ~20 batches under my belt. In February, I brewed NB's de Belge IPA, a three-gallon kit as my first BIAB batch. If it's not the best beer I've made, it's definitely top three. And that was despite issues I had with temperature control and reading during the mash. And that's led me to moving full-time on BIAB. I've been hesitant (and maybe a bit intimidated) on moving to all-grain because of the extra equipment and space and variables involved. But after reading this thread, I think BIAB is the right fit for me.
Naturally, I realized about page 20 or so of this thread that I probably should have been writing these down as I went along so my apologies if I've just missed something or forgotten it from earlier.
I have a 10-gallon brew kettle and use an old propane burner so unless I do a really big beer, I think I should be able to do full-volume, no-sparge. I have NB’s
Brewmaster Filter Bag, which barely fits around the opening of my kettle. NB told me that the bag will hold 16 pounds of grain and I assume that at some point, I’ll probably test that limit. And I’ll probably get a custom-made bag at some point from one of the places mentioned previously as the NB bag doesn’t have handles or a drawstring.
Here’s my rough plan for a
fairly simple wheat beer:
Collect and heat 8 gallons of water to ~130
Dough in and stir well; raise temperature to 156
Cover and insulate with blankets.
Check temperature at 30-minute intervals, stirring well each time.
Total mash of 90 minutes
Raise to 170 to mash out and then lift the grain bag.
Let grain bag sit on an oven rack above the kettle to drip and squeeze the bag
Pull sample to test for efficiency
Begin 60-minute boil and continue on from there.
I don’t have a basket that fits well with my kettle so I’ll just use a bag.
I have ~2-inch tall SS pasta bucket/colander that I may put on the bottom of the kettle. It seems that the generally accepted thought is that your bag probably won’t burn during the mash but this step probably won’t hurt, right?
I need a quality thermometer I can use to monitor temperature as my kettle is just a kettle and doesn’t have anything built in. I know there was one referenced before but then there was talk that you had to waterproof that one or something like that. Is there a thermometer out there that someone would recommend that I can leave the probe in the mash to monitor?
What’s the best way to calculate efficiency? I know this was talked about previously but I’m not sure which is the generally accepted method/calculator. I based my recipe off 70 percent so we’ll see.
Is there a formula for how much water I should start with (I’m kidding on this one – I think MysticMead posted it about 100 times over the course of this thread!)
Again, thank you for this thread. It’s helped me tremendously in moving forward.
It is REAL hard to get 6 gals to boil.. but to get to 152 not too bad.. then once there I left the burner on 2 and it stayed at 152. SO I was able to stir the whole time.. I think I did pretty good at getting most everything out.
