# First Biab Recipe Needed



## dave_h (29/9/10)

Hi everyone,

Im going to take the plunge and give my first BIAB a go but i need some help with a recipe as ive not got my head around any of the amazing spreadsheets available yet.

I want to make an ale/english bitter.

What ive got so far is:

3kg Crystal grain
3kg Caramunich grain

100g East kent hops
100g Fuggles hops

Any tips on the grain ratio and hop amounts/times would be great.

Thanks in advance

Dave


----------



## thylacine (29/9/10)

Enclosed URL is full of BIAB info, including recipes. ie. an English Ale/ESB

Many sites also abound which explain Base grains.............and Specialty grains. I am unaware of the latter comprising the majority of a recipe's grain bill. eg. crystals/Cara...s

Cheers


----------



## MarkBastard (29/9/10)

All of the grain you have at the moment is crystal. You can't use too much of that.

I'd recommend 250g Caramunich and 4.5kg of a base malt for your first batch.


----------



## beerdrinkingbob (29/9/10)

thylacine said:


> Enclosed URL is full of BIAB info, including recipes. ie. an English Ale/ESB
> 
> Many sites also abound which explain Base grains.............and Specialty grains. I am unaware of the latter comprising the majority of a recipe's grain bill. eg. crystals/Cara...s
> 
> Cheers



thylacine, Forgot the link.

Dave plenty of recipes for english bitters in the recipedb at the top of the page.

Happy brewing and good luck


----------



## manticle (29/9/10)

dave_h said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Im going to take the plunge and give my first BIAB a go but i need some help with a recipe as ive not got my head around any of the amazing spreadsheets available yet.
> 
> ...



You can make a great English bitter with a pale base malt (marris otter is good) and 500g medium crystal in 20-25 litres (FV)*. Needs a good wack of bittering hops which can be either single bittering addition or bitter, flavour, late and dry. I'm a fan of late and dry in ESBs but both can be tasty.

I bitter to between 35 and 40 ish with mine but you could push higher. Lower might get a bit sweet and nothing-like for a bitter (depends on personal taste).

*My base malt is around 6kg, with 70% efficiency, mashed high and long with good attenuation so your system may give different results. See 500g and 6 kg as relative percentage values and relate to your efficiency as all systems differ.


----------



## Bribie G (29/9/10)

Dave H
OOPS I'm not sure if you have got your head around what BIAB actually is, and if you have bought six kilos of cara/crystal grains specially then that's what I'd go through in a year or more.

Brew in a Bag is a method of mashing a basic grain malt to produce a fermenatable wort. The malts you have mentioned are already mashed 'in the husk', are not the base malt you would use in a mash, BIAB or otherwise, but well suitable for *small* additions to add flavour and mouthfeel to a mash, but not as the base malts themselves.

Forget spreadsheets, I've not used a spreadsheet in my 2 years of grain brewing. I suggest you read Palmer's how to brew (online) first before you do anything else.

cheers


----------



## manticle (29/9/10)

I was assuming that was an outline of current stocks and advice on further purchases was part of the question.

If my assumption is incorrect then yes - you need to research mashing further.


----------



## under (29/9/10)

Englsih eh. 

Let talk percentages first. Stuff quantities.

Id be going with an ale base at around 87% base. 8% caramunich and 5% biscuit. Aiming for around a 1040 og.

About 20 ibus with fuggles at 60min and about 10ibu with the ekg at 10min

Simple.


----------



## manticle (29/9/10)

English _bitter_ though. A bit of actual bitter with the old malt is not a bad thing.

Agree with the biscuit though. Forgot that bit - my esbs always have a touch of biscuit.


----------



## under (29/9/10)

I was just thinking keeping it a little on the lower end for a first brew. Love biscuit.


----------



## dave_h (29/9/10)

Cheers for all the replies in such a short time,

I thought that i had a reasonably good idea BIAB but obviously not......

So basicly ive bought too much specialty grains and not enough (any) base malt (eg marris otter ), i will do some more research/speak to another brew shop.

Thanks

Dave


----------



## dcx3 (29/9/10)

Try browsing the recipe database


----------



## dave_h (4/10/10)

Well....

Ive bitten the bullet/popped the cherry and put down my first AG.

Found a recipe from another forum,

4.54kg Maris Otter (87%)
0.42kg Caramunich (8%)
0.26kg Biscuit (5%)

20g EKG at 60min
30g Fuggles at 60min
15g EKG at 10min

Used BrewMate to do some calculations, came out with

OG 1050
Colour 10.3
IBU 37

Didnt think everything through properly and had a major hassle getting the bag out of the pot due to the extractor fan....joy, bits of grain all in the wort (managed to get most of it out).

Im not sure on the exact amount of wort I produced as the cube i used to "no chill" did not have markings (it will next time.....) i think it was about 17 litres. Topped up to about 23 and got an OP of 1044, didnt think this was too bad till i checked the gravity today and got 1024 (about 30hours after i pitched the yeast (Nottingham)), i thought that this was a bit of a quick drop in such a short time and then thought that i stuffed up my first reading as i took it from the bottom of the cube and had topped up water at the top, ie the bottom was more concentrated. 


I guess time will tell (it tastes kind of ok, could do with a bit more bittering)

Cant wait to give it a go.

Is it recommended to crash chill ale for a while?


----------



## argon (5/10/10)

Congrats on your first AG... That recipe looks like a tasty one too! Don't worry too much about the OG. Just let it finish up and measure then give her a taste at bottling time. You have a few options then.

All beers IMHO benefit from crash chilling after fermentation. It will drop out any suspended yeast or other debris and leave you with a much clearer beer.

Cheers

EDIT: if your really concerned or certain you've missed your OG by a heap... then you can add some LDME to bring up to gravity. I've done this before mid ferment and there's no problems. Just make sure you boil it up for 10mins or so, let it cool to pitching temp and then add to the fermenter... just be as sanitary as possible.


----------



## under (5/10/10)

under said:


> Englsih eh.
> 
> Let talk percentages first. Stuff quantities.
> 
> ...



Aheeeeeeeeeeeeeem :icon_cheers:


----------



## dave_h (5/10/10)

Cheers under, I thought that the ratio rang a bell from somewhere, the other fourm (cant remember which one) also had a fair few comments regarding the outcome so i followed that one. Gave it a taste today when checking the gravity and i think its got a lot of potential, fingers crossed.

Thanks argon, i was quite tempted to add some malt extract but when i checked the gravity today it had dropped by another 10 so im kind of thinking it should be ok, time will tell.

I will plan on crash chilling it in my new (old) fridge just purchased (which currently has a larger in)

Cheers


----------



## dave_h (17/10/10)

Well,

It finished fermenting a couple of days ago and ive now got in the fridge to crash chill.

When i was doing some gravity readings i did some taste sampling and at first it tasted dam good but as time went on it kind of tasted of grain. When i finished the mash some of the grain bits (quite fine as i used a blender) went into the wort. I thought that i got it all out but maybe not.
Whats the consensus, will the crash chill make all the bits drop to the bottom? If so what would be the best crash chill length? 
Its currently in a secondary, i could transfer it to another carboy and filter it using some voile cloth. 

Cheers


----------



## RdeVjun (17/10/10)

Sounds to be OK dave, but if you've got bits of grain in your secondary then there's something amiss? A few bits of grain making it into the boil is no biggie, but generally they settle either as kettle trub or in primary if a bit gets in there, but certainly shouldn't be making it into secondary, maybe some more info on this? 
I wouldn't be filtering it, there's no need, most stuff should flocculate out, particularly with CCing like you've done, dry hops is a good example.
Good work though on getting this one to fly, you've done well! B)


----------



## dave_h (17/10/10)

The "grain" taste was when it was in the primary, its been in a fridge at about 12-14C for around 5 days (next to a lagar that has now finished). I was thinking of CCing for 5-7 days, would that be enough?

I just took a sample from the secondary and it had very little sediment in it, only 3-4 tiny bits in around 50ml, it tasted a bit better than before but still had a "grain" taste, as its my first BIAB ive got no idea if this is normal.

thanks


----------



## manticle (17/10/10)

under said:


> I was just thinking keeping it a little on the lower end for a first brew. Love biscuit.




I also missed the second IBU contribution due to using my defective eyes rather than my good ones.

Recipe looks good.

I'm not so sure the 'malt in the tap' OG overestimate is relevant to AG. It's generally where extracts are used that it's an issue as the dissolution maybe incomplete. If that's incorrect, i'm happy to eat a hat but malt should be pretty thoroughly mixed in an AG brew. I would have just gone with the 17 Litres but some yeasts can be ferocious at the beginning and 20 points in 30 hours is not unheard of.

Monitor the taste and body as you go. If it's way off, you can brew another small batch and blend. If it's close enough then congrats on the first. They get easier (generally) as you go but something will always stuff up somewhere. It's how you deal with it and learn for the next that counts.


----------



## sipourit (18/10/10)

Very true. First time brewing you'll experience lot of things and learn eventually for the next batch.


----------



## dave_h (23/10/10)

Well, I gave it another taste the other day after its been CCing for a couple of days and the "grain" taste is still there. In an effort to save the brew im thinking of throwing it back into a carboy together with some liquid malt extract and get it fermenting again.

1. What's the thoughts on this? would it work?

2. Would there be enough yeast in the secondary left to start it off?

Cheers


----------



## dave_h (29/10/10)

Still thinking of doing the above, ie chucking some malt in and trying a 2nd ferment, but I read in Palmer's How to Brew that the sparging water should not be above 170 F (78C) as this could lead to the beer being astringent, well when i was trying to do my sparging i think the water was hotter than this (around 85?), would this have made such an impact?

My only other thought is that I milled the grain too fine. I used a blender and it looked a little bit more fine than the pictures in Nick_JD's 20l Stovetop All Grain Aussie Lager l thread, but im only guessing.

Going to give a lager AG a go in a couple of days so I would know how i went wrong,

Thanks in advance


----------

