Biab mash profile in Brewtarget

[Daniel Victoria]

I'm new to beer making and I'm using Brewtarget for my recipes. But there is a catch. I don't have a lot of space so my system is a small volume BIAB. By small volume I mean that I use a pot with 7.5 litters capacity to make 5L batches.

How do I set a mash profile for biab? Specially if I'm going to do a multi-temperature mash? Or should I not worry about that and just add all the water in the beginning and add turn on the stove at the prescribed times?

Cheers
Daniel

[milosh]

I had exactly the same confusion, when I started to use Brewtarget...

The short answer is -- there is no easy built-in possibilities in Brewtarget for calculating starting volume of mash if you are planning to do full volume BIAB (i.e all the water goes to kettle right away). The reason is that most all-grain brewers do not mash with the full water amount, but they start with certain ratio of water to the total weight of grains. (Usually about 3 litres of water per 1 kg of grain -- see http://byo.com/mashing/item/1110-managing-mash-thickness for more). They then infuse water step-by-step to increase mash temperature for the next temperature rest and to achieve finally trough sparge the boil volume at the end of mashing. That's the way also Brewtarget works -- you enter the mash thickness (the ratio) into the wizard and Brewtarget calculates the required amount of infusion. 

As a result I am now used to start with thicker mash and top up the kettle later (Brewtarget will easily calculate the amounts). (Actually I am sparging my BIAB bag for extra efficiency). 

As for building the multi-mash schedule I follow the following steps: 

1. I click on Mash Des, enter the tun temp (I am using room temperature for that)

2. The first mash step in Brewtarget is always infusion. I give a name to step and enter the target temperature and time. I usually don't bother for the rest of the settings, as they are recalculated by Brewtarget later. 

3. For the one-temperature mash I click Finish; for the multi-step mash I go next for entering the additional steps (in BIAB they are probably temperature steps).

4. When finished i click on Mash wiz and enter the thickness.

5. Voila -- Brewtarget calculates the required water amount and temperature for infusion (I.e the required water temperature in your vessel before you put your grains in) plus the final top-up (sparge) amount. 

6. You can play around with re-clicking on Mash wiz and entering different mash thickness to get different results. If you want to have full amount infusion right away in the beginning, then you could opt for zero final batch sparge by trial and error (keep eye on calculated boil size upper in the window, as Brewtarget won't restrict you to enter water amounts, that are larger than is the volume of your kettle.

Good luck!

[Daniel Victoria]

Thanks Milosh,

Great explanation! I had some trouble understanding what Brewtarget
meant by infusion and temperature mashes so I tried and figured out
that infusion meant adding water. Temperature meant raising the
temperature...

I'm also doing a sparge in my BIAB, and squeazing the bag a lot. Don't
want to miss all the juices :)

Cheers
Daniel

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