I'm posting this here as I have not yet BIABd - though I've been reading thru the forums here as well as in MoreBeer chat. I'm probably being much too anal about a lot of this.

I've brewed 2 beer kits from Northern Brewer: The Nut Brown Ale and the American Wheat. The NBA was extract with specialty grains. I have two more extract w/specialty grain kits to brew (MoreBeer's B3 Stout and NB's Smashin' Pumpkin Ale) before I move into all-grain.

My understanding - after reading on this forum - is that BIAB has an inherent loss of efficiency. Therefore, to make up for that, the grain bill is increased. The additional $$ cost is minimal, though.

Are there adjustments to be made when BIABing using an all-grain kit? The kits are designed for 5-gallon brews. Has anyone compared enough of the kit ingredients with actual BIAB-from-scratch (to brew the same beer) to see if there's a "constant" one can use? IOW, might an AG kit designed to brew 5 gallons using the traditional AG process make 4.5 or 4.75 gallons using BIAB?

I'm getting close to understanding the "calculator", and it appears that one enters the O.G., brew length, kettle measurements, and an "estimated" efficiency, and the grain bill is then calculated. I don't see a way of working backwards: entering grain bill + other variables to solve for the brew length and other volumes.

I haven't compared the prices between simply purchasing the kits and purchasing the individual ingredients for the kits. I think I'm being anal about trying keep things even simpler

For example, here are the grain bills from 2 NB all-grain kits:

NB American Wheat Beer Kit, grain bill is 8 lbs:
O.G. = 1.043
4 lbs Rahr White Wheat malt
4 lbs Rahr 2-row Pale
Sacch' Rest: 152* for 60 min
Mashout: 170* for 10 min.

NB Double IPA, grain bill is 17 lbs
O.G. = 1.083
16 lbs English Maris Otter Pale Malt
0.75 lbs Belgian Caramel Pils
0.25 lbs Briess Caramel 120
Sacch' Rest: 150* for 60 min
Mashout: 170* for 10 min

I guess I could just play around with brew length in the Calculator until I see the grain bill equal what's included in the kit

Thanks,
Keith

Thanks for your responses. I'll try to explain where I was coming from.

First thing: I just sat down with the Calculator (the Maxi-BIAB one dated June 29)to play around with it:
1. Nut Brown Ale w/OG = 1.043. Plugging the numbers in (my kettle is 12.75" in diameter, brew length = 5 gal, O.G.=1.043), I get an 8.45 lb grain bill with 5.4 gallons going into the fermenter. I guess that accounts for almost 2 qts being left in the bottom of the fermenter. The kit comes with 8 lbs of grain.

Working backwards with trial-and-error shows that 4.735 gallon brew length would require the 8 lb grain bill.

2. Double IPA w/OG = 1.083. Plugging in the numbers, I get a 16.31 lb grain bill with 5.4 gallons going into the fermenter. The kit comes with 17 lbs of grain.

Working backwards shows that 5.211 gallon brew length would call for 17 lbs of grain.

It is interesting that, according to "BIABacus" the NBA kit appears to run slightly low on grain while the DIPA kit includes almost 3/4 lb extra grain. I only carried out 3 decimal places to get an idea of the differences.

Second thing: Regarding my statement about an inherent inefficiency: I may have extrapolated that from a traditional all-grain discussion on another forum regarding fly-sparging vs batch-sparging. I think the gist of is was that, in fly sparging, clean water is being used to wash the grains and will therefore extract more goody from the grain. Batch sparging has the grain being dumped into a kettle of water and soaking for a time before being drained. As goody is leaching out of the grain and going into solution, the wort is gradually increasing in concentration so that it "wants" to draw less goody from the grain. Some guys do a double batch-sparge with the idea that the 2nd soak/rinse extracts a little more goody from the grain and increases its efficiency.

The analogy was given that clean rinse water will get more of the soap out of your clothes than rinse water that had already been used (hence why most of our automatic washing machines run 2 rinse cycles).

My understanding is that BIAB is like one continuous mash + batch sparge - both going on at the same time. I swear that I read it somewhere, but, as I said, it could have been on another forum where it was said that those who batch-sparge can increase their O.G. by increasing their grain bill a little for the same brew length. This increases the cost (must purchase more grain), but this additional cost isn't much when you're talking about 5-10 gallon batches.

Moreover, I thought that that was why some of the BIABers are (1) squeezing their bags or (2) performing one or two batch-sparges of sorts with their bags. IOW, I'm wondering if using Maxi-BIAB to brew a 5 gallon batch with a 5 gallon kettle (with its 2 batch sparges)ends up being slightly more efficient than using the Pure-BIAB to brew a 5 gallon batch with a properly sized kettle. Just a rhetorical question, though.

Bottom line: I may have answered my own question. It doesn't appear that the differences are worth worrying about and that I should be OK using BIAB with traditional all-grain kits. If I come to the end of the boil time, and my O.G. is a little low, I guess I would boil a little longer to bring it up. If the O.G. happens to be a little high, I will add a little more water to get it right. I'm thinking that that might be important is one brews something they really like and want to be able to reproduce it exactly.

Thanks again,
Keith

Rifester wrote:Keith,
I order from NB as well and have also used their recipes for BIAB. You can order their regular kits for BIAB. I have not had to up the grain bill on a 5 gallon batch.
Rifester

Rifester,
Thanks. After taking up all that bandwidth with my question - as well as all the reasoning behind my question - I figured that it didn't really matter. Any difference between the recipe's O.G. and my actual O.G. could be corrected by either boiling a little longer or by adding a little top-up water.

I think I will try some all-grain kits with BIAB and just see how they come out. I'm going to ask for a Tap-A-Draft system from whoever has drawn my name for Christmas gifts this year.

Bottling up 48 bottles the other day was sort of fun. I've got another 5 gallon batch to bottle up next week. Then, I've got the B3 Stout and NB's Smashin' Pumpkin Ale to brew and bottle. It's too late to have them by Thanksgiving, but they should be ready by Christmas. I should be quite sick of bottling by then.

I've read mixed reviews on the TAD system - as is typical no matter what kind of product one is looking at. I don't have the space for a full kegging system. I'm very interested in the little 2.5/3.0 gallon kegs, but they're almost as expensive as the 5 gallon ones. Anyway, this would get me introduced to kegging at someone else's expense. I can save my $$ for a better system later.

Thanks,
Keith