1st BIAB (is my bag right?)

I did my first BIAB yesterday! these are the figures:

Grain: 2900gr (92% Pale Ale, 8% Crystal)
Initial volume: 22L
90 min mash
PBG 1031
90 min boil
OG 1040 (expected 1053)
Final volume: 10,5L

So the obvious problem was in the extraction: less than 60%. Reading some posts I figured a couple of things I did wrong: first and foremost I didn't stir well and second is about the bag. I made the bag with the recomended (trapezoid) shape and when is tied it's suspended, don't touches the bottom of the kettle.. is it right? I'm thinking that the problem was uneven distribution of the grain.

The worst thing is that I wanted an SNPA clone and I ended with an English Bitter...

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Might be a silly suggestion, but your final volume is calculated by what's actually in the kettle, including trub, and not what goes into the fermenter, right ? You do need to take into account the entire final volume, and not just the useable portion.

Sorry, I mixed the terms.. that was the Volume in the fermenter and not the Batch Size (I didn't mesure it). According to the Calculator I expected a 12,6 and 10,8L respectively and I guess that the numbers were close.

If you were aiming for a hoppy beer, then I hate to say it, but with lower extraction efficiency, your beer will be even hoppier to taste perception. So an English Mild in strength for sure, but a super IPA to your tastebuds!

Right! But that's not a big deal, I like IPA's!

All the best, and I'm sure you will get the hang of it in no time. Practice makes perfect, and the worst that can happen is that you'll have lots of beer to be drank !

Thanks Ted!

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In regards to your bag, the general rule of thumb is your kettle should be able to easily fit inside your bag

Nice tip. Thanks!
Just for the record, look at my bag in the kettle with some weight on it:

..and now figure it with 3Kg of grain.. it was really difficult to maintain an stable mash temperature! Looks like I'll have to try with a bigger size and maybe another shape

What do you think?

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Cannot speak from personal experience about a smaller bag restricting flow, therefore compromising efficiency, but if internet lore is to be believed, then why not make a bigger bag ? The material is cheap enough, and you might already have some spare. The shape of my bag have been based on a two piece model, with the sides forming a tube, then french seamed, and the base being a circular piece sewn in. It's a bugger to cut the sizes right, but a bit more or less on either piece takes a quick sew up to fix.

If you have a wife/mum/grandma that's handy with the craft of sewing, buy her some chocolates and ask for a really big favour

Keep your existing bag though, it will come in handy if and when you step up to a larger volume kettle, you can use it for a free flowing hop sack.

Also as I have mentioned to people in the past, LDME is your friend. Good to keep a few kgs handy in the brew pantry, so if your efficiencies are lower than the recipe youre following, you can bump it up to target with some malt powder, and then your bittering profile will be as you expected. LDME is also good to have around for making yeast starters, so it wont go to waste when you do refine your mashing technique.

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