Will it work?

Brewing Processes
1

I’ve got a 10-gal pot and I’m planning on a 5-gal BIAB stout recipe.  The grain bill calls for 10.5 lbs. of grain and the water calculation for 8.04 gals. for a single infusion mash (mash efficiency of 0.68%), runoff volume of 5.95 gals., final boil volume of 5.5 gals prior to be siphoned into the fermenter.

All calculations were from formulas in Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.

Will 10.5 lbs of grain and 8.04 gals of water fit into a 10 gal pot or do I need to start with less water and grain and then add extract to the boil and sanitized water to the fermenter?

Thanks in advance for your help.

2

It’ll need ~8.9 gallons of space, so it’ll fit.

But that’s a 3 qt/lb mash thickness. What’s going on here?

3

Colin,

Are you suggesting that the water quantity is too much?

4

It’s about double normal for a mash. Are you sure you don’t want to reserve some of that water for sparging?

I put 6 gallons in my fermentor and start pre-boil at 8 gallons, so that’s my volume after sparging with about 4-4.8 gallons.

5

Since I’m doing brew in a bag I wasn’t planning on sparging.

6

Maybe others can chime in, but I feel like 3 qt/lb will dilute the enzymes a bit too much and that could result in a lower efficiency. Not 100% sure on that, though.

I also feel like 68% efficiency is a bit hopeful for no-sparge BIAB.

7

From what I have heard, you will be fine. I brew in a bag small batches and sparge only because don’t have the room. Others do full volume. Try it. If it doesn’t work, blame me.

8

3 qt/lb is on the high side, but should be fine provided the temperature and pH are in range.

I’m not sure how you arrived at the pre-boil volume, but apparent grain absorption is 0.12 gal/lb, so assuming there’s no dead space (and there shouldn’t be for BIAB) you’d only need to mash in with 7.2 gal to get 5.95 gal pre-boil. You could use less if you’re planning on squeezing the wort out of the bag.

FWIW, lauter efficiency for 10.5 lb of grist and 7.2 gal of strike liquor would be ~75%.

9

That’s about my average mash thickness for my no sparge BIAB batches and I hit 80-82% kettle efficiency like clockwork. Three quarts per pound is perfectly fine. In my experience you don’t start running into problems until you get close to 4 qt/lb.

10

This will be my first BIAB batch with a new kettle and new burner so I don’t have any idea what my efficiency will be.  That’s why  I used 68% to start with.  I hope I get higher efficiency, but won’t know until I do it.

Thanks