Biab Questions

[mattieharding]

I see reciepes everywhere, just one question.

How do you know what grains to put in with what and how much?

do you just experiment or is there some logic to the madness?

im looking at doing 20L litre batches to fill my fermenter.

any help would be great.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Its fairly easy once you get a feel for it - and feel is mostly what it is after a while.

Basically - almost all beer is made from a 75-100% base of pale "base" malt. There are a few different sort, but fundamentally it is going to boil down to a choice between a Pilsner malt and a Pale ale malt. Pilsner for your lager type beers and Pale Ale for ales.

A beer can be nothing but base malt, many beers are indeed 100% pilsner or 100% pale Ale malt. A German pilsner is most probably made from 100% pilsner malt. An example of that sort of beer is a Becks.

The amount you use depends on the amount of beer you are making and how strong you want it to be - using nothing but base malt, about 4.5kg would put 20L into your fermentor give you a beer of around 5% alcohol depending on your system

Its when you want a beer with more or different flavours that the other malts come in, and what you use is all about what flavours you want and knowing which grains will give you which flavours.

Some examples are

Crystal malt - this will give you colour and sweetness as well as a bit of caramel/toffee. It comes in different shades and the flavours are a little different and "stronger" the darker it gets
Munich malt - this will give you a lot of "maltiness" and some bready toasty flavours
Roasted Barley - what makes your stouts and porters dark and roasty. Coffee flavours, roast flavours and in small amounts it tastes nutty.

And there are dozens of types of specialty grain. Its just like cooking. You learn what each ingredient brings to a beer and then you play with quantities and ratios and you design a great (or not so great recipe). Most people start to using someone else's recipe and then experimenting with changing the proven recipe to match their personal tastes. This starts to give you an idea of what the various grains do and you can work from there.

A great resource for how beer flavours work and how that relates to recipes, is the book by Ray Daniels called Designing Great Beers - if you haven't started brewing yet, its probably a bit too advanced to be very good value yet and I wouldn't spend cash on it, but if you can borrow a copy (my local library has it I think) it will help you get a handle on this sort of thing. Later on when you want to start designing your own recipes, I call it a must have and worth every penny of its purchase price.

The other place to look i on this site in the style of the week threads - you will get a lot of insight into why people include various different grains in their recipes for certain styles.

Follow recipes for now and work your way up is my advice.

Cheers

Thirsty

 

[Cocko]

Once again TB comes through with the goods!!

Further to that, if you are wondering about volumes I work on these calculations and it tends to work for BIAB:

.5L loss per kg of grain + 15% boil off/evaporation per 1hr boil.

So, eg...

For a 26L batch:
I fill my keggle to 35L & mash with 6kg of grain.
Mash out - leaving 32L
Boil for an hour = 27 odd litres.
I lose about 1-1.5 litres in the bottom of my keggle due to where the pick up is, trub etc...

I end up with 26L in the fermenter.

Also download some software to help with the math: Pro Mash, Beer smith, Beer Alchemy etc...

I hope it helps!

Happy brewing!

Cocko.

 

[buttersd70]

TB covered most of it pretty well there. The only thing that I would add is to familiarise yourself with the flavour descriptions of the various malts, which are usually available on the maltsters websites, or alternatively can be described quite well on the websites of those that sell grains. (Ross, for example, has excellent description of the flavour contributions of all the malts that he stocks on the Craftbrewer website.)

From that you get an idea of what each malt can add individually. Then its a matter of thinking about how each of these flavours will interact with each other, the same as with ingredients in cooking. So for example, a grain that contributes a caramel like sweetness can work well with a malt that contributes a dryness...one balances the other, leading to a more complex layering of flavours. I look at it a bit like Thai food, which is a balance of hot, sour, sweet, salty and bitter.....and like Thai food, sometimes less is more, as far as ingredients are concerned. Quality ingredients, used simply, instead of over complicated grain bills where you've just thrown everything in that you can get your hands on.

2c

 

[mattieharding]

Thanks for your help guys, i guess ill start with a basic receipe and go from there and start adding hops and different grains.

is there a set grain to water ratio or just play arouund?

 

[buttersd70]

long answer is no, with extra detail....short answer is yes, 2.5L-3/Kg for ales, 3L-3.5/kg for lagers.

Basically, the stiffer the mash (less water to grain) the more dextrins will be procuced, the more body you will get. And vice versa. But...and there is usually a but....it also depends on the mash pH, and the mash temp. It's all a bit of a balance.....if that's to hard, refer to my previous "yes" answer. :lol:

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Mattie, we don't know whether you are talking about All grain, Partial, Kits with extras ?? - and even if we did know, these sorts of questions have been answered many times before. If you do a little searching around the site and perhaps look at the guide threads that are often stuck to the top of the forum topics, and also look in the articles section. You will find well written documents that cover the basic questions you have been asking.

After you have a bit more of a picture - then by all means ask clarifying questions.

At a guess, from the recipe in your signature, you are a kits with extras kind of a guy at the moment and you are looking to start with steeping grains and/or partial mashes. So look around in the appropriate sections of the site and the recipes database.

BTW - for mashing you probably want to look at between 2.5 and 3.0 litres of water for each KG of grain - for steeping grains I dont think it matters all that much - a couple of litres

TB

 

[buttersd70]

Thanks be to TB for the sober face of reason.

Ratio in a steepo is pretty much irrelevant. Common sense dictates that it will be a pretty high water to grain. My previous answer was in relation to mashing....different ball game.

 

[Bribie G]

Well this is bloody TYPICAL.

Simple question and the usual suspects jump in and hog the bloody thread.

When I do my first AG BIAB on Thursday I will be conducting a special and very solemn toast (only with a partial which is the best I have at the moment) to Butters/Thirsty/Thirsty/Butters (rearrange at random as no precedence suggested whatsoever)

Also included in the toast of course will be all the other members who have given of their time and advice.

:icon_cheers: :icon_cheers: :icon_cheers:

 

[mattieharding]

yeah im going from extracts/partials to AG sometime soon, just trying to get my head around it all.

I have searched some forums and yeah some of it reads really well other bits make me go round in circles

my fault I should have put a bit more info in.

thanks for your help

 

[flattop]

Quick question..
The BIAB guide suggests a nylon bag.
Does the direct heat affect it?
Does anyone sell the bags pre made?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Although - referring back to the original topic title, you mean BIAB

In which case - there is the guide to help you and also a number of posts around the place where I have explained how to work out how much water you need.

I'll have another try -

you say you want 20L in your fermentor, so you work backwards from there.

You will lose 2-3 litres of your volume when you leave behind all the hops and hot break etc etc so to get 20 you need to add that = 22.5 - 22.5L is your batch size, when you are working out your recipes, remember to work thejm out for 22.5 litres because thats how much wort you are making. Not the amount you actually get to put in your fermentor.

You will be boiling for an hour, and you will probably lose around 4L per hour to evaporation. 22.5 + 4 = 26.5

Your grain will absorb liquid - about 0.75 L fro every kg of grain. Lets say you are using 5kg of grain. So thats 0.75x5= 3.75

So in order to end up with 20L in you fermentor and compensating for losses due to trub, break material, evaporation and absorption by your grain, you will need to start with 3.75+26.5 = 30.25L of water in your pot.

As you do a few brews, you will get actual figures to replace the approximates I have used in this calculation. Take lots of measurements when you brew and you will know whats happening at each step.

Make a calibrated dipstick - with graduations every litre so you can tell what volume you have in your kettle.

Measure cold water into your kettle, the 30.25L I mention above. Then heat it up to your strike water temp - probably around 68C - measure your volume again and note it down. It will have changed slightly because water expands when it gets hot.

Take volume measurements at the start of the boil, let it just boil - turn off the heat and measure the volume (also grab a 100ml sample to measure your pre-boil gravity, tip it back in during the boil) if you subtract this figure from the strike water volume figure you wrote down before, you will know how much liquid your grain absorbed and can work out a L/kg rate to use in the future.

After the boil has finished - another volume measurement. Subtract this from your kettle pre-boil volume and you will have your evaporation losses. You can use this to work out how many litres per hour you boil off.

Cool and settle your wort, transfer the clear wort to your fermentor. When you aren't able to get any more wort without transferring break material and hops, stop. Tip whats left in your kettle into a measuring jug - thats about how much you lose to trub and break material. It will change a little with each brew and I would give yourself half to one litre of leeway. Worst that can happen is you get an extra litre of beer in your fermentor.

In two or three brews time, you will start to get a handle on how your system behaves and what numbers you get at each stage, this will allow you to tweak your expectations and starting volumes, so that what comes out at teh end is what you want it to be.

Cheers

TB

Flattop - I'm pretty sure the guide doesn't suggest a nylon bag - it suggests a bag made from polyester swiss voile - which is, well.... polyester. 100%. Heat doesn't affect it and yes, Gryphon Brewing (site sponsor) sells them pre-made if you have a burning desire to spend real cash on something that costs about $5 if you make it yourself. I'm sorry to get picky on this, but there have been probably dozens of posts on making bags, buying bags, what bags can and cant be made out of; and what shape they should be.... this info is already there on AHB and a little research would answer these questions for you.

 

[Cannibal Smurf]

Quick question..
The BIAB guide suggests a nylon bag.
Does the direct heat affect it?
Does anyone sell the bags pre made?

a.) that was 2 questions
b.) not if you raise it off the bottom with a cake stand - this has been answered previously in the BIAB Thread.
c.) yes, this has also been answered previously. Unfortunately right now I don't have the time to use the search feature to find the post, but it is there. BribieG also has a contact that will make them for a price, perhaps you could contact him and ask.
d) I'm new to this forum but as with most other forums, you're more likely to get help from existing/more experienced members if you use the search feature and do some of your own research before asking questions that have been answered already.

I had more questions that a 5 year old when I joined this site and most of them have been asked/answered already so I used search and found my answers and a whole lot more. Well worth the effort IMHO

edit: maybe I should hit post when I finish typing... not 15mins later and then repeat what someone else has already stated :icon_drunk:

 

[Bribie G]

Quick question..
The BIAB guide suggests a nylon bag.
Does the direct heat affect it?
Does anyone sell the bags pre made?

BIAB bags are, in the guide, recommended to be made out of Swiss Voile, a fine mesh material available from every Spotlight for about six bucks for enough to do a bag.

Can be melted if exposed directly to heat such as stuck onto the bottom of a boiler being nuked by a big gas burner. Use a false bottom.

Available from sponsors for around forty bucks. I have a local seamstress who I delivered my material and a design to last week. Joan rang me this morning and said bag was ready and charging me five dollars. I'll give her ten and cheap at twice the price.

 

[flattop]

Bribie thanks for your speedy response. (wasn't aware that sposors sold them, thought it was a home made thing)

A) yes it was 2 questions
B) Thanks but the reason that i asked was because i had read somewhere the material was a problem but couldn't remember the name for the recommended material thus couldn't search for it
C) thanks for the answer
D) I have been doing plenty of research into BIAB amongst other things but i have a poor short term memory thus i need to jog it sometimes, my shortfall but most people are willing to help in this community and i have found most of the experienced ppl here a fountain of knowledge to even the most humble beginners.....
I understand that some ppl get pissed at answering the same silly questions like "why isn't my airlock bubbling"??? but no one is obliged to answer....

Cannibal smurf if you have ever used the search function (and i have heaps of times) on here you will understand why sometimes it is more effective to ask.

 

[Bribie G]

Cannibal Smurf will be personally feeling up my bag on Thurs, all being well :wub:

 

[flattop]

massaging your grains? lighting your burner? personally pitching your yeast?

BTW i read the guide it definitely said nylon, is swiss voile the same thing?

"In layman’s terms, BIAB can be summarized as follows. You put a nylon bag in a big pot of water, pour in some grain, heat
it to a specific temperature and hold it at that temperature for 90 minutes"

 

[Bribie G]

AFAIK it's nylon, as in 'nylon curtains'. Spotlight would be able to tell you. The stuff I bought feels pretty indestructable, you would get a hernia trying to rip it.

Edit: sparging my mash, getting my starter bubbling... :lol:

 

[flattop]

Wonder how Dacron would go, i think they use it in bullet proof vests....
Anyhow if anyone can stuff it up i can....
Maybe i'll get one made up then i just need a 35 liter pot.....

 

[Kenny the plumber]

My bag is made from swiss voile they sell it at spotlight works great
although i did burn ti to the bottom of my kettle once :angry: