First Biab Advice Needed

[bluedoors]

So I brewed my first BIAB AG today. Having done extracts only before, this was an eye opener. However I've missed my planned numbers and I'm hoping the community can provide me some advice.

target pre-boil SG was 1.047, but I hit 1.040. I know a lot is said for brewhouse efficiency. As it was my first brew I assumed 75%. two questions:
1. How do I calculate my actual efficiency?
2. What possible factors are there for missing this number in a BIAB setup?

Info on what I did... Got water up to 70deg, added grain, it dropped to 65deg as planned. Stirred every 10 min. Lost 5deg over the full 60minutes. Didn't sparge (ie didn't pour water over the bag. Rather just gave it a squeeze)

After the boil my final volume was 11l, when had planned 15. I had calculated for evaporation, but I guess not for the water absorbed with the grain.

I'm cube cooling, so have some time to correct before putting it to ferment. Should I add some ldme? Or somethig else, or will this effect the bitterness etc?

Any advice greatly received.

 

[kocken42]

Congrats on your first AG BIAB!

A few questions for you;

What was your post-boil SG? If it was 1.040 pre-boil, and you lost a considerable amount of water to evaporation, your post boil SG is probably going to be higher than you wanted. If that is the case, you can add water to dilute it to the SG you're after.

Also, did you account for temperature when taking the hydrometer reading?

In my opinion, I think sparging is a great idea and quite necessary. On the first sparge you definitly notice all the sugers still held in the grain. The sparge water will also increase your pre-boil volume (make up for losses to water absorbed by the grain).

Take a reading of your current SG, adjust for the current temp of the wort, and tell us what your planned post-boil SG was/is ment to be.

 

[Lemon]

Bluedoors,

Well done!

far from being an expert, much of the Biab research I have done, and experienced, is that everyone's set up and equipment being different, yields different results for evaporation, etc.

The airlocked thread on Biab in all grain, here on AHB, has very useful information as does the Biabrewer forum.

Good luck.

Lemon

 

[Nick JD]

Stirred every 10 min. Lost 5deg over the full 60minutes.

Many people (me included) don't open it until 60 minutes is up. Try this next time - dropping down to 60C, you're on the edge of enzyme activity, and the time needed to convert the sugaz is much longer.

Next time stir all the lumps out and then just go do something else for an hour. You'll start at 65C and end at 64C, and at 64 your enzymes are cranking.

 

[bluedoors]

I haven't taken a post boil sg, as I was quite surprised with the volume drop and it slipped my mind (I've made lots of notes to improve the overall experience, eg turn fire alarm off )
Once it is cooled I'll take an sg reading and see I'm at. I guess not knowing where i lost the water (grain vs evaporate... Or more likley a bit of both) will impact the next steps, and how to improve next time.

The sg reading was adjusted for temp, so no free increase to help me

Thanks for the tips on sparging, I'll give that a go with the next run.

That's the one thing I've enjoyed about brewing, therenis always something to learn... No matter how small that can make a difference.

 

[Nick JD]

At 60C it takes 180 minutes to get the same amount of sugaz as it does in 15 minutes at 70C (at 65C it takes 30 minutes). Something to consider while noting that the 60C sugaz will be much more fermentable than the 70C ones.

 

[bluedoors]

Many people (me included) don't open it until 60 minutes is up. Try this next time - dropping down to 60C, you're on the edge of enzyme activity, and the time needed to convert the sugaz

Yeh, I had considered this, but as it was a Wit I was brewing it had a high amount of flaked wheat, and I didn't want it to clump. Hense perhaps over stirring.
Much happier to leave it for 60 min.. There is other stuff I can do then

With the temp drop, isn't most of the conversion in the first 20min anyway? But you right opening every 10 min is just lettting that heat escape, and most likely not required.

 

[felten]

Yeah most of the conversion is supposed to be in the first 20 mins, but not all of it. You should look into doing a mashout after the main sacch rest for the next brew, keep the bag in and apply heat until you hit ~76 while stirring constantly. That will help bring the mash into the other enzymes range and convert any remaining starches, give you a few points of efficiency, as well as loosening up the wort trapped in the grains to help it drain out.

And after you pull the bag out, if you can keep it suspended above the pot, or another container while you're heating up to the boil should help recover some more liquid from the grains.

 

[RdeVjun]

BlueDoors, I'd be recommending to just stick for a bit to the stock BIAB, so with no sparging or mashout, just the full- volume, 60 minute mash (without the excessive stirring!), lift and drain the bag, boil etc. We know this works well and once you are happy with that, then maybe look at incorporating other techniques. IMO, nailing the guts of the simple method is far more important than farting around with other distractions. Efficiency is one thing that may become important later on, so are mashing for effect, sparging etc, but I feel just about any bloody AG beer made reliably is better than all others, regardless of the more subtle details and while I indeed respect all previous posters' advice, I would stress that keeping it simple (i.e. with a stock BIAB) is much less likely to disappoint or frustrate.
It also allows other factors to fall into place too, like recipe formulation/ ingredient choices, yeast strain and adequate pitching, sanitation, ferment temperature regulation etc, they have to be in place before the effects of efficiency, mashout or sparging become significant and you can begin to enjoy AG beers that you like sooner, rather than wrestle with a what could become a constantly- changing technique. Of course, when you're more confident, by all means look at ratcheting up the performance, and it may only take a couple of batches like this before you've reached that point.

My 2c, hope it helps! :icon_cheers:

 

[goomboogo]

BlueDoors, a little more information may be beneficial - What finishing volume were you aiming for?(15 litres?)
How much grain did you use?
How much water did you add to the grain?

On the next run, take a volume reading after removing the bag (you can then work out water lost to absorption). If you then measure the volume after the boil is finished, the amount lost to evaporation can be calculated (You said you calculated for evaporation - did you do a trial run?). Knowing these losses (among others) will allow you to better calculate the volume of water needed at the beginning in order to achieve the volume you want at the end of the process. In preparation for the next brew you could allow 1litre/kilogram for absorption and you could try a 60 minute boil with just water to give an estimate of what volume you may lose to evaporation.

Best of luck with the next one. Keep reading and asking questions. If you're comfortable putting your location in your profile then you may find there are some experienced brewers nearby who are happy to give a demonstration.

 

[bluedoors]

So below is the recipe i was using.

Therefore i added 20.65 L at the beginning, and had planned to end up with 15l at a higher gravity that i'd then add 3l to at ferment time (i'm cube cooling in a 15l cube, hence the approach). Perhaps my reading of beersmith was out, as i can't see where it accounts for loss of volume due to grain absorption and in the trial run i did there was no grain, so only had losses in the system for evaporation, and the amount left at the bottom of the tun. Any Beersimth guru's out there that can tell me where it is?

I'll take more measurements at different points next time. I did make a note of 15.5 cm pre-boil... so with my calc run (knowing volume based on ruler) i can see i probably lost ~5l just in the grain.
That said i still missed my gravity so i need to work on improving the efficiency, or account for it more like 60% rather than my starting 75%. What should i expect for efficiency of a biab setup?

I've added my location to my profile. I'm up in Wahroonga in Sydney - always happy to chat to other brewers.

Given i now have 11l of wort, my bitterness and flavours will be off if i ferment that. So think i'll add some more fermentables.. eg maltodex/dex or some ldme to bring up the sugars, and dilute to get a better OG to start with. I could add wheat malt, given its a wit, but that will throw the colour out i suspect.


BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Wit and Wisdom
Style: Witbier
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (47.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 18.00 L
Boil Size: 18.82 L
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 6.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 19.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.00 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.9 EBC) Grain 50.00 %
2.00 kg Wheat Flaked/Torrified (Blue Lake) (3.2 EBGrain 50.00 %
30.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 19.0 IBU
21.00 gm Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
21.00 gm Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast Labs #3944) Yeast-Wheat


Mash Schedule: !-BIAB Single Infusion, Medium body, No MO
Total Grain Weight: 4.00 kg
----------------------------
!-BIAB Single Infusion, Medium body, No MO
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Infusion Add 20.65 L of water at 69.3 C 65.0 C

 

[felten]

With beersmith, you're better off setting your losses, topup volume, and cooling % to 0 and just setting the batch size to end of boil volume. Some of the numbers there just don't work properly and seem to throw the IBU calc and such out of wack.

 

[Ade42]

Does it matter if after 2 days in the fridge at 12.5c you don't see any activity or "Smell" yet?

Its the first time ive not smelt the sulpher after 12 hours before, I'm worried about all the Break material that went into the fermenter..

 

[Gopha]

So below is the recipe i was using.

Therefore i added 20.65 L at the beginning, and had planned to end up with 15l at a higher gravity that i'd then add 3l to at ferment time (i'm cube cooling in a 15l cube, hence the approach). Perhaps my reading of beersmith was out, as i can't see where it accounts for loss of volume due to grain absorption and in the trial run i did there was no grain, so only had losses in the system for evaporation, and the amount left at the bottom of the tun. Any Beersimth guru's out there that can tell me where it is?

I'll take more measurements at different points next time. I did make a note of 15.5 cm pre-boil... so with my calc run (knowing volume based on ruler) i can see i probably lost ~5l just in the grain.
That said i still missed my gravity so i need to work on improving the efficiency, or account for it more like 60% rather than my starting 75%. What should i expect for efficiency of a biab setup?

I've added my location to my profile. I'm up in Wahroonga in Sydney - always happy to chat to other brewers.

Given i now have 11l of wort, my bitterness and flavours will be off if i ferment that. So think i'll add some more fermentables.. eg maltodex/dex or some ldme to bring up the sugars, and dilute to get a better OG to start with. I could add wheat malt, given its a wit, but that will throw the colour out i suspect.


BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Wit and Wisdom
Style: Witbier
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (47.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 18.00 L
Boil Size: 18.82 L
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 6.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 19.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.00 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.9 EBC) Grain 50.00 %
2.00 kg Wheat Flaked/Torrified (Blue Lake) (3.2 EBGrain 50.00 %
30.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 19.0 IBU
21.00 gm Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
21.00 gm Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast Labs #3944) Yeast-Wheat


Mash Schedule: !-BIAB Single Infusion, Medium body, No MO
Total Grain Weight: 4.00 kg
----------------------------
!-BIAB Single Infusion, Medium body, No MO
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Infusion Add 20.65 L of water at 69.3 C 65.0 C

Set Beersmith efficiency to 60% when formulating your recipe and don't be afraid to add water to compensate for grain absorption so that you have the correct pre-boil volume.
Take gravity readings before and after the boil, after couple of brews you will know how your system preforms, then tweak your recipe to suit.
Don't get hung up on the numbers initially and if you miss your gravity add some DME to compensate - Cheers