First BIAB brew - a few questions

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

I did my first biab today, a dunkelweizen. I have only done extract up to this point. My efficiency was right at 69%. Is this good for biab? I will outline my recipe and process for you. If you see anything out of place or that I could do differently, pleas let me know.

5 Gallons Bavarian Dunkelweizen

Grain Bill:
5 lbs German red wheat
5 lbs light Munich
2 oz German carafa III
6 oz German caramunich II
2 oz chocolate wheat

All grains milled by LHBS

1 oz hallertau hersbrucker hops


Mash temp: 154 for 60 minutes
Expected OG: 1.052
Hops in at 60 minutes

All calculations were done by brewers friend and I use a ten gallon boil kettle.

I heated 4 gallons of strike water to 167 and then mashed in. This gave me a mash thickness of 1.5 qts/lb of grain. When everything was mixed in and dough balls eliminated, I had hit my mash temp target of 154. 30 minutes in, mash temp was down to 151, so I reheated to 154. At the end of the 60 minute mash, temp was at 153.

I then mashed out at 170. I removed the bag and let it drain for probably 5 minutes. There was still water dripping out, but it wasn't a steam at this point. I then dunk sparged the bag in 4 gallons of 170 degree water for ten minutes in a separate bucket. I let the bag drain again for another 5 minutes or so and then added this to the boil kettle for a total boil volume of 6.5 gallons. I did not squeeze the bag at all. Pre boil gravity was 1.041.

I brought the wort to a boil and added the hops. At 15 minutes left in the boil I added a whirlflock tablet and yeast fuel. At ten minutes left I put in the immersion chiller to sterilize it. After the 60 minute boil I brought the temperature down to 60 degrees in 20 minutes. Post boil gravity was 1.050, 2 points lower than my target. Next, I transferred the wort to a 6.5 gallon carboy, pitched the wyeast 3068 yeast, and installed a blow off tube. Now I'm just waiting on fermentation to begin.

I was hoping for an efficiency in the mid-70s, but fell short of that. I think there are a couple things I can do differently to increase my efficiency. First off, I may need to crush my grains finer than what the LHBS does. On my next batch, I may pulse the grains in a food processor to see if that helps some. I don't have a grain mill right now.

Second, I could squeeze the bag to gain efficiency, but I've read conflicting evidence if this should be done or not. I would like to use squeezing as a last resort. Also, I think maybe pouring the water through the grain may lead to higher efficiency, but I'm not set up for that right now. I plan to in the future though.

Finally, I may not have let the bag drain long enough after the mash and the sparge. However, my water volumes were correct and I ended up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter, which is what I was shooting for.

Do any of you experts see anything else I can do differently to raise my efficiency? Is 69% bad for my first attempt? I know this was a long post. If you made it this far reading it, I really appreciate it and value your opinions on my process. Thanks!

 

[Davemci]

69 is a greatest number for both efficiency and in general. Don't hold back milling your grains, you can shred them to oblivion and it all still works great. Also squeezing helps get aboit a liter or 2 of very strong wort. It some styles I use the "squeezings" to boil down into a syrup, but that's another story.maybe u would see a 10% increase in doing both these practices if I would guess.

 

[wilserbrewer]

You did very well imo. I would ask your lhbs to mill the grain twice rather than using a food processor or blender. That will make it too fine imo and is more work.

Some will say you should squeeze, but since your doing a dunk sparge the wort left behind is not high gravity. I'm not a squeezer, but rather prefer to let gravity drain with time because I find it easier. You can let the bag drain longer on the side and add it to the boiling kettle as well. Just be sure to boil the drainings for say 30-40 minutes.

With a double crush my guess is you will see an added 10 points.

Ps not an expert by any means just been doing this a while.

 

[mizer67]

69% (brew house) is where I've settled in my BIAB attempts. 74-75% mash efficiency.

I squeeze. I don't think this is too bad as far as efficiency goes. I would like to get a little higher, but adding more grain isn't a big deal to me given brewing software.

 

[C-Rider]

I could run 10.5 lbs of grain thru my blender in say 15 min one coffee cup at a time. I produce flour and get at least 77% eff often in the low 80's.

 

[Kee]

You did good, a finer grind will get you better efficiency, but it's worth pointing out that many of us are looking more for consistency, as long as efficiency isn't off by much.

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

Thanks for the reassurance that things went well. Fermentation wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It started slowly bubbling at about 18 hours. At 36 hours it was going wild and continued to do that until sometime last night. Then this morning it's like all activity had stopped. The yeast are starting to drop out, but it's still needs to ferment a little more. I sampled it and am only at 68% attenuation. Gravity was 1.016. I'm shooting for 1.012. Everywhere I read about the 3068 yeast said prepare for a huge krausen. I fermented 5 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carbon with a blow off tube, and at the most the krausen was only 1/4" thick. Maybe the cool fermentation temp had something to do with that. The beer has a slight sulfur smell, which was expected with this yeast, but tastes awesome already. My plan is to leave it in primary for another 7 to 10 days. This would be a total of 10 to 14 days in primary, and then bottle. Is there any reason to rack of the trub for secondary? I'm holding the temperature at 64°. Any reason to raise it?

 

[hockeybrewer]

+1 on double grinding at the lhbs as I did this for a while and it helped. Also it's not high tech but if you wrap a old thick comforter or blanket around your pot it'll help with your mash temps. Even in the dead of winter I only lose 3-5 degrees which is good enough for me since majority of your conversion happens in the first 20 minutes. Brew on.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the reassurance that things went well. Fermentation wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It started slowly bubbling at about 18 hours. At 36 hours it was going wild and continued to do that until sometime last night. Then this morning it's like all activity had stopped. The yeast are starting to drop out, but it's still needs to ferment a little more. I sampled it and am only at 68% attenuation. Gravity was 1.016. I'm shooting for 1.012. Everywhere I read about the 3068 yeast said prepare for a huge krausen. I fermented 5 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carbon with a blow off tube, and at the most the krausen was only 1/4" thick. Maybe the cool fermentation temp had something to do with that. The beer has a slight sulfur smell, which was expected with this yeast, but tastes awesome already. My plan is to leave it in primary for another 7 to 10 days. This would be a total of 10 to 14 days in primary, and then bottle. Is there any reason to rack of the trub for secondary? I'm holding the temperature at 64°. Any reason to raise it?

Yes, raise it. You start with the temperature low to control the activity of the yeast so they don't create off flavors but now you are beyond that stage and raising the temps will encourage the yeast to complete the ferment and get you to the lower FG instead of the yeast going to sleep. There is no reason to rack to secondary unless you are adding more fermentables such as fruit. Leave the beer where most of the yeast is to get the last few points on your FG.

 

[soccerdad]

If you think that you will be a regular biab brewer, you may want to invest in a Corona style mill. You can get them for 30 bucks including shipping. In my opinion, they are the best beast for biab. I do one pass and hand crank. The hand crank is good therapy.

I agree with Wilser on just letting the bag drain. Nothing wrong with squeezing, but if you are hitting numbers for points and water volumes without it, why squeeze? I set my bag on a colander that fits my old 5 gallon kettle without slopping wort over the sides. At the end of the draining I press down once or twice with a paninni press. That's plenty of squeeze for me.

Ps .. I want a taste of that Dunkelweizen... love that beer !

 

[dstockwell]

I use an ugly junk corona mill, and use 70% for brew-house efficiency in BrewersFriend, and consistently hit that number. I let the bag sit in a colander and bucket 20 - 30 mins to drain then squeeze what little is left. I also find the Pre boil gravity numbers in BF are always lower, mine are always higher, yet still hit OG.

 

[bolus14]

As others have stated a finer crush of your grains will likely be the best thing for your efficiency, but I wouldn't be concerned with 69%. I have a few recipes that I get 65-67% efficiency on and I haven't tried to improve the efficiency because I can make them consistently and am very happy with how those beers turn out and I can make them consistently.

I have also stopped doing the 168-170 degree "mash out," except for a few large grain bills. I do full volume mash, lift the bag out with a pulley, let it drain for 20-25 min, give it a quick twist and squeeze and start the boil, sometimes I'll light my burner about 10 min into the drip to get the boil going a little quicker.

As a couple others pointed out if it looks like it needs to drain more after 20 min I just hang it over another small kettle and let drip while I get the boil going, then dump the "extra" wort in when the dripping stops.

 

[TheBrewBrotha]

69% is good for your first BIAB. Question, where are you crushing the grains? If at LHBS ask if they can double mill the grain. Since you're doing BIAB this will help your efficiency a lot but I do hear some LHBS don't allow double mill. Also, Squeeze that damn bag like it owes you rent my friend! That way you can compare to fly/batch sparging to see what works best for ya. I double mill at my LHBS and squeeze and practically hit my numbers on most brews with efficiency from 72-84% depending on the brew. When doing in I wouldn't go over 160F but this can be debated. I use to dough in at 164-167F until I went to a brewing class with a great teacher who advised striking grains at more than 160f kills a lot of enzymes in the grains and denatures them. Notice a nice jump in efficiency and taste following his rule of thumb. How are you aerating your wort before or after pitching? Do you do yeast starters? These two aspects alone can be causes of your stuck fermentations

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

Thanks for the info. I do let my LHBS crush the grain. I've already checked with them and they will double crush for me on my next batch. As far as doughing in at 160°, that'll cause me to miss my mash temp target low. Do you just refire the burner to bring the mash up to temp after doughing in? As far as aeration, I've tried two different ways. The first batch I poured the wort from the brew kettle into the fermentation bucket, as it was an extract batch with very little trub from the steeping grains and hops. On the BIAB batch, I drained the brew kettle with a hose and let the wort splash into the carboy. Then I shook it around pretty good. And I always use a starter.

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

Ok, I took another sample today. I'm 8 days post pitching. Gravity is at 1.016. Five days ago, gravity was at 1.018. I'm still a little high for final gravity, should be down around 1.013. I'm holding the temperature at 68-69°. Is this still too cool? Can I expect it to continue to ferment for a little while to bring gravity down? Should I warm it up and give it a swirl to see if the yeast will start back up? I'm not noticing any activity in the beer anymore, and there's a pretty good layer of yeast in the bottom of the carboy. If it truly is done at 1.016, what did I do wrong to miss final gravity by three points? One poster mentioned mashing in too hot. I will definitely look into that.

By the way, the beer tastes great. I'm pleased with that aspect. 5 days ago the sample had a really strong smell of sulfur, but that is clearing up nicely. I am a little disappointed that my ABV is aroud 4.5 compared to the 5.1 I was shooting for.

 

[Kee]

Ok, I took another sample today. I'm 8 days post pitching. Gravity is at 1.016. Five days ago, gravity was at 1.018. I'm still a little high for final gravity, should be down around 1.013. I'm holding the temperature at 68-69°. Is this still too cool? Can I expect it to continue to ferment for a little while to bring gravity down? Should I warm it up and give it a swirl to see if the yeast will start back up? I'm not noticing any activity in the beer anymore, and there's a pretty good layer of yeast in the bottom of the carboy. If it truly is done at 1.016, what did I do wrong to miss final gravity by three points? One poster mentioned mashing in too hot. I will definitely look into that.

By the way, the beer tastes great. I'm pleased with that aspect. 5 days ago the sample had a really strong smell of sulfur, but that is clearing up nicely. I am a little disappointed that my ABV is aroud 4.5 compared to the 5.1 I was shooting for.

If you only pitched 8 days ago, give it more time. Most fermentations take 2-3 weeks. I don't know anything about that particular yeast, but it won't hurt to warm it a few degrees at this late stage. I would not stir, that's only something to consider in extreme circumstances.

How clear is the beer? If yeast are still suspended it could chug along for a while longer.

 

[TheBrewBrotha]

Good to hear about double milling at your LHBS. Definitely suggest giving that a shot. I mash in at 158-160F and fire the kettle but this process takes practice and depends on the bag you're using as there's a possibility of scorching. I use the bags from brewbag.com and never had issues. When doughing in I usually add grains gradually and pull up on the bag when kicking heat in short bursts. My aearation technique use to be like yours which is taught with extract brewing but it's been proven to be useless using that method. Preferably , I suggest a oxygenation kit to aerate the wort. This is ideal to giving the yeast enough oxygen to feed on. Another cheap sub is to use a paint mixer attached to a drill and whip away for 1-2 min before or after pitching yeast.

As for your gravity, I'll give it more time on the yeast but that's just my 2cents as I have never used this strain. 68F seems to be perfect for the style and enhancing the esters (assuming you're seeking that banana/cloves character). Did you do a yeast starter? If not, what was the package date on the yeast pack? 8 days seem too shy so I'd give it another 7 days and take gravity readings with a hydrometer every 2-3 days. If no change fermentation may be done. If that's the case I would recommend a diacetyl rest but bumping temp to 72-74F for 2-3 days before cold crashing to make sure those yeasties clean up anything "off putting" that may be lingering around

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

I checked the gravity again today at lunch and it was still 1.016, so obviously fermentation is done. I went ahead and bottled tonight. I only yielded 3.75 gallons of beer out of a five gallon batch. I had a tremendous amount of trub and yeast in the carboy, at least a gallons worth. When I moved the wort from the kettle to the carboy, I had 5.25 gallons. I didn't whirlpool and I dumped the entire kettle into the fermenter. Is this a typical yield, or did I do something terribly wrong? The beer tastes great for a young, flat beer, but I was expecting to get much more out of it. I also just dumped the hops in the boiling wort, should I consider using a muslin bag to avoid all the hops making it into the fermenter? Any guidance y'all can give me is definitely appreciated.

 

[doug293cz]

Did you cold crash before racking to the bottling bucket? Cold crashing for about 2 days will help compact the trub layer, so you should net more volume bottled.

Brew on

 

[RM-MN]

I checked the gravity again today at lunch and it was still 1.016, so obviously fermentation is done. I went ahead and bottled tonight. I only yielded 3.75 gallons of beer out of a five gallon batch. I had a tremendous amount of trub and yeast in the carboy, at least a gallons worth. When I moved the wort from the kettle to the carboy, I had 5.25 gallons. I didn't whirlpool and I dumped the entire kettle into the fermenter. Is this a typical yield, or did I do something terribly wrong? The beer tastes great for a young, flat beer, but I was expecting to get much more out of it. I also just dumped the hops in the boiling wort, should I consider using a muslin bag to avoid all the hops making it into the fermenter? Any guidance y'all can give me is definitely appreciated.

By my calculation this is about day 10. Leaving the beer in the fermenter longer will allow more of the trub to settle and compact. Your choice of yeast will affect this too as some is more flocculant than others so it will settle out quicker. Cold crashing can eliminate some of the time required for the trub to settle and complact too. Your 5.25 gallons should have yielded nearly 5 gallons of finished beer.

I've bottled beer in 10 days and had little trub to deal with and I dump everything but the last tiny bit of hop from the boiling kettle into the fermenter but I probably used different yeast.. I also mill my grains very fine and squeeze the bag to get as much wort out as I can (also helps keeps drips off the carpet when I take the grains outside to dump therm) so I don't think your doing so would affect the amount of beer ready to bottle.

For your next batch, try to leave the beer in the fermenter a few more days and/or cold crash. With this batch getting ready to drink you probably can wait the extra few days. Most of my beers spend 3 weeks in the fermenter, some less, some a lot more. The batch that spent 9 weeks in the fermenter had so little trub in the bottles it was hard to see even with clear bottles.

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

I didn't cold crash as this is a dunkelwiezen and I wanted to make sure there was plenty of yeast still left in suspension. It's actually been 12 days, and I guess being my first batch to bottle, I got a little impatient. Next batch I'll give a little more time in primary and see if that helps. The next batch is also going to be a porter, so it'll get cold crashed as well.

 

[bolus14]

I agree with the info above. I just rushed a Nugget Nectar clone because my pipeline has about dried up and because I had a vacation week and wanted to get it bottled while I was off from work. Only been in bottles for a couple days but the amount of trub in the bottles is about double of what I normally see.

Regardless of style, letting your beers ferment completely and allowing the yeast and proteins in suspension to settle is going to take 2-3 weeks depending on yeast strain and the OG.

I normally allow a min of 3 weeks for fermentation for beers less than 8%,more than that depends on the style and yeast strain. After bottling I try to allow at least 1.5-2 weeks, but tis depends on my pipeline and my patience at the time.