# Imperial Stout With Biab



## MattSR (30/11/10)

Hi Guys,

I'm a big fan of my dark heavy beers (Russian Imperial Stout is a favourite) however I'm limited for space since I live in a inner-city apartment. I'm wondering if it is at all possible to use a 40 litre urn and BIAB to make a 1120 O.G. beer.

Please tell me its possible 

Cheers,
Matt


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## BobtheBrewer (30/11/10)

MattSR said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> I'm a big fan of my dark heavy beers (Russian Imperial Stout is a favourite) however I'm limited for space since I live in a inner-city apartment. I'm wondering if it is at all possible to use a 40 litre urn and BIAB to make a 1120 O.G. beer.
> 
> ...



Yeah, someone please tell his that it is possible sot that I can do it too.


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## alkos (30/11/10)

Make 25L of 1.058 wort and boil it down to 15L. Collect in cube and repeat.


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## JestersDarts (1/12/10)

Anythings possible!

Seeing you're babbing, you are probably aware of the forum biabrewer.info, have a look around for info on maxi-brews or maximising your system.
I've done a quick plug into the 'calculator' spreadhseet avaliable on the site, for 18L of 1120 wort.. it starts you off with 10.5KG grain, and mash volume of 44L... so just mash to 40L, and add your remaining 4L after the mash... yadda yadda yadda kettle loss here, evaporation rate here, fermenter trub down the drain ta daaa 18L of RIS.


RIS a go go.


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## MHB (1/12/10)

Not only doable, but quite easy if you are willing to pay the price.
TB recently posted a table in another thread from the German Brewing Techniques website, it shows the SG if first running's.
At about 2.5:1 Liquor:Grist your sweet water will have a gravity of about 1.100, remembering that the grist will hold close to 1L/Kg of the mash liquor you will be getting just over 1.5 L of wort/ Kg of grain.
Going to be the most expensive wort you ever make! Be well worth considering dunking the bag in a bucket of hot water, probably pull of a regular stout or a big black.

MHB


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## argon (1/12/10)

Totally possible to do a big beer using BIAB. Only thing to consider is batch size and efficiency.

In my experience the bigger the beer the lower the efficiency (using BIAB). Id suggest looking into performing a mashout and sparge step. Bucket sparge, esky sparge, whatever. 

Here's what i would do;
- Add 40L to the urn and bring to 85C, 
- Drain off 10L into an esky, (eskys are good cause you need to hold the water at that temp till the mash is finished)
- Top up/adjust the urn water to hit mash in temps and volume, say 27-28L @70C dependant on gran bill size (bit of cold water and or draining some will get it right)
- Add grain then mash for 60 mins
- urn on to hit mash out temp of 76C while stirring and sit for 10 mins
- pull the bag out dump it into the esky full of now 80C water for a dunk sparge. 
- Give it a stir, leave for a bout 5-10 mins. 
- Suspend the bag over the esky (by hand or skyhook if its too heavy)
- Squeeze it till it pretty much stops dripping (no need to go overboard, just to stop dripping)
- dump the bag wherever
- Drain the contents of esky back into the urn to hit your pre boil volume. 
- then do your hop additions as per usual

Should be able to get a pretty big beer and decent efficiency using this method
Cheers
:icon_cheers:


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## Bribie G (1/12/10)

Back in the days when big beers were normal they did parti-gyle brewing all the time. I'd do a thorough mashout fairly high (78 degrees) to kill the enzyme activity, get as much wort out as possible out of your first drain, then put the bag aside and boil your Russian. Then after cubing / chilling that, do a second dunk in the urn to yield a final brew of say 15L of a Schwartzbier or Kiwi Black or something - add some extra hops and mebbe 300 of da sugaz.
Long brew day. If you really get into doing it this way then consider getting a second urn and do them both in the same session.

Scruffy does 9 percenters all the time BIAB in his kitchen, maybe PM him and see what his methods are. :icon_cheers:


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## MattSR (7/12/10)

Thanks for the info guys, I'm reasonably new to AG, so theres a lot of info in here for me to digest and understand properly.

Off to read some more!

Cheers,
Matt


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## seemax (7/12/10)

You could always use some malt extract to up your gravity if you didn't achieve your targets...


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## Acasta (8/12/10)

Well, i've read somewhere recently of people making a wort, then using that wort and mashing another batch with it. Then boil the whole lot. Should work. Makes high gravity.


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