Will it Work?

Mashing
1

I’ve got a 10-gal pot and I’m planning on a 5-gal BIAB stout recipe. The grain bill calls for 10.5 lbs. of grain and the water calculation for 8.04 gals. for a single infusion mash (mash efficiency of 0.68%), runoff volume of 5.95 gals., final boil volume of 5.5 gals prior to be siphoned into the fermenter.

All calculations were from formulas in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.

Will 10.5 lbs of grain and 8.04 gals of water fit into a 10 gal pot or do I need to start with less water and grain and then add extract to the boil and sanitized water to the fermenter?

Thanks in advance for your help.

2

Yes. 10.5lbs of grain @ 3.06 quarts per lb. will take 8.87 gallons of space.

Can I Mash It?

Or you could calculate it yourself:

.08 + (mash thickness (qts/lb) / 4) x total lbs grain = total mash volume

From this thread:

How much volume does a pound of grain take?

Though I haven’t checked the constant or the equation for accuracy, it seems to calculate a little lower than The Green Bay Rackers calculator at 8.11 gallons of space.

It would be a fairly simple, yet interesting, exercise to determine this for yourself, if at all interested in that aspect.

3

[quote=“lazy ant brewing”]I’ve got a 10-gal pot and I’m planning on a 5-gal BIAB stout recipe. The grain bill calls for 10.5 lbs. of grain and the water calculation for 8.04 gals. for a single infusion mash (mash efficiency of 0.68%), runoff volume of 5.95 gals., final boil volume of 5.5 gals prior to be siphoned into the fermenter.

All calculations were from formulas in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.

Will 10.5 lbs of grain and 8.04 gals of water fit into a 10 gal pot or do I need to start with less water and grain and then add extract to the boil and sanitized water to the fermenter?

Thanks in advance for your help.[/quote]

Just mash it thicker and sparge to get your volume. That’s how I BIAB’d in a 9 gal kettle with much larger grain bills.

4

Agree with Danny. Just did my first BIAB with 10 lbs of grain, a ten gallon kettle, and a five gallon kettle. Mashed in the ten gallon kettle with 5 gallons, sparged in the five gallon kettle with three gallons(which was really close on the sparge!). Hit all the numbers on the nose, and so far so good.
I’ll probably just mash a little thinner in the future if I have a bigger grain bill, or just do a smaller batch. I’m thinking of trying a strong belgian BIAB and I’ll probably do a three gallon batch since the grain bill will be so big.

Cheers,

Ron