Hope to do first BIAB with the all grain Dead Ringer Kit. Seems to be a BIAB recipe as is with a mash out. No lautering/sparging etc. Where do I go to find out the amount of water to start with, etc.?
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Think they say use 1.5 to 2 quart of water. Per 1lbs of grains
The beauty of biab is its simplicity. Use your full volume of water to mash. Say you want to boil 6 gallons of wort just mash with 5 or 6 gallon of water then pull the bag and pour over whatever your short. Heck I have no idea what my ratio is.
I want to end up with 5, so I use 7.5 gallons, BUT, thats because some is left in the keggle that the pickup tube and pump git to have as an offering. So if you’ve a big enuff kettle, start with 6.5, and as brew cat does, simply add the remainder whilst you boil. Sneezles61
Is it the 3g kit?
5 gal
Do you know what your boil off rate is? If you want to end with 5 gals in the fermenter you’ll want a pre-boil volume of 6 to 6.5 gals generally speaking. So depending on the size of your kettle(?) that I assume you’re using for the mash, use as much water as you can, then do a pour over or dunk sparge with the bag if you need to add volume to get your pre-boil volume.
Does that help?
First time using this16g bk. So not sure about the boil off. Last full boil was in a 8gal bk. Boiled off less than a gallon with it, but it was probably not as vigorous a boil as I will do with the 16g bk. So I would guess 1 1/2 g boil off will be about right.
Allowing for the 12lbs of grains, maybe around 7.25 gallons will be close. And then pour over sparge to make up the rest.
6.5 gall should be enough to end up with 5 gall. At least this works for me
Of course I forgot to mention you’ll have water absorbed by the grains during the mash as well. So plan for that too.
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Are you doing the BIAB kit? The BIAB is a 3-gallon kit. Or are you doing the 5-gallon kit using a BIAB process?
The instructions for the 3-gallon kit say to start with 5.5 gal, mash in all of it, then pull the bag after the mash and drain the bag into a bucket.
Then add liquid from the bucket back to the kettle until you have 4-gallons.
They presume you will have 1.5 gallons absorbed by the grain, and an additional gallon lost to steam during the boil.
I don’t follow their instructions. I mash with 3-gallons, drain, then “sparge” with almost 2-gallons. My stove boils off about 3-qt/hr so I look for 3.75 gallons pre-boil.
One thing I might recommend before attempting either kit is to fill your kettle with 4-gallons of just water and boil it for an hour. After the hour, see how much is left. That will let you determine your boil-off without out wasting ingredients. If your pot doesn’t have volume markings, put the lid on until it’s cool enough to measure.
However you get there, you need to start the boil with the kit’s target volume, plus the amount you boil-off in an hour.
My plan is to do the 5 gallon kit as a BIAB. Yes, I will get an accurate boil off rate before brewing with this kettle. I’ve been looking at some of the BIAB calculators, the range of total water needed is as low as 7 and as high as 8.5 gallons using a 1 gal boil off rate. More than likely, I will start with about 7.25 gal and then drip"sparge" to the desired pre boil volume once I figure out what that should be based upon my boil off rate.
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Good plan. Have fun!
Thanks! Great advice for this newbie. I actually did a 60 min boil with 7.5 gallons of water. My boil off with this pot was 2.25 gallons! My 5gal and 8gal bk both have 11.5" diameters as compared to my 16gal which has a diameter of 15.5"
You’re boiling too hard. You just need a rolling boil, not jumping out of the kettle.
My 16 gal kettles are 16". Depending on my pre boil gravity and how much wort I’ve collected I can control the boil off to as little as a gallon in 60 mintes.
But this is lots of boiloff. Or not 2.5 gallon. Do you got the kettle closed. Or boil with a open kettle. Me leave the lid half open. And lose about. 1.5 gallon during boil. Do you control the temp during the whole session. Once a rolling boil. Make sure you keep at the same temp. Use a thermometer to check the wort. Once a while.
A boil is a boil. No reason to check the temperature if it’s boiling.
