Good Day, I would take a gravity reading fro the grain drippings, If it is more than 1.025 You can make a session beer, or what is a "Sunday" 3.25% (small) beer. It was the fashion after "prohibition" was over.

Why not do a big sparge to get a second runnings, then pour those runnings back into the pot and use them as strike liqour for another two or three kilos of grain, and get a standard strength brew out of them? However don't sparge too far to avoid tannin extraction.

Very cool

I always suggest reserving a few L when you're doughing in, and then topping back up. I think with your extreme L:G ratio the error in the volume calcs is becoming significant

You experienced a bunch of issues which affected some of my first brews

Near overflowing mash, not realizing the lid uses space, being unable to pull the bag, being up waaaay past midnight!

I hope you took plenty of volume/gravity notes, and if so, I would appreciate seeing them, and a copy of your ce calc spreadsheet

Hope the beer comes out fantastic!

Would you say this is a win for the ce calc

I think those are pretty spectacular results

Adjusting the grain bill to 8.532KG, you actually got 78% Into Fermenter Efficiency for a 1.100 OG beer using BIAB!!!


(I just changed the grainbill field B110 on the details tab to match reality)

And if you had added the 200ml the calculator suggested to dilute then you would have 19.95L of 1.100 wort which is pretty spectacularly spot on , with an extra 40g of grain you would've hit 20L or in fact, slightly exceeded it, due to better than predicted efficiency everywhere else than in the conversion.

Absorption turned out to be 1.38L/KG instead of 1.3L/KG. This is probably a very accurate figure, since the grainbill was such a high percentage of the mash. My figures show an absorption value between 1.2-1.4L. 1.38 is quite possibly exactly to be expected. I also think that finer grinds result in less absorption. You might want to consider updating the absorption figure to 1.38L/KG for you next brew. Or not , by underestimating you normally end up with a more concentrated beer which can be diluted (ie 200ml at the end), where as with the overestimating you end up with a dilute beer... which means a longer boil if you want to rectify it.

8.5KG x 0.08L is the difference, ie 680ml. BUT, that's only 80ml per kilogram of grain.

on the adjusted grain bill you got 96% conversion efficiency. Not too bad for such an extreme grain bill , and you proved that you can get 1.102 out of a mash with BIAB

Now, perhaps the 96% was a bit short than the 99% you were aiming for... but more likely its just a measurement error, or it could be the grains not quite being the same as the specs, or even the milling... it could just be the thick L:G (2.35 L/KG)

I've been using 0.5mm gap on my MM2 mill

anyway, I would estimate that anything >95% is good

1.105 would've been 99% conversion... but that's pretty damn close... and the sparge would've picked up the difference. Quite possible more conversion happened during your second mash.

BTW, with the reduced grainbill, you got 78.0% Into Fermenter which is *exactly* what the calculator has predicted based on the updated grainbill!!!

The mash volume calculation is not actually based on my research, so I'm not *that* disappointed it was off

I found the original factor from the greenbay rackers website... http://rackers.org/calcs.shtml/, Can I Mash It? calculator, 0.67, then added 5% to make it 0.7 for a 5% safety margin. Quite possible it should be higher... I suspect the error is magnified by your thick mash. Anyway, when mashing at the limit, best to hold some water back. Alternatively, I should increase the factor


Another thought, did you end up spilling any mash water when you added your lid? That would've lost a few points there

And did you perhaps measure your total mash volume? Might be able to work out a better grain wet displacement figure


I think the big takeaway is that your results were well within the margins of error on your equipment and measuring devices... which means that the CE calc's theory held up in practise on its biggest test yet

1) 1.100SG is possible in a BIAB mash.
2) The calculators sparging estimates appear to have been correct
3) the Into/End of boil sparge additions appear to have been calculated correctly...

its all good

Thankyou for you testing this as well, and I really expect the beer will be fantastic

I think there is an issue in the chart... as it is getting confused by your -2% Kettle Loss... which I assume is due to measurement inaccuracies somewhere...

Volume measures are probably +-5% and SG +-1%

Amazing results

Just checked, your Into Fermenter efficiency was actually 78.0228%. The calculator predicted 78.0134%

So, rounded to 1 decimal place you actually nailed it

Or slightly exceeded it at 2 decimal places

I don't think you can really take an efficiency reading past 1 decimal place anyway.

...

Another way of looking at it...

the calculator was expecting 5.2106KG of extract in the fermenter... (10th of gram accuracy is rubbish )

you got 5.2112KG

so 0.6g more than predicted.

50th of an ounce.

That is ridiculously the same. So much so, that the error from the volume and hydro readings are far more significant

de5m0mike wrote:

stux wrote:Another thought, did you end up spilling any mash water when you added your lid? That would've lost a few points there

Yes I spilled some, but it's hard to know exactly how much. My garage floor is now very sticky.

stux wrote:And did you perhaps measure your total mash volume? Might be able to work out a better grain wet displacement figure

I would say the total mash volume was 28.39 L. The exact volume of my 30 quart pot. Seriously, before putting the lid on I couldn't have fit an ounce more grain or water in the pot. It was to the rim. I didn't measure it again after the spill.

Right

20.03L was the expected Strike at 20C, and the estimate was 20.39L at 70C (this is an iffy figure)

which leaves 8L for your wet grain

0.94L/KG displacement.

That looks pretty close to the dry grain displacement figure I use of 1.0L/KG

Basically, I find that when I add grain to strike water it displaces about 1.0L/KG (of the 20C) volume, but then the water seems to get absorbed into the grain, and it ends up displacing about 0.7L/KG total.

My previous maxi-biab calculator used to calculate a suggested reserve volume based on these differences... which means it probably would've suggested you reserve 3L before adding the grain, then add that back after you've gotten the grain good and wet.

Hmmm, I left that out of this calculator to simplify it

0.94L sounds very high for an actual doughed in figure

Still, you beat the End of Boil Efficiency (78.8 vs 78%)
Nice results.

I suspect your First Runnings might've had a higher gravity than you measured . You stirred thoroughly before taking the reading?


<50% efficiency without the sparge