First Ag (biab)

[flattop]

Well finally after too many delays (for too many reasons) i kicked off my first BIAB.

I chose the below recipe.
A few notes from brew day (mistakes happen)
Close the urn tap when adding water.
My hopsock is a very fine weave similar to the Brew bag, it may be too fine.
The urn takes a while to heat up, start the heating earlier.
Make sure the AA rating on your hops (kicking around in the freezer) matches the AA rating on the recipe (mine are more bitter).
Rolling boil takes a while to reach with the crown urn. In fact i am still waiting to finish the brew.
I will be no chilling....

Spent grain went into a loaf of bread and the rest onto Rosemary (not the wife, the garden).

Otherwise no hickups, i did not measure efficiency as i wanted to learn the process first and then worry about efficiency afterward.

I want to thank the guys on the forum who have helped me so far (you all know who you are)


HefeBerryWeizen
2.5 kg BB Wheat Malt
1.5 kg BB Pale Malt
10 g Hallertauer Hersbrucker (Pellets, 3.5 AA%, 60 mins)
10 g Styrian Goldings (Pellets, 4.8 AA%, 45 mins)
15 g Hallertauer Hersbrucker (Pellets, 3.5 AA%, 15 mins)
2000 ml White Labs WLP300 - Hefeweizen Ale

 

[chappo1970]

WooHoo! Flattop Congrats mate! :beer:

 

[Bribie G]

Hey Flatto you finally got rid of the rellies and DID it :lol:

Don't worry too much about the hopsock but if it is an issue, get a medium weave one from Ross. Spent grain makes good mulch.

A longer brewing session isn't a bad thing as it gives you more time to drink beer while you are waiting for the end of the boil.

So how did the mash go, did you insulate it or what?

 

[crundle]

Great stuff flattop, good to hear all went well. Good idea to leave efficiency concerns till later on. Did you insulate or use the thermostat? I am going to try insulating for my next BIAB, although the thermostat has been good, I am trying to isolate where my efficiency is a bit low, so insulating will take one variable out of the equation.

Now for the hard part - what to brew next while you wait for this one to ferment!

cheers,

Crundle

 

[Pollux]

I had hopsock issues too, ******* just wouldn't drain easily...

I can since gone to just throwing the hops in and relying on whirlpooling...I will be testing my pickup tube (thanks to chappo for knocking it up for me) when I brew on Friday, I'll let you know how it goes...

I have the same urn, yes it does take a while to heat, also takes a while to get to the boil....

Seems it all went moderately well for you, that's a good sign, hell I accidentally dumped half my spent grain on the wife's foot due to my misaiming into the garbage bag she was holding....

 

[Mantis]

Good stuff flattop. The stuffups you mention are nothing. BIAB rocks

Did my ninth one today and its nearly like shelling peas now. Although I am sure I am in line for my fair share of f*&^c ups in the future.
Hey the first may come tommorow with my kettle now sitting on the burner, on a tile, on a sheet of chipboard , on cross boards , on an old steel table frame. Trying to save my back but hoping first degree burns dont result :huh:

Pollux, dont throw out the spent grain, throw it on the garden, or better still get a couple of chooks :beer:

 

[Pollux]

Mantis, I live in an apartment block in the Inner west of sydney....

Whil our block has a garden I don't see everyone else enjoying the smell of spent grain, and the concept of chooks????

 

[mash head]

Keep up the good work bloke. The aau's are easy to work out. 1 ounce of hops aprox 28g of 1aa hops is 1 aau there for 1 once of 4 aa hops is 4aau and 4 ounces of 4aa hops =16 aau thats the way Dave Miller puts it any way. As for the hop sock steal the missus lingere bag but hide it after because she'l never want it back with it new lime green coluor codeing but dont use coloured stockings as I did once they loose colour. LOL. Realy the practice of whir flocking will sort out all break material and hop trub. Hope the brew tastes awsome. Greg

 

[flattop]

Hmm not impressed with the results thus far, the wort is thin, watery and smells like a barn, not at all what i am used to with kits and LME.
I wonder how much the grain broke down? Also i found that because i used the lid to try to keep the temps up i have too much wort left over... close to 10 litres (i calculated that i would lose that much in the boil and didn't) I think this contributed to my slow boil problem, it took me a long time to bring the temp to boiling.
I did not use insulation and don't really want to, i'm a messy brewer and spilt water and wort as i went, i don't want to have to wash the doona as well..
Luckily i bought a double batch of grain for this brew so i can make an identical one next time but trim my methods to suit the gear.


Next brew i will be reducing the initial water size and throwing the hops right in


I've added 2 pics, the 2nd is the remote temperature unit which rocks.... it has a base station with a probe, i dropped the probe through some holes in the lid of the crown urn and i carried around the hand unit which works on wireless so i could see the temp anywhere in the house and it beeps when the set temp is reached.

 

[Mantis]

Mantis, I live in an apartment block in the Inner west of sydney....

Whil our block has a garden I don't see everyone else enjoying the smell of spent grain, and the concept of chooks????

 

[raven19]

...the wort is thin...

...I wonder how much the grain broke down? Also i found that because i used the lid to try to keep the temps up i have too much wort left over... close to 10 litres (i calculated that i would lose that much in the boil and didn't)...

Firstly well done on your first AG - Congrats.

FWIW my 2c - having the lid on to keep temps up will in turn effect your evaporation rate, and would lead to your 'thinner' wort.

If you can boil without the lid, it will evaporate more, and increase your wort SG.

If its any concilation, we oversparged our first AG, and ended up with more wort, and it was a bit thin, but still was a fantastic brew.

Its all a good learning experience, and you shall be wiser for the next one...

Cheers!

 

[flattop]

Agreed, i think i lost not much more than a liter in evap, i was counting on about 7-10, thus i have around 7-9 liters left.
I may be able to boil without the lid with a lower starting volume. I started with around 35 liters, i would certainly shave at least 5 liters off the initial volume next time.
In fact to brew better and boil faster i may cut my recipes down to 20 liters and a starting volume of around 25-26 liters.

I am a little concerned that the brew may not be much good as it is definitely thin and i suspect watery....
I've pitched it and will wait a couple of weeks but kept the leftovers in a cube.

 

[Bribie G]

Woah hold it right there Flattop, one of the first things I noticed when I started BIABBing was that the wort tasted nothing like a K n K and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the mash had somehow 'failed', it tasted like hopped breakfast cereal, not like the ultra sweet taste I was used to.

So in my first two brews I put an extra kilo of Dex into the fermenter as an insurance policy even though I had used 5.5 kg of grist in each brew. My first Yorkshire bitter came out, smooth as silk and lubberly. My drinking mate came up from Brisbane for the afternoon. Within an hour we were slurring our words and talking crap and by tea time we were totally pissed ! Stepdaughter came round for tea and her first words were "Michael, you're pissed "


Carry on regardless Flattop, I'm sure it will turn out good. Just remember that with that amount of wheat in it, there's no way the wort is going to taste like a tin and dex, and will have a thinner taste due to that recipe anyway as it's fairly low grav to begin with.

Cheers

Edit: for your next brew why not do a sort of 'reference' Australian Pale Ale brew with say 5kg BB Ale, 100g crystal, 66 degrees, 30g POR then 20g Cluster and US-05 just to get the hang of a more 'mainstream' beer. That should really build your wort-producing confidence. From the end of the wort production process the rest is identical to what you have been doing all along anyway so you already have those skills.

 

[raven19]

In fact to brew better and boil faster i may cut my recipes down to 20 liters and a starting volume of around 25-26 liters.

That just wont do, time to upgrade to a bigger more powerful brewery!

I am sure it shall come out a treat, being your first AG it will taste good, trust me!

 

[dpadden]

Hmm not impressed with the results thus far, the wort is thin, watery and smells like a barn, not at all what i am used to with kits and LME.
I wonder how much the grain broke down? Also i found that because i used the lid to try to keep the temps up i have too much wort left over... close to 10 litres (i calculated that i would lose that much in the boil and didn't) I think this contributed to my slow boil problem, it took me a long time to bring the temp to boiling.
I did not use insulation and don't really want to, i'm a messy brewer and spilt water and wort as i went, i don't want to have to wash the doona as well..
Luckily i bought a double batch of grain for this brew so i can make an identical one next time but trim my methods to suit the gear.


Next brew i will be reducing the initial water size and throwing the hops right in
View attachment 26089
View attachment 26090
I've added 2 pics, the 2nd is the remote temperature unit which rocks.... it has a base station with a probe, i dropped the probe through some holes in the lid of the crown urn and i carried around the hand unit which works on wireless so i could see the temp anywhere in the house and it beeps when the set temp is reached.

Flattop, you really need to make sure the boil is done without the lid on. There are a bunch of undesirable tastes (DMS, etc) that need to be boiled off the wort, and they can't go anywhere with the lid on. I'm sure the beer will turn out great, but a thought for next time...

 

[crundle]

Flattop,

I use a 40 litre Crown urn, and for a 20 litre batch size using around 4.5 kg of grain, I normally start off with around 28 litres of water, losing about 0.5l/kg of grain, then boil for 90 minutes, losing about 11% of the pre-boil volume in the process (lid off). I usually end up with about 21-22 litres in the fermenter after no chill cubing. It takes a little bit of trial and error, and after three brews, I am getting closer to getting volumes nailed.

You can throw in some LDME into the fermenter to help pad out the thin wort, maybe 1kg would do the trick, but I am not sure how far over volume you are.

I am making a volume calculator for BIAB currently, will post it up when it is correct (my maths sucks at the best of times...)

Your next brew will be much closer to the mark, and don't worry about not getting a 'vigorous' boil with the Crown urn, it seems to chug away nicely, giving as I said, around 11% evaporation over 90 minutes, and half a whirfloc tablet will help coagulate the proteins enough to do a fairly effective whirlpool.

keep up the good work,

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

Definitely lid on. Also I do a 90 minute boil and last time did a two hour boil. If it's good enough for Pilsner Urquell it's good enough for me

 

[flattop]

Whoa i love forums, one says lid off the other lid on....

The smell and taste is definitely like horse feed, i threw some into the bread maker afterward and made a decent grain loaf.... the rest went on Rosemary and the birds were into it this morning.

I thought of throwing in a k of lme but i've decided to suck it and see, If it's not good after a week or 2 of fermentation i can turf it and still use the leftovers that i cubed with lme to make a half size brew....

There is no doubt in my mind that the lack of solid boil was due to the final volume after mash being too high and needing to lift 25*c in temp.

Bribie, you are spot on with the recipe, i wondered if it was a bit left field for a newbie but it looked like a simple one, 2 grains, 2 hops (what could go wrong?)

 

[Pollux]

After my first one I had the same experience as Bribie, it just didn't taste right...

But I fermented it, popped it into secondary with a dry hop, then bottled it a few days later...

After 4 days in the bottle I could comfortably say it was the best beer I have ever brewed....

 

[crundle]

Definitely lid on. Also I do a 90 minute boil and last time did a two hour boil. If it's good enough for Pilsner Urquell it's good enough for me

So Bribie, are you saying that you boil with the lid on? In that case, do you make an allowance with your start volume for less loss to boil, and if so, how much for 90 minutes?

Just interested in other ways people brew..... I thought that the boil was to get rid of undesirables as well as reduce the volume/increase the gravity, but if this isn't the case, then it would make sense to boil with the lid on.

Crundle