brewdog45,

It takes a little time and maybe some sore eyes but it's all here. Ask questions if you can't find it. We are all here to help each other.

Pinchy,

Welcome to the fray! We need new blood! Mostly because ours is 90 proof!

Hello to the world of BIAB.

I have just joined and am looking forward to learning and sharing.

I have been brewing for about a year now, I brew with a friend and we have mostly brewed kits and extract with specialty grain. We did one BIAB at the outset but drifted into extract for no particular reason.

We have been doing what is recommended by our LHBS so far but have gotten a little frustrated at times with a lack of ease to experiment as the shop either persuades us to do their prepared extract/partial kit or does what we want but without too much proactive advice.

Having said that we haven't brewed anything infected or anything we COULDN'T drink and the owner isn't a bad bloke but I think we realize we have to move on.

We want to move to our own recipe formulation and we guess that means more grains so I have been researching, OMG how much info is out there! Lots of great info but some of it confusing and some contradictory.

I get the impression like all things there are many ways to skin a cat so my view is that unless it is absolutely wrong eg: fermenting at 40c then as long as it works it should be considered.

We have limits currently on equipment so we are very interested in partial mashing. This is an area that seems confusing in many areas, for example just what is a partial mash and what's the best method? There doesn't seem to be a clearcut definition.

I have read the original Guide to BIAB by PP, Jamils and John Palmers stuff on partials, an excellent paper on converting all grain recipes to partials by Ken Swartz http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/extract/pres.pdf, the BYO mag article Countertop partial mashing by Chris Colby http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/507-c ... fPageId507, this led me to some great threads on what seems to be mini BIAB on the AHB Forum, and finally I reach this site.

I haven't had the chance to explore this forum fully yet but I look forward to it.

I like the concept of smaller batches for experimenting, I can see how this gives a faster turnaround and therefore faster learning.

Thanks to the pioneers for putting their time and effort into developing, sharing and ultimately setting up this site.

Look forward to everything.

Homemade,

Welcome to the site. As you read more of the site I expect you will have questions. If you do? We will try and answer them. Brewing is in our blood, literally.

Homemade wrote:I get the impression like all things there are many ways to skin a cat so my view is that unless it is absolutely wrong eg: fermenting at 40c then as long as it works it should be considered.

Great to have you aboard here Homemade .

There are a lot of excellent points you have touched on above. The bit I quoted above is an excellent point. In all-grain, in so many aspects, you can bend things a long way before they will break so, there is no need to be scared about diving in.

You also mentioned reading and finding a lot of contradictory information / definitions. I know exactly what you mean and a lot of work has been put in here on things like definitions because if they aren't clear, they just waste everyone's time. (I'd love to see the link to the AHB discussion on Mini-BIAB as the term began here ).

As for the term 'partial mash', it is probably best that you disregard that one and just think of the term 'partial' which would be any brew that has extract/s as well as a grain or grains that have to be mashed or steeped.

Obviously, the main thing you want to do is brew some beer. You also mentioned you have limits on equipment. I'd love to know what beer you would like to brew and what equipment you do have. I'm also reading between the lines that you want to get away from extract (you are drinking the beers but some of them only just?)

Anyway, Homemade, if any of the above strikes a chord then post back here or start a new thread and we'll see if we can come up with a plan to get some great beer from your existing equipment.


PP

manowarfan1,

Sounds like you have everything laid out in front of you. BIAB will get you brewing in a hurry and with less fuss and less money. Look around and you will find what you need!

Hello everyone! Nice looking community you have here.

I'm new to this, and have not completely brewed anything yet. Although, tonight I'm bottling my first 1 gallon batch of BBS Everyday IPA (which was a bday gift). I have a few other BBS recipes on the backlog, which should net me some experience as I slowly prepare to move up to 5 gallon recipes of my own design.

I already have a 44qt Bayou Classic kettle w/ propane burner, which has been used for crawfish boils and such. I'm currently reading How To Brew - John Palmer, and plan to buy some cheap Voile soon to make some custom bags. Also, I have a DIY wort chiller in the works.

If you're familiar with Keystone Homebrew Supply in PA, I basically live dead smack in between both locations. It's nice to have such a great establishment so close to me. I plan to pick up the starter kit there tonight, which should set me up pretty nicely for now.


TL;DR version below:

1. Where are you from?
Pennsylvania - Philly Metro

2. How did you stumble across the site?
It was mentioned on homebrewtalk forums a few times. I am not a member there.

3. What you think of it so far?
10/10

4. Have you brewed at all before. If so, for how long and what method are you currently using?
Currently on my first all grain kit), it's bottled and I'm waiting for carbonation. The flat beer tasted fantastic, so I'm pretty excited.

5. Do you work? Are you retired or maybe you run a household?
I'm a 35 y/o Manufacturing Process Engineer/Machinist/Programmer for CNC equipment, for a fortune 500 company.

flyingpole wrote:If anyone can confirm or comment on the calculation or actual efficiency, let me know. Thanks!

Welcome aboard flyingpole. Off to work now but will answer properly later today. Posts on terminology and definitions always take a bit of time. Btw, were you full-volume mashing twenty years ago?

Rick wrote:...tonight I'm bottling my first 1 gallon batch of BBS Everyday IPA (which was a bday gift).

Congratulations Rick and welcome to the forum . That's great that you have the bayou, burner and chiller. You'll be up and running in no time!

flyingpole wrote:Yes, actually I was full volume mashing 20 years ago...

That is very cool flyingpole . I can only think of one other brewer who full-volumed mash before "BIAB" took off. Good on you .

Okay, re the terminology/definition stuff. Firstly don't worry about that grumpy old bugger Nuff. He drinks all day . He does have a very valid point though and terminology is a thing that has been worked on extensively on this site. The reason for this is that existing terminology is the cause of a lot of misinformation and confusion between brewers.

I'll only deal with the two major terminology culprits here however there are a lot more.

"Batch Size"

One of the most common sentences you will see on any forum is something like, "Here is the recipe for a 5 gallon batch." This is a meaningless term because, depending on the brewer and/or the software they use, 'batch' can mean anything from the volume of the boiled wort right through to the volume into packaging. Here are three 5 gallon "batches"...The key figure any brewer really needs to know when copying a recipe is the first one. Funnily enough, this is the one figure that is usually impossible or almost impossible to determine from most published recipes.

"Efficiency" or "Brewhouse Efficiency"

Another common sentence is, "My efficiency was 75%," or "My brewhouse efficiency was 75%." This sort of sentence, like batch size, makes everyone believe that efficiency or brewhouse efficiency is an obvious and well-defined figure whereas it is not. The Brewer's friend link you gave is one of the very few places you will find that even bothers to explain that there is more than one type of efficiency figure. On their site, they have used the term 'Brewhouse Efficiency" to mean efficiency into fermentor". This is a common definition but by no means is it standard. A substantial number of brewers, software or sites think of "Brewhouse Efficiency" or "Efficiency" as being efficiency into or out of the kettle.

There are really only two major types of efficiency that are used and one of them is not very useful.

The useful one is what can be called a 'kettle efficiency'. For example, we could take a volume and gravity reading into the boil and come up with an "Efficiency into Kettle" or "Efficiency into Boil" percent. Either of these terms is fine. Or we can take a volume and gravity reading at the end of the boil and call it "End of Boil Efficiency," "Efficiency of Boiled Wort," "Efficiency of Ambient Wort" etc. Any of those terms are fine.

All the above are 'kettle efficiencies' and will give you the same percent once you adjust any 'hot' volumes back to ambient because as volume decreases during the boil, gravity increases. In other words, the amount of 'sugar' in the boil stays the same. The first two efficiencies in the pic below are examples of 'kettle efficiencies' and therefore the estimated value for them is identical.The bottom figure, 'Efficiency into Fermentor', is far less useful a figure but is used as the base of a lot of brewing software.

Efficiency into fermentor will always be lower than a kettle efficiency. Why? Because any efficiency measurement is simply a sugar measurement and when we transferring from kettle to fermentor we lose wort. That wort contains 'sugar' and we are effectively throwing it down the drain.

So, in regard to the above pic, one brewer might say, "My efficiency/brewhouse efficiency was 86%," while another brewer might be saying, "My efficiency/brewhouse efficiency was 78%." That is an 8% difference!

Moral of the story...

Always be specific in your terminology. Avoid using terms such as batch size, efficiency or brewhouse efficiency even though you will see these terms written a hundred times a day on brewing forums.

Your Numbers - Don't forget the Trub!

Your numbers in your last post are great flyingpole but there is still one problem left. You have said, "...7 gallons remain after mashing (Pre Boil Volume) and, after 1 hour boil, wort volume is 6 gallons to fermenter..."

What we are missing is the critical info of how much volume you lost in your transfer from kettle to fermentor. This, 'Kettle to Fermentor Loss (KFL), is what causes the discrepancy between a kettle efficiency percent and an efficiency into fermentor percent.

All we can say for now is that if you did get 6 gallons into the fermentor at 1.042, then with that grain amount, your 'Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF)" was 85%. Until we know your kettle trub losses, we cannot determine a kettle efficiency though and this is the one that we really want.

Finally, "Efficiency is not a Constant".

I said this morning that definition/terminology posts are always long. I still get shocked at how long they take to write . ANyway, one last thing seeing as we have come this far...

This whole efficiency thing is a curse brought to us by existing software. For a start the software tells us to set our 'efficiency' at a certain percent and all the calculations that software uses are based on that percent you typed in but...

A recipe with a high original gravity will be a far less efficient than a recipe with a low original gravity.

So, all commercial software has this basic flaw. The good news is that a few members of this site have been working on all this stuff for some time. The BIABacus, while just a spreadsheet, is the only software that looks at your recipe and equipment and then determines your kettle efficiency for you. This built-in intelligence means that you can brew a recipe with an OG of 1.040 today and another recipe with an OG of 1.065 the next day and end up being way more accurate in your end of day figures.

After writing all that flying pole, I am hoping you start a new thread with pics of your early full-volume equipment and why you started it. That would be a great thread.

.
PP

Welcome to BIABrewer Mike. You have hit the ground running, a believer indeed!
~richard

Boognish,

WELCOME BACK TO BREWING! Oop's! My cap lock was on. I didn't mean to shout! Welcome back to brewing we missed you!

Welcome KappClark, Save the cooler to chill the Beer!

A loose rule of thumb is you can BIAB almost all gravities of beer, with a kettle/pot TWICE the size of the Batch you make.

Make sure the bag you make/buy can hold the Kettle/pot "Inside", that way the bag will hold all the grains loosly.

kappclark, I feel that a converted 15.5 G keg serves nicely for 5 G batches and most tens. Being tall and narrow has less evaporation rate, thick gauge ss retains heat and holds your mash temp in the winter better when wrapped in a sleeping bag.
Richard