BIAB Blonde Ale

[JohnSant]

JJ, Myhorse thanks I'm almost there going to pull the trigger soon but looking over some info I think I missed a step. How dose one go about figuring absorbtion rate on grains when you mash? Looked at a sights and can't find anything maybe my
brain is stating to fizzle but can't seem to get it now my boil off rate will be .75 gal./hr. but I need to figure the loss amount for grains to hit the pre boil level. Any help would be outstanding.

[mashani]

Mashani; so if I increase the mash time to say 90 min. and stir often I may not need to do a mash out?

Yes sorta - you don't have to and you MAY end up with similar efficiency, you MAY even end up with better efficiency if you are mashing at low temperatures by extending the mash duration and stirring. BIAB was never intended to have a mashout/sparge - but folks do it to increase efficiency. But doing a longer mash and stirring can do it too.

Stirring the mash a lot can make it harder to maintain temperature - but this is not as much of a problem if you have large volumes of water, which in BIAB you do.

Even then, a mashout on top of that could still bump it up even more too, you'd have to experiment with your equipment and decide if it's worth it for you.

So really in effect, you are sort of trading one kind of work for another to try to achieve similar results, so really just do whatever is easier for you to do.

Another way is simply to add a bit of extra grain. IE if you efficiency is a few points lower then you like, just bump up the entire bill of convertible grains by a couple % in future batches. Your trading time for money, that's all (it's only a few bucks,. so it depends on if time is worth it to you).

[jimjohson]

JJ, Myhorse thanks I'm almost there going to pull the trigger soon but looking over some info I think I missed a step. How dose one go about figuring absorbtion rate on grains when you mash? Looked at a sights and can't find anything maybe my
brain is stating to fizzle but can't seem to get it now my boil off rate will be .75 gal./hr. but I need to figure the loss amount for grains to hit the pre boil level. Any help would be outstanding.

BS handles it, it'll even zone in on your boil off rates.

[JohnSant]

Thanks all I think I'll pull the trigger on this the first of next week. Going to finish my steps on paper and work on brew day checklist. It seems a real short time from August to now from HMEs to BIAB but hay got to give it a try and go form there. A man can get sucked into this find something that works for him or keep going. The skies the limit. The more I read about making beer the more I want to learn, the more I learn the more I want to do. (just a note: the wife says the more I do the more I spend. Can't take it with me.)

[jimjohson]

I even got the app on my iPad so I can work recipes away from home. Save it to cloud and DL it on to my 'puter when I get home. Saves trying to read drunk writing after my local beer club meeting.

[JohnSant]

Hey JJ just down loaded the brew target and it has a pre boil gravity as soon as I get it set up I'll punch in the numbers and see what's what . I still plan on trying BS but I'll give this a try first.

[JohnSant]

Did my first BIAB yesterday. Before brewing I downloaded the BeerSmith, it was a pain at first but got going after a few adjustments. I was going to brew Monday but had a Funeral to go to. Which brings me to yesterday, started at 8 am got all my equipment set up set my strike water got up to temp mashed for 90 min. then before boil checked pre-boil OG was low, got out the Light DME measured a little less than 1/2 lb. and then started boil, after boil and using wort chiller took OG and low and behold way above OG. "WTF" went over steps, found that I didn't correct the hydrometer temp reading on pre-boil. When looking at style its still in but just. Start to finish total time including clean up was 5 1/2 hrs. Need to get a bigger pot to brew 5 gal. batches hate to let a spot in the fermentation chamber go to waste. The BIAB was not as bag as It could have been BeerSmith did help a lot on what I could expect so was worth the money to get the program.

As Note; I want to thank those Borg members with the push on helping me step up my brewing.