I am wondering if anyone knows a nice calculation for determining how many lbs of grain you can fit in a certain sized kettle with water at like 1.2-1.5 qts/lb for BIAB. Thanks.
Now, how many pounds of grain will fit into a 5 gal paint straining bag, and will the nylon hold up against the weight?
Quit raining on the mans parade Just kidding, man brings up a good point and I'll add $0.02. Make sure you have a pulley, preferable a twin setup . . . full bag of grains gets heavy fast, plus it's nice to let them drip a little.
A spare 2x4 could get worked into the equation and you can just tie the bag up to drip dry and throw hot sparge water at it without much fear of getting burned. If you have a second pot, use that.
The one BIAB I did was 10lbs 2-row and it was packed pretty tight. Too tight, actually. Probably wouldn't go over 7ish pounds per bag if I were to do it again.
Do people actually try to BIAB with 5 gal paint straining bags? Rule 1 of BIAB is that your bag should be big enough for you to fit your kettle inside of it! Back when I was BIAB'ing I made my own bags out of "swiss voile" material I bought from a fabric shop. Used to handle 14-20 pounds of grain, although picking it up and out of the kettle with any more than 14 pounds definitely sucked without somebody to help. As previously mentioned, a pulley / carrabiner system is awesome for BIAB if the brewer has a way to create one. P.S. If your kettle has a built in thermometer, be careful of the probe as it can easily rip the bag / poke a hole in it while removing it. A couple of links that address building / buying a bag... http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/biab-how-make-bag-241260/ http://biabbags.webs.com/about http://custombiab.com/ http://www.bagbrewer.com http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/
P.S. check out the weight test video on bagbrewer featuring a 60 pound bag of sand P.P.S. biabbags.webs.com claims they have weight tested there bags up to 120 pounds!
