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First Ever BIAB - Trials and Tribulations!


talltwits

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I probably wouldn't bother with gelatine unless you can cold crash the beer. It works a lot better when the batch is cold. It will still work at ferment temps but it takes longer. I actually gave up on it after 2 batches because I found it made the yeast sediment in the bottles really fluffy and easily disturbed. I switched to isinglass which does the same as gelatine but without ruining the sediment.

 

It is a steep learning curve but at the same time it's a very simple process. With BIAB especially, it's pretty hard to stuff it up. Even if you don't quite hit the intended numbers you'll still end up with a really nice beer. I had efficiency issues a little while ago but the beers were still tops.

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Great thread' date=' talltwits.

 

I am doing my first ever all grain BIAB tomorrow and i'm a little nervous [img']innocent[/img]

 

I am doing an English Bitter that BeerLust suggested in a previous thread. I will only be doing 11.5L batch with this recipe....

 

1.4kg Marris Otter (84.8%)

150g Carapils (6.7%)

150g Wheat malt (6.7%)

40g Chocolate malt (1.8%)

6g Target @ 60 mins

12.5g Fuggles @ 20 mins

12.5g EK Goldings @ 20 mins

S04 English Ale Yeast.

 

My only issue is cooling the wort to pitching temp. I live in a climate where the tap water is 30C on a good day so i will need to leave the pot in the sink / bath for quite a while. I have frozen a bit of water to cool it down so hopefully it works. I think ill leave it in the sink with tap water then get it down with ice at the end.

 

Thanks for all the info everybody! Lots to take on.

 

Dingo.

 

 

 

Happy Brewday!!!

 

Good luck with the BIAB and be sure to let us know how you get on! Yeah the cooling was tougher ham I thought. Luckily my cold water here is well, cold. That must be a nightmare having 30c tap water! Think I'll stick with the sink & cold technique before spending money on a immersion cooler, I'll just remember to allow myself more time for it.

 

Was the recipes that Beer Lust gave for an 11.5 litre or did you have to convert it for your size? If so how did you go about it?

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If you don't wanna muck around with a chiller you can always get those plastic water jerry can things and do no-chill. Basically just transfer the hot wort into the jerry about 15 mins after flameout, fill it right to the brim, seal it up and leave it to cool down naturally.

 

I use this method because of the convenience of being able to brew whenever and store the wort, rather than having to wait for the fermenter to be empty.

 

Converting recipes is easy. If the original was based on a 23 litre batch, you'd simply divide 11.5 by 23, and then multiply all the ingredient amounts by whatever that figure is.

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I probably wouldn't bother with gelatine unless you can cold crash the beer. It works a lot better when the batch is cold. It will still work at ferment temps but it takes longer. I actually gave up on it after 2 batches because I found it made the yeast sediment in the bottles really fluffy and easily disturbed. I switched to isinglass which does the same as gelatine but without ruining the sediment.

 

You could have told me that before I bought the gelatine annoyedtongue

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Cubes arnt for just redneck brewers!

 

It makes a lot of sence to do cubes...

 

especially when cooling temps are hard to achieve in hot weather or brewing big batches...

 

Im brewing 50-70 litre plus batches so Ive now made the switch to cubing, even suits the case for making small batches first with suitable yeast starters

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I probably wouldn't bother with gelatine unless you can cold crash the beer. It works a lot better when the batch is cold. It will still work at ferment temps but it takes longer. I actually gave up on it after 2 batches because I found it made the yeast sediment in the bottles really fluffy and easily disturbed. I switched to isinglass which does the same as gelatine but without ruining the sediment.

 

You could have told me that before I bought the gelatine annoyedtongue

 

Make some jam? whistling

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Great thread' date=' talltwits.

 

I am doing my first ever all grain BIAB tomorrow and i'm a little nervous [img']innocent[/img]

 

I am doing an English Bitter that BeerLust suggested in a previous thread. I will only be doing 11.5L batch with this recipe....

 

1.4kg Marris Otter (84.8%)

150g Carapils (6.7%)

150g Wheat malt (6.7%)

40g Chocolate malt (1.8%)

6g Target @ 60 mins

12.5g Fuggles @ 20 mins

12.5g EK Goldings @ 20 mins

S04 English Ale Yeast.

 

My only issue is cooling the wort to pitching temp. I live in a climate where the tap water is 30C on a good day so i will need to leave the pot in the sink / bath for quite a while. I have frozen a bit of water to cool it down so hopefully it works. I think ill leave it in the sink with tap water then get it down with ice at the end.

 

Thanks for all the info everybody! Lots to take on.

 

Dingo.

 

 

 

Happy Brewday!!!

 

Good luck with the BIAB and be sure to let us know how you get on! Yeah the cooling was tougher ham I thought. Luckily my cold water here is well, cold. That must be a nightmare having 30c tap water! Think I'll stick with the sink & cold technique before spending money on a immersion cooler, I'll just remember to allow myself more time for it.

 

Was the recipes that Beer Lust gave for an 11.5 litre or did you have to convert it for your size? If so how did you go about it?

 

Cheers, Tallwits.

 

I used THIS recipe suggested by Beerlust.

 

I halved everything in the recipe and instead of sparging like the recipe suggests, i just put the recipe into Beersmith and used my profile to work out how much water i needed.

 

 

I added 16.5L water to my pot and mashed in at 72C for 60 minutes. The temp dropped to 66C by the end. I lifted the bag out and put it in a sieve over a pot. Using dish washing gloves, i squeezed the bag and got a lot more liquid out. This went into the big pot.

 

I took a pre boil reading which i cooled in a jar in the fridge which read 1.040.

 

After the hop additions i cooled in the bath in coolish water for 45 minutes then changed the water and added a heap of ice. I got the wort down to 30C over about 90min. Pretty happy with that.

 

I poured the wort into fermenter and a bit of trub got in but wont matter after cold crashing.

 

I took a OG reading and it was 1.040 again!!! Maybe something wrong with my hydro or my method? Refractometer will be in the mail this week ;)

 

I hit exactly 11.5L in my fermenter with a little trubby crap, maybe 1L left in the pot.

 

As far as all grain goes i found the whole process really easy. My only worry would be sanitation. I hope leaving the wort in the pot for so long will be ok (it had a lid on).

 

After trying to write a 2000 word essay and my first BIAB in the same day, i couldn't be arsed rehydrating the yeast so i sprinkled the S04 over the nice fresh wort :)

 

Fingers crossed.

 

Dingo.

 

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Brilliant! Sounds like you had fun Dingo and it was a successful experience! Did you find when you actually do the process a lot of what your read on forums makes sense? I did. I wonder what's going on with the hydrometers, I've not done it yet but I'm going to test mine this week at 20c as recommended. Well when you pass the time essay hopefully you'll have 11.5 litres of tasty home brew to celebrate with!

 

Kelsey, I like the idea of The no chill jerry cans. How long can you store them for in there? I suppose it would mean once you empty the FV you can do a quick sanitise then fill it straight up again without having to do the BIAB again all in the same day. Something to consider I think!

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Kelsey' date=' I like the idea of The no chill jerry cans. How long can you store them for in there? I suppose it would mean once you empty the FV you can do a quick sanitise then fill it straight up again without having to do the BIAB again all in the same day. Something to consider I think! [/quote']As long as you like, really. I generally get mine into the fermenter about a month or two after the actual brew day to produce the wort, but sometimes they get left longer. But yeah, that's basically how it works in regard to the convenience of it. I usually keg/bottle the batch on a Saturday, then soak the FV for a couple of days in sodium percarbonate, mainly so I can use the brew fridge to crash chill the yeast starter, and then on the Monday I put the next batch in.

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Batch priming before bottling (possibly your next step), a picture tells a thousand words.

 

Diluted and pasteurised Dextrose solution had been added to the bottom of the sanitised second FV before the beer is ran into it via the hose which is coiled around the bottom once to help mix the solutions via a slight whirlpool effect with limited oxygenation :-)

I use 8g Dextrose per 1lt of VIP (remember to allow for fermenter to packing loss when calculating your final VIP i.e. the snot that you will leave in the FV after transferring to the second FV) mixed in 250ml of water then nuked for 3 mins in the microwave (no need to let it cool for too long afterwards either).

 

eYJYSn1.jpg

 

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It also pays to check the calibration of your digital probe thermometer. One of mine was 12c out surprised

 

Notice meat thermometer version is actually reading 12 not 1.2. I took it back to the store and got a refund as it did not have a manual calibration feature to fix the problem.

 

A3ZfPlZ.jpg

 

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Think I might have to give that batch priming a go next time. Save me using carb drops in my PET bottles.

 

Kelsey, Can you let me know a good/reliable Pale Ale recipe you use? I am hoping I can just calc the quantities for 11L batch. I have some Amarrilo hops I am keen to use but not sure on the grain bill.

 

This will be my first BIAB and I have the same kind of setup as tallwitts.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

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Think I might have to give that batch priming a go next time. Save me using carb drops in my PET bottles.

 

Kelsey' date=' Can you let me know a good/reliable Pale Ale recipe you use? I am hoping I can just calc the quantities for 11L batch. I have some Amarrilo hops I am keen to use but not sure on the grain bill.

 

This will be my first BIAB and I have the same kind of setup as tallwitts.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike[/quote']

 

Hey Mike

 

Here is one that I had been planning on doing but haven't got to it yet.

 

All Amarillo APA

ABV. 5.6%

OG: 1.058

Colour: 20 EBC = 10.2 SRM

IBU (Tinsenth): 36

*74% Efficiency into fermenter

 

Mash: 90 mins @ 66c

Boil: 60 Min

Ferment: 21 days @ 18c

 

(The following volumes were calculated for my standard shop bought 19lt pot)

Total Water Needed: 17.8lt (Hold 3lt back for sparging @ 78c or pot will overflow when grains are added)

Volume into Boil: 15.2lt @ 1.044

Volume of Ambient Wort: 11.1 @ 1.058

Volume into Fermenter: 10lt @ 1.058

 

Grain Bill

Pale Ale Malt. 2035 grams = 76.9%

Munich 1. 407 grams = 13.6%

Caraamber. 204 grams = 7.7%

 

Hop Schedule

 

17.6 IBU Amarillo Pellets (8.9%AA) 9.5 grams @ 60 min

13.6 IBU Amarillo Pellets (8.9%AA) 12 grams @ 20 min

5.1 IBU Amarillo Pellets (8.9%AA) 13.5 grams @ 5 min

 

Whirflock Tablet (Boil) 5 mins - clarity (or not?!)

 

Safale US-05 yeast

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This recipe doesn't include a dry hop addition but if I was going to make it I would throw in 12 or 15 grams of Amarillo (or maybe even some cascade, Citra or Simcoe) for the last 5-7 days of fermentation wink

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Thanks Pilch.

 

And I have my first recipe :)

 

Can I confirm the strike water should be 15L when I put the grain in and have 3L in a separate pot for sparging?

 

Will go and see my LHBS for the grains when I get back from Melbs. Good Bye extract brewing.... hopefully.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

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Yep, that's the idea Mike. Just heat the 3lt to 78c in another pot towards the end of the mash and pour it over the bag (as in earlier photo) and then add those running's back into the boil pot.

 

And, don't worry too much if your numbers don't turn out exactly as this recipe, I have a few loss parameters set-up in the back ground that might be slightly different to your set up but it wont be too far off.

 

It is a good idea to record the measurements an gravity readings you get at the set points in the recipe. This will help you to set up your own profile parameters (or at least get an idea of actual volume requirements) for future brews.

 

Good luck and happy brewing biggrin

 

eUbW3fF.jpg

Sparge water (3lt) on the way up to 78C

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Pilch beat me to it lol

 

But, this is the grain bill that I pretty well always use for brewing American style pale ales. It's based on a 25 litre batch @ 75% brewhouse efficiency:

 

4.5kg Pale Malt (Any will do, I use Maris Otter myself)

500g Munich II

250g Medium Crystal

 

Mashed at 66C for 90 minutes.

 

Then boil and add hops etc. etc.

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Hmmm, that's interesting, it has disappeared altogether now? I can't upload it again now sorry, I am on my IPad waiting to get on the big freedom bird out of here.

I am going to do my first bigger BIAB batch in the 40lt urn I bought a couple of months ago this trip home. It is going to be a 21lt mid strength (3.7%) Low Rider Pale Ale and I am also going to try the no-chill (slow chill?) method for the first time as well whistling

I will let you know how it goes.

 

Still got to run a boil test to gauge evaporation rate and work out a rough KTF loss before the maiden voyage though?!

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