I just started all grain and making my own recipes…
I bought bags that can hold 12+ pounds of grain with enough room to move around.
I have a 12gal brewkettle with ball valve and thermometer
I start out with about 7 gallons in the kettle, drop the bag, stir well and cover.
I do have to fire the kettle up once after about a half hour to bring back to temperature and at this time i also add more water until it is a couple inches from the top.
after 90 minutes i pull the bag and strain wort into sanitized buckets, rinse out kettle, pour wort back into kettle and begin my boil sequence.
I know enough to know I am doing something wrong, or better yet, I can be doing something better!
I do not have the funds for a igloo lauter tun yet, but i have a 50 pound bag of 2 row pale malt and 4-1 pound bags of hops that are dying to be drank.
I plan on perfecting a few of my favorite styles of beers, black ipa and rye pale ale are two…
thanks in advance for any help!!!
Why are you straining the wort into buckets? Ideally you would just pull the bag(s) out and allow to drip into a bucket while starting to heat the wort that remained in the kettle.
Hello,
Just curious what size batch you’re making. If you add water within a couple inches from top, you’ll have about 10 gallons in a 12 gal. kettle. I’m gonna do my first 2 BIAB’s this weekend in a 10 gal. kettle. I plan to start with 7.75 gal. & mash for 90 min. After draining bag into kettle, boiling,cooling, and transfering to fermenter, there should be 5.5 gal. (with the help of Beersmith). May want to check your volumes. Good luck!
It is fermenting in 5 gallon carboy now, actually blew the lid off of the fermentation lock. so i am a bit concerned…
12 pounds of grain took up a lot of room.
I also didn’t force the issue draining the bag. I held it over the kettle until it stopped pouring. Then I put it into a bucket on top of a strainer. only collected a few inches in the bucket.
When I took the bag out there was less than 7.5 gallons of wort.
i had to strain it into plastic buckets
filled one about full and the second was well under half…
That was a perfect amount though!
I had enough to test OG a few times.
[quote=“geradthefan”]It is fermenting in 5 gallon carboy now, actually blew the lid off of the fermentation lock. so i am a bit concerned…[/quote]What’s your beer and/or ambient temp right now? Do you have any headspace at all or is it filled to the top?
[quote=“geradthefan”]It is fermenting in 5 gallon carboy now, actually blew the lid off of the fermentation lock. so i am a bit concerned…
[/quote]
This used to be an issue for me. Either use a blowoff tube of cut the holes bigger in the lid of the airlock so yeast can’t clog it and build pressure.
