We started the brew day at about 10:00 am with a 90 minute mash. We were shooting for a mash temperature of 150 F and had the water up to the strike temperature, but it took us a little bit to figure out the best way to hold the edge of the brew bag around the lip of the pot. We were also worried that the 6.25 gallons of water wouldn't fit in the pot with all that grain, so we started with only 5 gallons in the pot. It turned out all 6.25 gallons did fit, so that was a plus. By the time we got the grains in and all the water, the mash temperature ended up being in the mid 140s. I'm not sure if it's from the strike water being too low, or the added water being too cool, or the time it took to get the bag setup figured out.
The biggest test for our BIAB setup came at the end of the mash. Last time we tried BIAB, we didn't have a good strainer and the bag spilled a bunch of liquid over the sides of the pot onto the stove while it drained. This time, I got on a step-stool above the pot so I could lift the bag way up. The handles on the brew bag made it really easy to pull the bag up, despite the weight of the grains and all the water. I lifted it up and Amy put our new 12" strainer underneath. We let the bag drain while we brought the wort up to a boil and measured our ingredients. That whole part of the process was a million times better than our previous BIAB attempt.
After the mash, our pre-boil volume was somewhere between 5.25 and 5.5 gallons, which was a little higher than we were shooting for but we're still getting a handle on how much water we lose from getting soaked up by the grains. After the 90 minute boil, we were down to a bit over 4 gallons. That allowed us to put a little over 3.4 gallons in the primary and still end up with nearly 10 cups left over in the kettle.
We got a hydrometer reading of 1.088 and a refractometer measurement of 21.2 brix. A little lower than the 1.105 starting gravity we were shooting for, but I'm sure a big part of that is us still figuring out the efficiency and water levels for our BIAB setup. After a few more batches and rounds of adjusting the numbers in BeerSmith, we should get pretty good at hitting our target gravity.
We didn't finish the brew day until close to 3 in the afternoon, but it was a great way to spend a day off. Overall our first all-grain with our new setup worked great though. It was fun doing a Belgian too. The Belgian yeast actually smelled good prior to pitching into the primary, which is quite a departure from some of the funky-smelling yeasts of other types. Unfortunately, the yeast (according to Beer Captured) is pretty temperature sensitive and needs to be around 70 F during fermentation. I'm not sure we have anywhere in the house that stays a consistent 70 F, so that part may be a trick. Beer Captured also says we should leave the beer in the secondary for 6 weeks, and in the bottle for another 6 weeks, so it'll be quite a while before we're tasting it. Hopefully it tastes good!
---> [ The Quad Of My Dreams Tasting ]
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