BIAB second time around help

[polagon]

Hey all,

So very new in to all of this, and I'm thinking of embarking on my second batch of the Punkie IPA this weekend (http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... ductId=611).
I did my first one a a few months back, and currently enjoying what came out from it now. There are a couple of obvious misses I did, which I now can and want to 'fix', but also super eager to get back to it all as it was a fun and enjoyable day.

However, there are some things I would very much want to clarify. So I'm planning to do the second 19 litres batch in my 33l stockpot and I'm still more or less as unsure as previous time about my mash volume. I tried to use BIABacus to make sense of it, but to be honest that was all a bit too confusing.

How much is recommended for this volume - mash, and sparging?
I've read tons and tons about this, not found any suggested advice that clarifies the options and I'm now left a bit in the middle, should I do a bigger volume and sparge less or the opposite? (I understand it might not be one correct answer, but in need of some directions).

Thanks!

[injac]

Can I ask if there was a particular part of Biabacus that was confusing you or all of it in general?

I use this myself so happy to guide you through.

[bigchris]

I mentioned in an earlier post to emyrjones88, that I use Graham Wheelers beer engine to calculate how much water to start with and this is simple software, free, and gives me good enough results. I feed in the ingredient list and it tells me how much total liquor to use. From the grain/hop bill on the maltmiller site which you linked to, Beer engine is forecasting, for me, to start with 29 litres of water for 19 Litres of finished beer. With just a 33 litre pot and 5Kgs of grain, there is a risk of overflow when adding the grains. I think that after heating the water, before adding the grains, I'd drain off a couple, of litres until the grain is 'doughed in' to give me some stirring room, then once mashing is finished and the bag withdrawn, add the water back in for the boil.

I can understand your difficulty in finding a definitive answer though. On the thread viewtopic.php?f=35&t=74557 there were three different answers to the question from emyrjones88. He gave the recipe and asked for guidance on the amount of water and received three quite different answers, from 1 'Piss Artist' and 2 'steady drinkers' :- 28 Litres, 33 Litres and 37 Litres.

emyrjones88, it would be interesting to hear how your brewday went.

[polagon]

Thanks for the help.

Regarding BIABacus, I guess it at first seemed a bit overwhelming even if each part isn't necessarily difficult to understand. Just part of that and everything else that goes into brewing, etc when you're completely fresh to it. But started doing my own recipe there, but then found someone else who had done one on a forum for another user with more or less same troubles as I had/have. Who also had the same sized stockpot as I have, but now in BIABacus it gives me a mash volume to exceeds my capacity. But maybe the simple answer to that problem is to decrease the wanted outcome for my FV? Figured it could still be 19l, but it would add in sparging by itself?

And thanks bigchris, for me as a newbie it is as much about advice as it is about reassurance that you're on the right path. So did similar to your advice last time round, but was thinking since considering the recipe states a low starting volume that it would be good to start with a lower mash and have a bigger sparge after the mash?

[injac]

Can you send me the recipe and your kettle dimensions? I'll plug them into BIABacus here and take a look.

I do sparges and top ups through BIABacus to get desired volume in fermenter.

[polagon]

Copying from my link in the 1st post.

My pot: 33l 35cm*35cm

Boil Size: 26.84 l
Post Boil Volume: 21.84 l
Batch Size : 19.00 l
Mash liquor Volume 12.5l
Mash Temp 66c 90mins
Estimated OG: 1.059 SG
Estimated Color: 10.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 43.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
5.00 kg Pale Malt

50.00 g Bravo [14.00 %] - Boil 12.0 min
18.00 g Chinook PELLETS [14.10 %] - Boil 5.0 min
16.00 g Ahtanum [5.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min
16.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min
16.00 g Ahtanum [5.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min
16.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min
16.00 g Chinook PELLETS [14.10 %] - Boil 0.0 min

16.00 g Ahtanum [5.30 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days
16.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days
16.00 g Chinook PELLETS [14.20 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days

[injac]

Hi mate,

I've just taken a look and it is possible - its high OG target that makes things tricky.

If you PM me your email addy I can email you my version of your BIABacus but at it's most basic:

With that efficiency you would actually need 5.46kg of malt. In strike water of 26.4l. Making your total mash volume around 30.5l. Sparge with 2.5l and add 1 litre during your boil as soon as you have space in the kettle due to boil off etc.

Now if you only have 5kg malt exactly the best I could get it to was 17.4l in the FV. Doing it this way means 4.925kg in your mash with 26.84l of strike water - total mash volume will be 30.5l. Sparge with just 1 litre and nothing to add during the boil.

[polagon]

I appreciate you taking the time for this.

I'll PM you now. Out of curiosity before I have a look at your recipe what would be effect of using the entire 5kg bag? Higher alcohol levels, sweeter?

[injac]

Using all the 5kg you could end up with 17.66 litres in the FV at the original 1.059 target. Obviously the more/less grain in your kettle impacts on the displacement of water and the OG so would need to alter strike/sparge levels accordingly.

[polagon]

[quote="injac"]Using all the 5kg you could end up with 17.66 litres in the FV at the original 1.059 target. Obviously the more/less grain in your kettle impacts on the displacement of water and the OG so would need to alter strike/sparge levels accordingly.[/quote]

Cool, I PMed you earlier and just checking you've got it?

[alexlark]

I've got the same pot and manage to do 20L batches of big beers by doing a 'dunk' sparge and adding to the boil. I get close to 80% efficiency.

[polagon]

I've got the same pot and manage to do 20L batches of big beers by doing a 'dunk' sparge and adding to the boil. I get close to 80% efficiency.

Sounds good, how much did you sparge with and what was your strike water volume?

[alexlark]

I use Beer Smith for quantities but for a Punk IPA style beer:

I start with 33L of water (from the combi), using 2 FVs. Campden and gypsum added.

I fill the pot leaving approx 4 inches of head room. Bring that up to 72c and also fill a kettle (from FV) and get that boiled. I then add the bag and mash in. This gets me close to 66c. I then top off as close to the top, leaving room for the lid, with water from the FV and kettle to hit 66c.

When the mash is close to finishing I boil the rest of the water, using the kettle, and put it in the FV (80c approx). I then pull the bag and dump it in the FV. Dunk for 5 mins.

Get the pot on the boil and add as much of the FV 'dunk sparge' water as possible. By this point I'm left with approx 3 litres which I add to the pot once it has been boiling for 30mins and there is room.

Believe me, this SOUNDS more complicated than it actually is. In hindsight I would use a 50L pot but this works, maybe the 50L will be a future upgrade!

[scotsloon]

The trick is to know what your various losses and retention rates are. Particularly the retention - the amount retained by the grain - will change depending on what sort of a brew you are doing. I may be wrong - I've just tried unsuccessfully to Google it - but I seems to recall is in the order of 0.5L/Kg. In my BIAB set up I loose about 4L in a 90 minute boil. So to achieve a 23L brew (of a mid range say 5.5Kg of Grain) in the FV I need to start out with 28L of water in my 36L boiler. After the mash with grain removed I'm down to around 23L.

I sparge with water from my smaller 8L boiler (usually around 4L) which goes back into the boil during the boil, that brings me up to 27L. During boil off I loose around 4L so I finish the brew day with approx 23L as planned. You can further complicate the maths by accounting for dead space (the amount left in the boiler between the tap and the bottom of the boiler), I don't bother with this as I tip any remaining potential wart into the FV (there's a fair bit of trub in this but it settles out so I don't loose it.

If I am above my target SG then I will liquor back (add water) to drop the SG. If its below planned SG then I swear a lot and try to account for it next time (you can put it back into the boiler and boil it some more to loose the additional wart but thats a faff to far for me.

[alexlark]

I second what scotsloon says about losses and retention rates.

Best thing for you to do from here is to pick some software, set it up best you can. Learn from using YOUR equipment and YOUR own method and then dial it in for next time.

My first few brews I was finishing with less in the FV, then I was finishing with too much. Only now I'm hitting the planned amount. Still made great beer throughout though!!

Something else I've learned is that you'd have to seriously mess things up to end up with cr@p beer