# IIPA, will it work with BIAB?



## Lionman (23/4/17)

OG 1.087
FG 1.019
ABV 8.9
IBU 90
23L

3kg Munich 1
3kg Marris Otter
2kg Vienna
.3kg Carapils
.2kg Crystal light
.1kg Cararoma

30g Magnum FWH
30g Amarillo Cube
30g Mosaic Cube
30g Simcoe Cube

WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast

Does this look alright? 

I was planing to use the IPA currently in the cube as a kind of starter by taking 200ml of the yeast cake from it and pitching into the IIPA.

What issues can I expect to face? I've brewed a grist of 7.2kg before with success so this should just fit I think. This is what 7.2KG looks like in my malt pipe/bag.


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## Stouter (23/4/17)

Yeeeeah!
That looks Iike a tasty recipe, and a sheite load of grain for 23L.
How do you sort out your dough balls on batch like this?


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## Lionman (23/4/17)

With the 7.2kg bill, I just added it about 1kg at a time stirring it in as I went. Seemed to go OK. I think I will be pushing it for space though with this bill. I might fall short but I can just not add what doesn't fit I guess.


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## Rocker1986 (23/4/17)

You could always mash half of the grains, then remove them and mash the other half in the wort. I've never had to do this because I don't make massive beers like that but I have seen it mentioned before.


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## louistoo (24/4/17)

Rocker1986 said:


> You could always mash half of the grains, then remove them and mash the other half in the wort. I've never had to do this because I don't make massive beers like that but I have seen it mentioned before.


BYO mag has a mash schedule/article called reiterated mash I think, I biab and did a Pliny the Elder clone that used a lot of malt which I mashed following the BYO schedule. The result yeilded a highly fermentable wort, og 1.078, fg 1.010.. and equal first in our club ipa comp


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## tj2204 (24/4/17)

Agree with Rocker1986, you'll either need to do a reiterated mash or do a sparge. 

I BIAB in a 40L urn and find that a big grain bill like that gives rubbish efficiency. I recently did an IPA with 7kg grain and only got about 62% efficiency - for reference my efficiency for standard gravity beers (5%) is about 72%.

Looking at your picture I don't think you've got much chance of being able to mash that all in one go anyway.


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## Stouter (24/4/17)

I'd think that much grain in that much water would limit the grain's exposure to the mash water and it's ability to rinse sugars. 
I'm assuming no sparging BIAB.


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## nosco (24/4/17)

Only 90g grams of late hops for a IIPA?


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## damoninja (24/4/17)

If you really get in a pinch, you can always add extract to bring the gravity up... Brew within your means  

It's common to brew with a thick mash but I think this would be a bit too thick. The reiterated mash idea is probably the most sound, with such a large 


Another option is brew a lower volume... I brew about 50L batches but if I wanted to go for something like this my mash tun wouldn't cope, I could probably still get 43L out but maybe only 40L.


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## Dan Pratt (24/4/17)

1.019 FG and 3kg of Munich = sweet flavour, that will affect the hop character of the style. 

Drop the Munich, replace for more MO, the MO will provide plenty of colour. Lower the mash temp to lower the FG.

Yeast - use 400mls of yeast slurry and pitch at 16c raise to 18c for ferment.


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## manticle (24/4/17)

In my experience, munich will only work if you go for no crystal - otherwise it ends up too chewy. If you elect no crystal, choose between vienna or munich - not both.

With highly hopped beers like this, you want just enough malt to carry the hops - not overshadow them.

Dunk sparge if you have a spare vessel.


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## fletcher (24/4/17)

agree with manticle and pratty regarding the removal of the munich and vienna. more MO to get the desired OG and/or consider adding dextrose to lower the FG and helping bump the OG. I'd personally aim for a FG of about 1.010-12ish. definitely do a reiterated mash. I'd personally also go mental with the cube and dry hopping; about 200-400gms between them.

edit - I personally wouldn't use a yeast that's fermented an IPA as it's already worked through a higher gravity beer. consider a large starter for your liquid yeast with a fresh vial/pack


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## Lionman (24/4/17)

Rocker1986 said:


> You could always mash half of the grains, then remove them and mash the other half in the wort. I've never had to do this because I don't make massive beers like that but I have seen it mentioned before.





louistoo said:


> BYO mag has a mash schedule/article called reiterated mash I think, I biab and did a Pliny the Elder clone that used a lot of malt which I mashed following the BYO schedule. The result yeilded a highly fermentable wort, og 1.078, fg 1.010.. and equal first in our club ipa comp


This might be a good idea. I had not thought of mashing into wort before. Thanks for the advice. 



nosco said:


> Only 90g grams of late hops for a IIPA?


What would you recommend? It should push close to 90IBU (although I admit the accuracy of IBA calcs is probably pretty average, especially for no chill).



damoninja said:


> If you really get in a pinch, you can always add extract to bring the gravity up... Brew within your means
> 
> It's common to brew with a thick mash but I think this would be a bit too thick. The reiterated mash idea is probably the most sound, with such a large
> 
> ...


Sacrilege! 



Pratty1 said:


> 1.019 FG and 3kg of Munich = sweet flavour, that will affect the hop character of the style.
> 
> Drop the Munich, replace for more MO, the MO will provide plenty of colour. Lower the mash temp to lower the FG.
> 
> Yeast - use 400mls of yeast slurry and pitch at 16c raise to 18c for ferment.


I'm still a noob when it comes to mashing, so forgive the ignorance. The figures quoted are from software. The software I'm using allows to chose between different mash profiles but for some reason, they don't affect the FG? For instance for a full body mash it says to hold 69c for 60mins. For a light body it it says to hold 64c for 90mins, but there is no difference in FG between them. Is this a bug in the software? I would have thought mash temp would have a pretty big impact on FG?

I do want a more hop forward beer (obviously, it's a DIPA) so I think I will go with a lower mash temp. The speciality malts should help give it a bit of body anyway. I do like a bit of Munich sweetness but perhaps I should drop the amount used and replace it with MO.

400ml of thick slurry sounds like a lot? Wouldn't that be overpitching by a fair bit? I can only go off previous brews but I usually use 100ml on around 1.06x OG and get good results.

Thanks everyone for the input. It's much appreciated.


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## Lionman (24/4/17)

manticle said:


> In my experience, munich will only work if you go for no crystal - otherwise it ends up too chewy. If you elect no crystal, choose between vienna or munich - not both.
> 
> With highly hopped beers like this, you want just enough malt to carry the hops - not overshadow them.
> 
> Dunk sparge if you have a spare vessel.


Thanks for this advice. I think I should hold back on the sweeter malts, I would rather a slightly thin and more hop forward beer, and increase the sweeter malts in a subsequent batch if I think it needs it.



fletcher said:


> agree with manticle and pratty regarding the removal of the munich and vienna. more MO to get the desired OG and/or consider adding dextrose to lower the FG and helping bump the OG. I'd personally aim for a FG of about 1.010-12ish. definitely do a reiterated mash. I'd personally also go mental with the cube and dry hopping; about 200-400gms between them.
> 
> edit - I personally wouldn't use a yeast that's fermented an IPA as it's already worked through a higher gravity beer. consider a large starter for your liquid yeast with a fresh vial/pack


400g! haha, there would be no room for wort in the cube! Not sure I want to commit that much of my stock to the first attempt of this style, but I do respect that type of boldness.

I was going to dry hop with the same as cube additions which would be 180gms, so not too far off. I could bump the late editions up a bit to hit 200g.


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## TheWiggman (24/4/17)

Refreshing to see a thread with a stack of good knowledge and feedback. My concerns align with everything above, specifically -

Use of munich (and personally I would can MO for regular pale malt)
Pitching on an IPA cake. Avoid slurry repitches on brews above 1.040
Thick mash - I target 3l/kg, anything 1.5l/kg or below is asking for trouble be it for conversion efficiency or poor heat distribution, amongst other things. The suggestion of a reiterated mash is a good one
Late hops - 90g isn't an outrageous amount of hops, but 9% is a bloody strong pale ale that calls for a stack of hop flavour to keep up with the ABV. If you're worried about the IBUs then back off the magnum at 60 mins and increase the late hops. If you don't want the beer to be too hop forward consider a late addition like flameout or whirlpool (yes I know you're cubing). This will give the beer additional bitterness and hoppy 'character' without being an aromatic hop bomb that suits a beer like a IIPA. 
Also consider you'll lose efficiency with such a high OG. I'd assume about 65% brewhouse max with BIAB. Chuck that in your software and adjust the volume until you get your desired OG. If you overshoot then either water down post-boil and carry on with a stronger beer.


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## Bribie G (24/4/17)

While most BIAB ers will maintain that BIAB has to be full volume no sparge, for a bigger beer there's no shame in doing a sparge, say into a big bowl or nappy bucket or something, then add those runnings back into the kettle.

Of course you then end up with a lower gravity wort, so simply boil it for longer. For example most Czech breweries boil for two hours (for different reasons to just gravity) and it doesn't do their beers any harm.

I did a RIS using a sparge and long boil a few years ago, even boiled for 3 hours IIRC.


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## Lionman (24/4/17)

I'm getting close to 80% efficiency with 6.5KG bill. This is with fly sparging, which I can do quite easily as I have a basket for my bag.

This is what I'm looking at when I sparge. I just slowly pour 70c water over the bag until I get to about 30l. It's not perfect but I get much better efficiency than with batch sparge which I have done using FV before.






I can mash into 25L (just), with a 40l vessel which would be a ratio of 3.125L/Kg.

Thinking something like this now.

7.5kg Marris Otter (this is the only pale malt I have on hand)
.3kg Carapils
.2kg Light Crystal
.1kg Cararoma

30g Magnum FWH 43IBU

40g Amarillo Cube 16IBU
40g Simcoe Cube 24IBU
40g Mosaic Cube 22IBU

40g Amarillo Dry Hop
40g Simcoe Dry Hop
40g Mosaic Dry Hop

23L (Post boil)
OG 1.084
FG 1.018 (I'm sceptical of this, I think I can get it a few points lower)
ABV 8.6
IBU 105
SRM 9

this is predicting an efficiency of 75%.


Is this looking better?


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## Stouter (24/4/17)

Lionman said:


> 7.5kg Marris Otter (this is the only pale malt I have on hand)


Damn, only Marris Otter!? You'll just have to make do.

Hats off for going with such a large batch. Especially for something that seems so experimental :icon_cheers:


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## nosco (24/4/17)

As per the 90g of hops I was more referring to my own hop addiction. My last IIPA had 300g of hops all up. It was calculated at 80IBU but it wasnt any where near that in the tasting due to it being mostly late hops and dry hops. It did satisfy my craving though.

The only problem I find with pouring sparge water over the top is that tends to go out the sides of the bag first. I think a dunk sparge would maybe work better but Im not speaking from experience as Ive never tried it.


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## Lionman (24/4/17)

nosco said:


> The only problem I find with pouring sparge water over the top is that tends to go out the sides of the bag first. I think a dunk sparge would maybe work better but Im not speaking from experience as Ive never tried it.


I have found this not to be the case. As long as you pour the sparge water in at a nice slow even pace, making sure you are pouring it evenly across the surface, almost none comes out the sides. I'm not dumping it in there so fast that it pools above the malt. If I did this I would expect it to flow over the edges.


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## Rattlehead989 (25/4/17)

Id drop the crystal and use munich and adjust the base malt accordingly. Might want to try some sugar aswell to get the FG lower.


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## Lionman (26/4/17)

Brewed this last night and its in the cube. It's looking like it will have a glorious red colour.

I overshot the estimated efficiency and nearly hit 80%, ending up with 23L of 1.088 wort. I had to work fairly hard for this through doing a few small sparges over a smaller pot I have.

It's looking like it will be a 9%+ ABV beast. :beerbang:

I mashed at 64c for 2 hours so hopefully, it's highly fermentable and I can get around 1.015 FG. I will be happy with anything under 1.020 though, should be plenty of hops to balance a solid malt profile.

I think I should be able to fit another kilo of malt in this system. Maybe an imperial stout at 10% might be n the cards at some stage. Let's see how this one turns out first.


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## lukasfab (2/5/17)

you got this thing fermenting away??


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## Lionman (2/5/17)

Not yet, I have an all Simcoe RIPA that's dry hopping, should be kegging that either tomorrow or the day after. I will give the fermenter a quick rinse and sanitise and this one will be straight in there.


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## Lionman (8/5/17)

The WLP090 ripped through the bulk of this brew in a few days but it looks like I'm still a few points from where I would want to be and fermentation has slowed considerably.

It's gone from a swirling yeast party to just the odd bubble rising from the cake. Is this normal for WLP090? How long would it normally take to bottom out?

I'm using a refractometer and the Brewer's Friend calculator HERE. Starting at 21.2 Brix and sitting at 11Brix 1.019 corrected) at the moment (9.85%ABV). Hoping to get to 10.5 Brix (1.016 corrected). 

It hasn't really moved in a couple of days now, but I wouldn't mind it a little dryer.


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## Lionman (16/5/17)

After a week of dry hopping it has fallen a few points to approximately 10.5 Brix. Looks to be bang on 83% attenuation. Really eked out the last few though.

Out of the fermenter it's tasting quite nice, maybe a little boozy. :beerbang: Great hop flavours and aromas though. Can't wait to tap it!


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## mtb (16/5/17)

Great job mate. Bottle a few and send it off to Monster Mash!


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## Lionman (17/5/17)

I have a few bottles conditioning. I might enter for shits and giggles.


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