10 ltr BIAB

[Portreath]

Hi

I want to have a try at BIAB but not convinced I want to spent too much money yet. I have a 10 ltr Buffalo electric water boiler (off one of my old catering trailers) and I'm wondering if this is big enough to give BIAB a go or not?

 

[MyQul]

Possibly, just about. I usually do 10L brews using 15L of water. I normally mash with 6L then dunk sparge with 4L then the other 5L i just chuck into my 15L pot.

What you could do is, do your mash and sparge and add as much of the rest of the liquor to the boiler as your able to.Then keep topping up as it boils off. Then add anything left (of the water) to your FV. I do/did this then I do a 23L maxi-biab brewlength

 

[-Bezza-]

Lot of effort for little beer but if you treat it as a one-off trial to see if you get on with it, then sure.

I did my first BIAB recently in a 20l saucepan on the hob and there were some frustrations in using equipment that was smaller, so perhaps just a note of caution that it might not be the most perfect experience. But to be clear, I don't regret it as I've ended up with about 14l of very pale ale that I've not tasted yet but already more proud of than any kit beer! It gave me enough confidence to buy some equipment that allows me to step up to bigger batches.

 

[MmmBeer]

I did a lot of BIAB brews using a 15 litre pot, I could just about manage to get 12 litres in the FV from it. Realistically with your Buffalo, you can probably get 7 - 8 litres.

As an alternative you could create a stronger wort and liquor back. So use a 10 litre recipe but reduce the sparge water by 3 litres, giving say 7 litres at O.G. 1.080 then add bottled water to it in your FV to bring it down to 10 litres at 1.056.

 

[MyQul]

Lot of effort for little beer but if you treat it as a one-off trial to see if you get on with it, then sure.

I did my first BIAB recently in a 20l saucepan on the hob and there were some frustrations in using equipment that was smaller, so perhaps just a note of caution that it might not be the most perfect experience. But to be clear, I don't regret it as I've ended up with about 14l of very pale ale that I've not tasted yet but already more proud of than any kit beer! It gave me enough confidence to buy some equipment that allows me to step up to bigger batches.

Not so. I think this is a bit of a myth about doing smaller batches. As your batch size decreases so do the effort and time. It takes less time to heat sparge liquor and the boil, less time do the sparge itself because of the smaller amount of grain and less sparge liquor if your doing something like fly sparging. Less time to cool the boiled wort too.

Yes, your still doing a 1 hour mash and one hour boil, but even they can be tweeked. Sometimes I do a 5L batch and I only do a 30min mash/30min boil and I cant tell any difference tastewise between 1 hour mash/boil

Not included cooling the wort (because I no chill) I can knock out a 5L brew in 2 hours or a 10L in about 3

 

[Portreath]

Thanks for the tips, I have just received my copy of CAMRA'S brew your own British ale, so I'll be using the recipes (scaled down) to work from for my first effort. Not too fussed if I balls it up as it should be a very interesting learning exercise.
Thanks again for the encouragement.