Hello, I am new at BIAB. I have been brewing with extract for 2 1/2 years. I have a 7.5 gallon Anvil brew pot. I cannot afford to purchase a 10 or 15 gallon brew pot at this time. Is there any adjustments I can make and still be able to end up with a 5 gallon wort. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Bob
You can always just top off your fermentor with clean water to get the right volume. That's what I do since I don't have a pot big enough for a full boil
If looking to do full volume boil... When I was doing BIAB 5 gallon batches in my 7.5 gal pot. I would always mash with 20 qt of water that would give me room in the pot for 10.5-11 pounds of gist. At the end of the mash I would raise the bag out of the pot and place a strainer under the bag on top of the pot. To finish I poured 170-175 degree water slowly over the grain to bring the wort up to the level I needed [usually 6.75-7 gal for my boil off rate] You could also pull your bag out and place in a bucket of mash out temp water let rest for 15 min, pull the bag and let drain then add that additional mash out water to your kettle Hope that helps
I've done that^^^, too. Just have to watch the boil at the hot break so it doesn't boil over. Depending on the actual volume of your pot ( I had a 30 quart pot that went almost right to the top for 7.5 gallons) you can boil enough to get your target volume. For around a 10 gallon grain bill start with something like 29-30 quarts of water total for infusion and sparge if you don't squeeze the bag, a little less if you squeeze. You should end up with around 6.75 gallons in your pot. You should boil off somewhere around 1 to 1.25 gallons unless you have a really low, wide pot. That should give you 5.25 to 5.5 gallons at the end of the boil. That's enough to give you a solid 5 gallons of clean beer out of the fermenter. You'll have to run it a few times to see where your best results are. On occasions when I needed a 90 minute boil with that pot, I'd split out a gallon or two and boil in 2 pots for the first half hour and then recombine the wort and start the hop additions. Worked like a charm.
Thank you for the advise. Will adding water after the grain process change the processes of the wort.
jmcnamara, LlewellynBrewHaus and J A. Thank you for the advise. I will see how it goes. That is what makes our process so great. We can always see how things turn out. I will let you know but looks like at end of May. Bob
You can do two boils or split your recipe to two brew days and combine at bottling. Easiest thing is top off like mentioned above or get a bigger pot. All grain is so much cheaper than extract you will soon be able to afford that pot
Be careful not to go over 170 degrees with the grains... tannins and estringents (sp?) will release... and that is not a good thing
