# Step-by-step Biab (lcba Clone)



## kocken42 (14/6/11)

Hey fellas,

I was looking through some old messages of mine, and found one where I was asked as to how I did my BIAB.

I just had a read through and thought it could be of some use to beginners doing their BIAB in a 19L pot.

I'm in no way a pro, and there are many different ways of doing BIAB...but I did complete this recipe and the beer came out fantastic.

I'll go through the recipe first...

Little creatures Bright Ale Clone

Aim: 20L batch

Grain bill:

2.7kg Pilsener Malt (Joe White Export Pilsener)
760g Vienna Malt (Weyermann Vienna)
230g Carapils (Weyermann Carapils)
230g Wheat Malt (Joe White Wheat)

Hops:

11g B-Saaz (Motueka) (7.8% AA) @ 45 mins
9g Cascade (7.8% AA) @ 45 mins
9g B-Saaz (Motueka) @ 20 mins
8g Cascade @ 20 mins
16g B-Saaz (Motueka) @ 0 mins (stove off/flame out)
14g Cascade @ 0 mins (stove off/flame out)

Yeast:

Safale US-05 (I just poured the wort onto the trub of my previous batch)

***METHOD***

The Mash:

1. Put 14 litres of water into your big pot.
2. Put it on the stove and start heating with the lid on.
3. While waiting for it to heat up, prepare your fermenter, have a beer, or look at AHB forums.
4. Once the water reaches ~70 deg C (Your 'strike' temp), turn the stove to the lowest setting and place your BIAB bag inside the pot and let the edges of the bag hang over the pot.
5. Look at what time it is! Write it down.
6. Pour your cracked grain (your homebrew store will crack it) into the bag (which is in the big pot).
7. Get a big spoon or similar item and mash up the grain to make sure it's all soaked.
8. Put your thermometer in, and record the temp...(It should be 65 - 67 deg C, this is your mash temp.)
9. Now you can either turn off the stove and wrap your pot in a doona/towels to insulate it, or leave the stove on the lowest setting and hope it doesn't over-heat it...sometimes the bit of heat at the bottom can caramalise the sugars which we don't want. The doona works great but depends if you have one lying around.
10. Wait for 60 minutes (probably about 55 mins now after putting the donna on etc.). While you are waiting, get another pot (4L+ size), put exactly 4L of water in it and start heating it up. Get it to about 78 deg C.
11. At the end of the 60 minutes, put some heavy duty rubber gloves on, turn off the stove/take donnas off, take the lid off the pot, take the temp., gather up the edges of the BIAB bag, and tie it up (creating a sack of wet grain)
12. Hold the grain up (it's quite heavy and HOT!), and let some wort (sugar water) drip out back into the big pot.
13. Squeeze the edges of the bag to get as much liquid out as possible, but don't spend too much time doing this as it's annoying 
14. If you have a pasta strainer (the ones fitted for pots), put it ontop of the big pot (my pasta strainer is much smaller than pot, but the handles allow it to sit JUST right).
15. Put the grain sack onto the pasta strainer and squeeze and push and moosh and squeeze to get as much juice out as possible. If you don't have the pasta strainer some people tie the sack to a door handle and let it 'drip dry' into the bucket, you also have 2 hands free for squeezing with this method too (it may get messy).

The Sparge:

16. Once you are happy with the wort you have received, place the sack into your empty bucket and pour ~2L of 78 deg C water ontop (which you heated in step 10.)
17. Massage the water into the grains gently and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes. While waiting, turn the stove back on for your big pot and start heating it to get it to boil (rolling boil).
18. Lift sack out and repeat procedure to squeeze wort into bucket.
19. Pour contents opf bucket into big pot.
20. Put the sack back into the bucket and pour the remaining 2L ontop of the grain. Massage. Leave for 10 mins. Squeeze routine again. Pour contents into big pot.
21. Everything in your big pot will now be boiled! (you should have ~ 18L in your pot (a few cm from top).

The Boil:

22. The big pot should already be heating from step 17. so if it's not boiling yet, let it come to a rolling boil (LID OFF!).
23. Keep an eye on that pot! You don't want it to erupt in a bubbling boil and spew sugary foam everywhere!. Stir the wort to reduce foam if you think it might boil over.
24. Once a rolling boil is achieved look at the clock! Record the time AND...wait 45 mins (we want a 90 min boil).
25. After 45 mins, make your first hop additions (i.e there is 45 mins left in the boil)(if you have a hop sack, put the hops in the sack and peg the sack the the rim of the pot...if you don't have a hop sack just chuck the hops in.)
26. After another 25 minutes, make your second hop additions (i.e there is 20 mins left in the boil).
27. Wait another 20 minutes! Your boil is complete!
28. Turn the stove off and put the pot on a 'cool' heating element, make your 0 minute additions of hops.

The Chill:

29. Half fill your sink with cold water (create a way so that you can have the tap running slowly and water draining out slowly...a chux jammed in the sink hole works).
30. Place the pot in the sink (if you have a window near the sink, open it to allow cool air to blow over the hot wort).
31. The sink water will absorb a lot of heat to begin with so replace the water quite often for the first few minutes.
32. Udjust your tap so input = output and let that water circulate for a while around the pot.
33. Remember anything which touches your wort now could contaminate it! so STERILISE!
34. After 20 minutes or so, take the pot out, put the regular plug in the sink, put the pot back in the sink and fill the sink back up. Now put all the iceblocks you can fit into the water.
35. Allow it to sit for another 15 minutes (it should be pretty cool by now, maybe ~30 deg C)

The Fermentation:

36. Pour your cooled wort into your sanitised fermenter (splash it around a bit). You should have about 12 litres of wort.
37. Take a hydrometer reading (it will be really high, and remember to adjust for the temp, as hydrometers are calibrated for 20 deg C.
38. My hydrometer reading was 1.083 at 20 deg C.
39. Top up your fermenter accordingly (i.e if you top up to 24 L it will be too dilute, top up to 18 litres it will be too strong).
40. I topped it up to 21L by doing a few calculations.
41. OG of 1.048.
42. Sprinkle yeast ontop, put glad wrap/lid on.
43. Wait for that golden nectar to flow.
44. You can dry hop a small amount if you want! or half the 0 minute adds, and put the other half in as dry hop after 5 days or so.

I may get torched here for a few things...so let me announce some key points

- I take no responsibility for you or your house catching on fire. Turn off your heating element or gas to avoid this problem!
- If you are worried about dirty bugs floating around in your air, perhaps keep the window closed near your tub when cooling the wort to reduce the chance of infection.

I understand that there are many guides already out there...most of which are better than mine, but if I can help one person on their way to great beer, then let it be!

Cheers.


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## kymba (14/6/11)

looks the goods MLP - gold star for you! I just wish i had something like this before my first pre-biab stovetop attempt

i know you didn't specifically ask for suggestions, but i would like to see an addition to step 28 

"Turn the stove off and put the pot on a 'cool' heating element, make your 0 minute additions of hops _then put the lid back on the pot_"


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## kocken42 (14/6/11)

Thanks Kymba!

Suggestions are welcome!


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## tiprya (15/6/11)

Could you point me at a resource that you used for the calculations for how much water to add? i.e. [email protected] to [email protected]

Also, do you think it is more important to get a fermenting fridge before moving to BIAB? My laundry currently stays around 17-19 degrees and my beer can rise another couple of degrees while fermenting.

I am keen to move to all grain, but not sure if my temperature control should be a more pressing concern.

Thanks heaps for the write-up.


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## seamad (15/6/11)

17-19 is fine for ales so go for it.
I started with a BigW 19l pot. Once I got the hang of it and was happy with the results got a 40l urn as easier to get "keg" amounts.Biab is very cheap if you want it to be

cheers
sean


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## QldKev (15/6/11)

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=44264


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## kocken42 (16/6/11)

tiprya said:


> Could you point me at a resource that you used for the calculations for how much water to add? i.e. [email protected] to [email protected]


 
Hey Tipyra,

The calculation works as such

C1V1 = C2V2

Where 'C' represents the concentration and 'V' represents the volume... so all we have to do is input our figures. 

We know that C1 (our first concentration (or gravity of the wort)) is = 83 (rather than putting 1.083, just put the last 2 numbers)
We know that our initial volume (V1) = 12 (litres).
We know that our desired concentration (C2) = 48 (1.048, just use the last 2 numbers)
And the volume we want to know is V2.

C1V1 = C2V2
83 x 12 = 48 x ?
? = (83x12)/48
V2 = 20.75 (litres)

Hope that answeres your question!


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## tiprya (17/6/11)

Cheers - that's fantastic.

Going to look at starting this soon!


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## The Giant (17/6/11)

Step 21 we have 18 litres in the rolling boil.
Step 36 we have 12 litres of wort.

Is this just the reduction in liquid due to the boil?
Do you leave the lid on whilst doing the rolling boil?

I'm assuming you would have to invest in a decent brew temp guage or something as well if we are sticking it in the wort/boil?

Given we arent making the total wort volume in this boil and actually adding water to it to bring the OG down do you have to make any adjustments to other all grain recipes? I've found many AG recipes here that i want to try when i buy my urn so was thinking of giving one of those recipes a shot using my 19l big w pot


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## kocken42 (17/6/11)

Yeah, looking back a 90 minute boil is probably not worth-while in a 19L stock pot brew in a bag due to the loss of liquid.

18L to 12L is how much was evaporated over the boil, and it is recommended to boil with the lid off as it lets certain gases escape, which are generally not desirable in the beer. 

Obviously if we just did a 45 minute boil, and put the hops in at the very beginning, the water loss would be halved to finish with ~15L.

For temperature measurements you want a candy thermometer, or any thermometer that's rated to go above 100 deg C. Personally I have a digital probe thermometer which appears to work well. 

The good (or bad) thing with this method of BIAB is that the grain recipe doesn't HAVE to be perfect, as long as the ratio's (or percentages) are right, it should be fine...because we add water to it at the end. The only thing which may remain inconsistent is the total volume of wort at the end. 

Any recipe made for 20-25L can suit this method in my opinion. Recipes which quote grain amount for brews of more than this can be scaled easily by working out an amount of grain/litre ratio, and then adjusting it for say 20L.

One thing to remember is hop utilisation. The acids in hops are best utilised in wort with an SG of about 1.040...but generally the wort in a BIAB 19L stock pot will be higher, making hop utilisation less efficient, so hops will have to be increased to compensate. There are a few spreadsheets and beer recipe programs out there to compensate for this problem. 

Happy brewing!


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## The Giant (17/6/11)

I assume the first 45mins of the boil is to boil out any nasties? so for sanitation purposes
If so what is the minimum this needs to be done for?
Can the boil whilst adding the hops be used for this sanitation period? sort of kill 2 birds with 1 stone

The more and more I read these methods the more confident I'm getting to give it a shot.

Good to know about the hop utilisation though

Good write up!


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## kocken42 (17/6/11)

Well for all-grain brewing, a relatively long boil (60 to 120 minutes) is necessary.

It is important for the following reasons:
- It sterilizes the wort,
- Proteins are coagulated,
- Proteins are denatures and enzymes deactivated,
- Colour and flavour compounds are formed,
- Unwanted volatiles are removed,
- Reducing agents are formed.

So I would recommend atleast a 60 minute boil for all BIAB's

You will see that generally the longest hop addition is 60 minutes, attributing almost solely to bitterness, boiling hops for longer than this will not cause much of an increase in bitterness, if any.


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## kocken42 (17/6/11)

Oh another thing I've just realised is the recipe stated in the guide is for a 20L batch. I got the recipe of the LCBA clone on this site, so i'll assume that the recipe was designed with a 75% efficiency (this basically refers to how effectively you remove sugars from the grain). I ended up with 21 litres (1 litre more than expected) at 1.048 so it can also be assumed that my efficiency was slightly higher than the intial recipe. 

You may find that your efficiency might be less or more depending on how well you mash and sparge etc, but don't get too concerned with this, because we have the joy of adding water to our wort to get the desired specific gravity, so even if you brew with a reduced efficiency, you just end up with a little less beer (maybe 18 or 19 L) but still of 1.048 gravity.


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## Tony (17/6/11)

10 points to you MLP........... good to see people taking the time to post good info for other brewers to improve their brewing.

Cheers


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## mwd (18/6/11)

My Little Pony said:


> Well for all-grain brewing, a relatively long boil (60 to 120 minutes) is necessary.
> 
> It is important for the following reasons:
> - It sterilizes the wort,
> ...



Does the same apply for steeping specialty grains ? I do kits and bits and usually have about 300gs of Crystals or similar steeped at 65C for 30 mins. The longest I have boiled is about 65mins when doing a bittering addition for a good IPA.
I would not mind moving up to budget BIAB if I had a pot big enough and the effort to get away from the ease of the can opener.


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## pk.sax (18/6/11)

Tropical_Brews said:


> Does the same apply for steeping specialty grains ? I do kits and bits and usually have about 300gs of Crystals or similar steeped at 65C for 30 mins. The longest I have boiled is about 65mins when doing a bittering addition for a good IPA.
> I would not mind moving up to budget BIAB if I had a pot big enough and the effort to get away from the ease of the can opener.



I ordered enough grain, hops etc to do a small 15L batch of this today, gona go pick up some voile and a pot tomorrow... hopefully grain gets here by tue/wed.

I was doing BIAB back in melb, not the most exact brewer here, my volumes are always off but the beers come out great  ^ that LCBA is my fav. Gimme a yell if you wanna hop over sometime. btw, I checked out marlin coast HB near the showgrounds too, both the shops had friendly blokes but the range of stuff by their own admission is woeful.


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## mwd (18/6/11)

:icon_offtopic: Good place for voile in Cairns at $3.00 metre is a place just down an alley next to Woolies on Lake Street ( bus transit centre) I got some from there. They have been closing down for the last 5 years  I have been using a bit for steeping and it is as strong as great stuff. Going to get some more next week if they still stock it.

Moving slowly towards the darkside. :lol:

Edit: Went to the brewday held at Yorkies last month and picked up some great ideas and sampled some of the guy's brews.
Gotta say every brew was better than the old K&K by a mile.


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## kocken42 (18/6/11)

Tropical_Brews said:


> Does the same apply for steeping specialty grains ? I do kits and bits and usually have about 300gs of Crystals or similar steeped at 65C for 30 mins. The longest I have boiled is about 65mins when doing a bittering addition for a good IPA.
> I would not mind moving up to budget BIAB if I had a pot big enough and the effort to get away from the ease of the can opener.


 
With kits and bits, the long boil is generally not necessary because the breweries (where-ever they make the kits) have already done a pretty decent boil for you, when they make their hop additions to the kits. I'm not 100% but I would say with kits a bits it is fine to boil for as long as the longest hop addition. Whatever specialty grains you do add, probably make up a small percentage of total sugars, and because the conversion in 'steeping grains' is different, it might not make a difference.


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## Golani51 (21/6/11)

practicalfool said:


> I ordered enough grain, hops etc to do a small 15L batch of this today, gona go pick up some voile and a pot tomorrow... hopefully grain gets here by tue/wed.
> 
> I was doing BIAB back in melb, not the most exact brewer here, my volumes are always off but the beers come out great  ^ that LCBA is my fav. Gimme a yell if you wanna hop over sometime. btw, I checked out marlin coast HB near the showgrounds too, both the shops had friendly blokes but the range of stuff by their own admission is woeful.



Welcome back PK.....about bloody time too!
As for your beers tasting good..........I concur.
Come back to Melb so we can drink my new stash of beers from First Choice....and some other goodies I have put together.


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## ledgenko (21/6/11)

OK Flame suit on !!!!

Guys .. if you are starting out and watching the coin... and I admit this addicition can become expensive... download "brewmate" from brewmate.com ... a great bit of software for the novice, amateur or craftbrewer alike .. I am not affiliated with them by any measure but have been using their software for some time now and it is great considering its free and it means I can spend the additional coin on grain, hops, liquid yeasts or equipment ... 

But I do need to say that the BIAB explanation was great .. attention to detail and clean everything twice!! 

great work


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## MarkyMark (31/12/11)

I used the above for my first attempt at BIAB. After a month is tasted good, but very cloudy. I put a few away and tried a 5 month old bottle the other day. Crystal clear and definately the best beer I have made (and one of the nicest I have tried full stop).

I've now got a Dr Smurto's GA bubbling away in the fermenting fridge...can't wait to try this when it's finsihed.

Cheers MLP for the great instructions.


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## hazynectar (11/4/14)

Hey all, I brewed this one a few weeks ago and it has been bottle conditioning for only 8 days. I cracked one tonight and...well...wow. A truly great guide My LittlePony,well done! 



20140411_184455.jpg


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## Lord Raja Goomba I (15/4/14)

Holy freakin' necro, Batman.


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## jkhlt1210 (19/4/14)

Looks good I must try this recipe


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## Lowlyf (4/8/15)

Hey mate so I roughly did this on sunday. I pitched my yeast last night at around 9pm. My wort is around 12L now and my SG was a ridiculous 1.068. Can I add 6L of water this afternoon to top it up to 18L even with the yeast in there for around 20 hours? Or is it too late?


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## doctr-dan (5/5/16)

Could I follow this method and use this recipe? http://aussiehomebrewer.com/recipe/502-drsmurtos-golden-ale/

What changes would I need to make?


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## Moad (5/5/16)

Can we get this thread title changed to "The Necro Thread" please?


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## Bribie G (5/5/16)

I'd guess that since the original post, LCBA has changed completely and no doubt for the worse.


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## doctr-dan (5/5/16)

Moad said:


> Can we get this thread title changed to "The Necro Thread" please?


?


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## yankinoz (5/5/16)

Two suggestions:

A colander ring at the bottom of the kettle, underneath the bag, is a good precaution if heating is done while mashing, but heat carefully anyway.

If using one's local water in the mash requires brewing salts or acid to get within mash pH range, use water treated the same for sparging (the 2L in the original post) or else add a drop or two of lactic acid. Keeping sparge pH low minimizes the extraction of astringency.


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## yankinoz (5/5/16)

My Little Pony said:


> Well for all-grain brewing, a relatively long boil (60 to 120 minutes) is necessary.
> 
> It is important for the following reasons:
> - It sterilizes the wort,
> ...


I'd argue some of the points.

One minute of boiling sterilizes wort.
Protein coagulation follows a rapidly leveling curve. There is very little late in a boil.
Colour and flavour extraction in well-milled grain is fairly rapid.
Enzymes are deactivated before the wort even reaches boiling.

On the other hand:
Protein denaturing is indeed a slow process. The main benefit is better foam stability.
Long boiling removes precursors of unwanted volatiles. Really long boils were used in the past because of slow cooling. You cool fast with the water addition.

Base grains matter. The more converted and kilned, the less time you need. In your recipe 90 minutes no doubt works well. At a glance I'd probably go with at least 80 because of the pils malt. Use an English ale malt and 60 works, I just repeated a recipe with mostly Munich II as a base, boiled 50 and it was fine, including foam stability.


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## manticle (5/5/16)

Moad said:


> Can we get this thread title changed to "The Necro Thread" please?


When people search and find the appropriate thread, I encourage such behaviour


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## doctr-dan (5/5/16)

Okay so other than the addition brewing salts I can use the same mash and boil times, water volumes for the mash and sparge etc and use Dr smarts golden ale ingredients


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## doctr-dan (5/5/16)

Bribie G said:


> I'd guess that since the original post, LCBA has changed completely and no doubt for the worse.


 I had one yesterday and it didn't float my boat


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