A Guide To All-grain Brewing In A Bag

[Scruffy]

...be prepared for surprises.

:huh: Indeed. Last brewday I made two batches, the main one turned out fine - i used sensibly combined ingredients and mashed a little low (started @ 60C for 25 minutes, rose to 65C for 20 minutes and ended on about 68C, pulled the bag, squished and boiled) and got nice but thin beer - today I'll mash a little warmer (on some good peoples advice)... However the second brew was a bit of a partial, mashed the 4kg grains too high and whacked in 1kg of dry malt, and a bit (half kilo) of extract, pitched S-04 @ 24C and it was all over by day three, it finished at 1024, I agitated the fermentor, stirred, warmed, played the violin, shouted at it... nothing - so i stuck a bit in a few bottles just to see what would occur... i re-pitched onto what was left, nothing - must have mashed that brew too high and the yeast just ate the Dry/Extract and left me a cloudy sweet soup of Dextrins!!

Better luck today I hope... Still learning. :icon_cheers:

BTW todays brew:
6kg Halcyon
.4kg Caraaroma
.4kg Carared
Some Warrior bittering
Some Styrian flavour
Some Syrian Smell,

Aiming for 65+IBU and 1066...

 

[Bribie G]

scruf, what temp did you mash that partial at? I've just done something fairly equivalent, with 4kg BB Ale, choc and roast barley at 69 then after boiling and hopping, just very slightly tweaked it with a tin of Coopers Stout (it's a Foreign Extra Stout for a Comp so look out on Thursday guys) and it's turned out nice and meaty.

 

[Scruffy]

From my note, 68C. Though first fumblings with the 60L pot and only a 6" probe on the digital thermometer - despite stirring, it still could have been different temps at different depths... :huh:

Would that be a two day condition for the Stout!!

And by foreign, do you mean not Australian??? h34r:

See you Thursday! :icon_cheers:

 

[Bribie G]

68 should be fine, that's what I mash my yorkies at.

Foreign Extra Stout (FES) is the strong stout we poms used to send out to the colonies, prevalent in Australia, Caribbean, Nigeria etc but not generally available in the UK where they have to put up with crap like modern Guinness. Try a Coopers commercial bottled stout and you'll get the idea.

 

[Scruffy]

I was doing some work in Boonah last week (i know... h34r and was given a bottle of Carbine Stout - mildly surprised [sic] - very!!

The bottle shop also had Hop Theif!!!

 

[Scruffy]

& for everyone at work... Live Scruffcast...



And some hops...

 

[Scruffy]

And the dining chairs have gone...

 

[.DJ.]

I'm thinking about doing BIAB but wonder do I need to worry about water chemistry/pH and the like?

I will be brewing mainly ales and wheats..

 

[Katherine]

Depends on what your water is like...

 

[.DJ.]

tastes alright out of the tap.. Sydney mains water...

 

[Katherine]

tastes alright out of the tap.. Sydney mains water...

LOL! you need to do a ph test of the water... if its to low you need to add acidulated malt or citric acid... acidulated malt if your a purist!

 

[Bribie G]

Love Sydney water. The reason for adding water salts to the mash water is to adjust the pH and add various elements such as Calcium that echo the waters of some famous brewing areas such as Burton on Trent in the UK. If you are going to be mashing UK Style Bitters add some Calcium Chloride and a bit of Epsom salts (Magnesium Sulphate) to give you some Magnesium, if you are doing Burton Style ales add some Gypsum and Epsom Salts and if mashing Australian Pale Ales like Coopers Pale or Sparkling style, add some Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate) as the style guide recommends Sulphates in the water.

Apart from that I wouldn't bother too much but you can get a mash stabiliser called 5.2 that does the job. Quite often I forget to add the salts and still end up with nice beer. I did a mash two days ago for a Timothy Taylor Landlord tribute and completely forgot about the salts :unsure: but the wort tastes fantastic and no doubt I will get a drinkable brew.

 

[LLoyd]

Forgot I'd ordered acidulated malt once. Bit of a hurry so I just whacked in the usual amount of citric acid and mashed in.. Came out ok.

 

[reviled]

I'm thinking about doing BIAB but wonder do I need to worry about water chemistry/pH and the like?

I will be brewing mainly ales and wheats..

IMO mash PH is quite important, I havent mucked around with water chem yet, but I got myself a PH meter to check the PH and have just been adjusting with a pinch of citric acid or gypsum.. One thing I have noticed tho, was before I bothered with PH I allways had really bad chill haze, but by bringing the PH down to 5.4-5.7 I get a much clearer beer without any finings B)

Water chem is next on the list, but thats a tricky subject :huh:

 

[Bribie G]

No affiliation but:

Turbo charge your mash

 

[LLoyd]

Our tap water doesn't need ajusting during winter.. Any theories?

 

[PistolPatch]

Scruffcasts! Excellent! Great to see this thread getting that nice QLD touch. Should be up to 2000 posts here in a couple of weeks

Just quickly Scruffy, that mashing at 60 degrees for 25 minutes will bugger you up methinks. A heap of activity is happening in that first 20 minutes. I have done similiar to you before but only kept the mash at the low end for about five minutes. These days I just set the one temp and hold it there.

Crundle, thanks mate for working out those sugar figures - good on you! Everyone should check their hydros at those two points. Those who do might get a huge shock. Always drag your thermometer along to a brew day if you ever go to one. It's always interesting comparing thermometers at mash temps too.

tumi Great to hear most things are going right and thanks for letting us know how you are travelling.

Bizier See you in December.

Lloydie No idea mate. Mine seems to stay the same from memory???

For everyone, here are some pics on how to BIAB LloydieP style - lol!

Thirsty or anyone else, what is the difference between sweet and dextrous? I don't get this. For example, if I want to brew a light beer (2.5%) I mash at 70 degrees but use the same amount of IBUs as I would if I was brewing that beer full-strength. This seems to balance things out really well.

More Scruffcasts please.

 

[Bizier]

Bizier See you in December.

Oct?

Either way, and at either end of the country, I am sure we can spin a yarn over a beer.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I'm thinking about doing BIAB but wonder do I need to worry about water chemistry/pH and the like?

I will be brewing mainly ales and wheats..

No you don't - if your water tastes good from the tap, you can brew with it, no adjustment required at all.

If you can taste anything off including detectable chlorine taste - then you might want to run it through a filter before you use it.

All the worrying about pH and water adjustment and all that stuff - its advanced brewing. You can make perfectly good beer without ever giving it a thought.

Yes, you might make better beer once you get to the point where you pay attention to water chemistry... but, well I will put it this way. I brewed 45 batches of AG beer and had won awards before I ever measured my pH or added anything to my water.

Start brewing, make some great beer, learn how the processes go, get your sanitation, temperature control and routine down pat... then maybe think about looking at pH and water chemistry.

Oh - and absolutely everything you can think of - up to and including going AG in the first place - that you might do, comes after fermentation temperature control on the list of things that will improve your beer. The only thing you can do that is more important is proper sanitation.

Forget about water adjustment and pH - they are distractions for people who know just enough to be dangerous, or who are already brewing in the heavyweight division.

TB

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thirsty or anyone else, what is the difference between sweet and dextrous? I don't get this. For example, if I want to brew a light beer (2.5%) I mash at 70 degrees but use the same amount of IBUs as I would if I was brewing that beer full-strength. This seems to balance things out really well.

Dextrous just means there are lots of dextrins - dextrins are not sweet.

Dextrins add body and mouthfeel to a beer by increasing its viscosity and palate weight.

Dextrins are sugars - and all sugars do the same thing - including the sweet ones. So a sweet beer will have body and mouthfeel from the sugars present.... but a beer with body and mouthfeel does not necessarily have to be sweet, because those characteristics might have come from non sweet dextrins.

If you wanted to (you almost certainly dont want to though) you could add saccharine or aspartame to your beer, both sugars that are very very sweet - and that would add lots of sweetness, but because you would use so little of the stuff to get your desired sweetness, it would add virtually no body and mouthfeel. So you could have a thin and very dry beer, with lots of sweetness. They are also unfermentable.

Balance in your beer - is about a three way balance between sweetness, bitterness and mouthfeel/body. To get it you need to do more than pay attention to mash temperatures - its about yeast choice and attenuation vs the attenuation limit of the wort, choice of base malts choice of specialty malts and any adjuncts you might use.