1st Biab

[levin_ae92]

Hi all,

silly me thought I'd attempt to mash a full 4.7kg grain bill in 12L of water in a 19L pot, and my efficiency was only 54% I got an SG of 1040 so added a bit of DME to bring it back up to 1045, so that my 50g of galaxy wouldnt be too over the top. I think next time I might sub 2kg of the base malt for a tin of extract and do a partial instead Anyhoo, heres some photos from my first adventure into AG

Do the mash

Tasty galaxy

Getting all the sugar!!

 

[Bizier]

Hey, it gives you plenty of leeway for improvement, right?

Good work. Maybe check your thermometer against others, or even your hydrometer.

 

[levin_ae92]

Thanks, Im just stoked I mashed! I havent checked my thermo, maybe ill take it to work and check it against others ( i'm a 'food tech' so thermos are something were not short on ) as for my hydro, it seems good, it reads perfectly 1.000 with water @ 20deg

 

[RdeVjun]

Not silly at all and an excellent effort, you've now experienced mashing, one of the most unnecessarily daunting steps for any prospective AGer, while the collander & bucket is quite a sensible variation. :super:

A dunk sparge would probably help efficiency in that situation. Next time, if you want to use a similar grainbill and give sparging a try, mash and drain the same as before, then whatever the volume was you ended up with in the kettle (i.e. stockpot), subtract it from the total kettle volume, bung that volume at ~85C into a 10L bucket (start boiling some water beforehand so that there is >5L ready when you lift the bag) then drop that bag in, stir well and leave for 15 mins, lift & drain as per before, add the liquor to the boil, perhaps a bit later in the boil so to not overfill the kettle (i.e. leave some boilover space). Et voila, dunk sparge!
Should improve the efficiency markedly, although I've found that no- sparge BIAB efficiency is not to be sniffed at either, particularly for middle- sized grainbills (say 3kg) in a similar situation. Further verification research underway this weekend...

 

[Bizier]

I have also taken to doing a mashout step at 78 degrees using direct fire (be careful not to burn your bag either inside or outside the kettle). I find this gets a lot more juice out of the mash. 99% comes free just by hoisting it up over the kettle while I bring my liquor to a boil, and the remaining little bit is freed after some manipulation and boiled lobster hands

For what it is worth, I have been getting good efficiency with BIAB. I have been doughing in cold and rising the whole way to saccharification and mash out. I am using a mate's mill, which is set on a 'golden' crack. I have also been adding a little Fivestar pH 5.2, but much less than recommended dose because water in Syd is soft.

Good work. So long as you adjust the gravity with DME, you will be making great beer while you fine tune your process.

 

[zebba]

My first BIAB brew I hit 75%. The last one, which I made some changes thinking I would increase efficiency I hit 51%. Shocked me I must say. And the spent grain tasted spent, so I have no idea where I went wrong.

It's all good fun though, so I'm not fussed. At these early stages I'm not overly fussed with efficiency.

 

[levin_ae92]

Not silly at all and an excellent effort, you've now experienced mashing, one of the most unnecessarily daunting steps for any prospective AGer, while the collander & bucket is quite a sensible variation. :super:

Thats the main reason I did it, just to 'test the waters' so to speak, and the collander and bucket was my girlfriends idea

As for dunk sparging, i put 5L of hot water in the white bucket and dumped the bag in there for five minutes, then squeezed every drop of water out i could, again my girlfriend helped me here!

 

[RdeVjun]

Thats the main reason I did it, just to 'test the waters' so to speak, and the collander and bucket was my girlfriends idea

As for dunk sparging, i put 5L of hot water in the white bucket and dumped the bag in there for five minutes, then squeezed every drop of water out i could, again my girlfriend helped me here!

Oh man, you're home & hosed- no brewers' GF has ever done any of that before that I've heard of, nor have I seen such an intuitive first timer! Looks like you got yourself a 'keeper', so be nice to her...

 

[levin_ae92]

Haha yeah I got a real good one there! She even made my grain bag for me, and is going to make me some hop bags out of the remaining material!!

And dont you worry, I'm hanging on to her!!!!!

 

[stm]

Yeah, that colander in bucket looks like an efficient system. Where do you get a colander like that?

 

[levin_ae92]

It came with my mother in laws (9L) stock pot as a set (coincidentally its the stockpot I used to do my extract boils in )

 

[Wonderwoman]

Yeah, that colander in bucket looks like an efficient system. Where do you get a colander like that?

yeah great idea to use the colander over a bucket!

I used to work in a homewares shop. The colander looks like it's from a 'pasta' multi-pot (multi cooker) set. they come in various sizes. You get a tall stock pot with deep colander that fits inside and the lid. They're not cheap though and I think you'll stuggle to find one bigger than 6-8L.

 

[levin_ae92]

yeah great idea to use the colander over a bucket!

I used to work in a homewares shop. The colander looks like it's from a 'pasta' multi-pot (multi cooker) set. they come in various sizes. You get a tall stock pot with deep colander that fits inside and the lid. They're not cheap though and I think you'll stuggle to find one bigger than 6-8L.

Yeah i reckon that would be the one!! It certainly doent look cheap

 

[stm]

Thanks Levin and WW.

 

[superdave]

my efficiency was only 54%

Same as my first AG. I tried to improve on the second one, but alas it stayed pretty much the same. I tried running hot water over my grain so I'll try the dunk sparging mentioned in this thread; thanks for asking a question I needed answering too.

And dont you worry, I'm hanging on to her!!!!!

Does she have a sister? Preferably in the Brisbane area h34r:

 

[Berneye]

I found a 40L Cray cooking pot with a colander similar like the one shown only large. You could try camping stores.

 

[bcp]

Interesting. I went from 50% efficiency to 76%. No sparge, just really good squeezing of the bag. The improvement may have been augmented by better crush & more stirring, but a lot of it was a good pair of heatproof rubber gloves that allowed me to really work the bag over into the bucket. I put a small bowl in the bottom to stop the bag reabsorbing the wort, but was wondering about some kind of system like a big colander.

The bag of grain is like a wet towel, full of wort. I'd rather get that out than effectively replace it with water. Because BIAB is not high density runnings like you get with a normal sparge system with lower water volumes, i'm reluctant to add much water to sparge.

 

[razz]

From 50% to 76%, I'd definitely say it was the crush bcp!

 

[levin_ae92]

Well at least I've learnt a few things now, i think i might decrease the batch size to about 16L and have 20% less grain (4kg instead) to bring my water to grain ratio closer to 2.5, or just add 500g of dme

 

[levin_ae92]

I've decided the next one is going to be the ever popular Doc Smurto's Golden Ale, with a grain bill of 4.25kg I'm hoping mashing in 12L of water (2.8L per kg of grain) that I can get a better efficiency this time

Will be following the same method this time with a dunk in 5L of water then draining and squeezing using the colander and bucket method