First Ag Tomorrow - Biab

[crundle]

Hi all,

After what seems like ages researching, procrastinating and what not, I am going to do my first AG tomorrow. I have bought a Crown 40 litre urn, got SWMBO to knock me up a Swiss voile bag, and bought the hops and grain. I am making Dr Smurto's golden ale clone, read too much about it to not give it a crack as my cherry popper.

I have gone over all the threads that I have printed out, and feel pretty confident of getting through it all OK.

Most importantly, I have written a note on the kegerator to remind myself not to grab a beer until the last of the hop additions during the boil (hope I can keep to that though).

Will post up details and pictures tomorrow once it is all done!

cheers,

Crundle

 

[clean brewer]

Good luck mate, I reckon a poll should be started as to who did Drsmurtos Golden Ale for their first AG, I did..

And yes, dont touch a drop, even if things go a bit pair shaped, which im sure they wont.. :beer:

 

[Pollux]

Best of luck with it....

I know I've said it 20 times this week, but I'll be there next weekend.....Although I won't be doing the DrS GA, more a bastardised form there-of...

 

[chappo1970]

Hi all,

After what seems like ages researching, procrastinating and what not, I am going to do my first AG tomorrow. I have bought a Crown 40 litre urn, got SWMBO to knock me up a Swiss voile bag, and bought the hops and grain. I am making Dr Smurto's golden ale clone, read too much about it to not give it a crack as my cherry popper.

I have gone over all the threads that I have printed out, and feel pretty confident of getting through it all OK.

Most importantly, I have written a note on the kegerator to remind myself not to grab a beer until the last of the hop additions during the boil (hope I can keep to that though).

Will post up details and pictures tomorrow once it is all done!

cheers,

Crundle

You'll be fine mate! You won't regret it. You know what your doing just take it easy.

A+ Don't smash one until the brews in the fermenter and you'll really appreciate it.

Best of luck and post the results.

 

[Mantis]

And dont worry too much about OG's etc. I am drinking a wheat beer at the moment that I did as my second biab and thought I stuffed it properly.
OG was 10 points down on what I was aiming at, and after no chilling and pitching the next morning (pre coffee ---mistake as not awake), pitched US-05 instead of the wheat yeast I had got for the job.

Anyhooo, its bloody lovely :beer:
BTW it is Les's Schneider Weisse in all but the yeast and mash schedule

 

[reg]

Mate good luck with it.

Dont worry, enjoy it.
I have done a couple where you think "oh no did I do this"

Its all drinkable at the end of the day, some just take longer to drink than others.

You will be fine, enjoy the experience

 

[Effect]

Good luck mate,

Would really recommend not having a beer at all until you are finished (just for your first one). I drank before I even mashed in on my first AG - luckily I had another member who is quite wise to help me out.

I would love to come up and give you a hand - but I work until 3pm tomorrow...maybe another time!

Hope you enjoy it mate!

Cheers
Phil

 

[crundle]

Phew!

My internet access at home died on brew day, so here is a quick overview, photos will follow once I get access again.

All went well, started with 30 litres in the mash, stayed around 66 the whole time, lifting the bag up and down every 10 minutes to keep the temperature somewhat even. Mashout at 78 for 15 minutes. Loss to grain worked out just a tad over .5l/kg of grain, and the boil loss was a little low, at 7.5% instead of my assumed 9% for one hour. After the boil, I lost 1.5 litres in the bottom of the urn with lots of protein in it, and ended up filling my cube with 25 litres of near boiling wort.

I didn't get to take a sample for gravity reading because I have lost the tube I use to hold the sample in, so will have to test it when it is about to be fermented in a day or two.

It looks and smells great, and now I know some of the parameters of my setup I can dial it is a bit better, although I am assuming that using the Dr Smurto recipe, and if my efficiency of extraction is still good, the gravity will be down a bit due to the lower boil loss, haven't done the maths yet to try to work it out yet. [EDIT] I made some assumptions such as loss to grain being higher, evap loss higher, and loss in bottom of urn being higher, but I think that the first two are the ones that make the difference as to gravity. [END OF EDIT]

Didn't have a beer till it was all done, great experience, will post pics up when net is back up at home.

Thanks for the best wishes all, and the advice given prior to brew day. I can't wait to taste that beer when it is ready!

cheers,
Crundle

 

[crundle]

Finished my second BIAB yesterday, and finally worked out how to post up pictures from photobucket.

This time around, my initial volume was 28 litres instead of 30, and I set the thermostat on the urn to 65, which gave me 66 on my trusty thermometer. I left the urn switched on the whole time mashing to minimise heat loss, and it seemed to work very well.

I was slightly below my expected pre boil gravity reading of 1.040, at 1.037, but was happy with the results of a 90 minute boil to reduce the volume and raise the gravity, but unfortunately I put the post boil gravity sample in the freezer to cool down *a bit* and then went to work and forgot about it, so it will have to thaw to let me know what it was at, but then again, the cube is probably cool enough to pitch now, so I might jsut grab the sample from there instead.

I felt much more relaxed this time around, and found setting alarms on my phone for each event kept things going smoothly, plus not drinking while brewing (never thought I would say that.....) helped a lot.

Enough of my rambling, here are the promised pics!


Here is the urn with a cake cooling rack sitting on top of a camp toaster for added height above the concealed element - no burnt bag this way yet, hopefully never.


A few pegs around the top of the urn to hold the bag in place while the grain is being poured in. Once the grain is in, the pegs are removed so I can put the lid on to help keep the temperature stable.


Pouring in the grain from a height to reduce clumping. This has worked well and so far there have been no clumps of grain whatsoever.


After giving the grain a nice stir with the mash paddle, the pegs are removed and it is time to check the temperature.


At this stage I tie the bag up with cord and have the cord over a beam to be able to lift it out easily if needed. I pull the bag up and let it go a few times to make sure I am getting a good even temperature reading, then when done put the lid back on with the tied part of the bag outside so the lid closes nicely.


After mashing out, the bag is raised a bit to let it drain into the urn while it is coming up to the boil.


A close up. I raised the bag above the top of the urn after the photo to help me be able to squeeze out more from the bag without getting burnt by the steam. Seems to work well and this has let me keep my loss to grain just above half a litre per kg of grain.


The boil with some nice scum on the top. The urn gives an OK boil, not super vigorous at all, but enough to do the job. My evaporation loss over 90 minutes was 10.5%.


The hop bag made of Swiss Voile held over the urn with coat hanger wire. This works a treat, and the large hop bag helps with extracting all that hoppy goodness. I am still amazed at how much the pellets of Amarillo swell up when they are in there.

More photos on the next post of the final stages of the brew.

Crundle

 

[crundle]

More pics.


After the boil, the urn is whirlpooled, and then left for 10 minutes to settle. I have taken to pouring the hot wort into a cube using the hop sock in the neck of the cube, hoping that it might help to filter some of the trub that makes its way in there otherwise. I have noticed that BIAB results in a wort much less clean than from the traditional multi vessel method, and maybe it might be food for thought to work on a sand filter or such to go from the urn to the cube, as I have not experimented to see how much of the trub the Swiss Voile can trap. But anyway, I ran the wort into the hop bag to gain a bit of a hopback, so I will see how the beer tastes.


This is what is left after pouring, about 1 litre of liquid and trub. Next time I will experiment to see how well the hop bag filters this, but I didn't want to for this run as I had to finish up quickly to get to work.


The result - one nice hot cube of wort! The volume is certainly down from the last one, which I thought looked like 25 litres when it was hot, but cooled down to become 23 finished (3 above the target, so it needed LDME added in the ferment to build up a bit of body and alcohol), but this one looks like less, so I will find out when it is time to pitch it.

All up, a great brew day, and I am getting to know my equipment much better than my initial estimates. I am about 3 days away from force carbing my first attempt, and although it will be drinkable, this second one should be much nicer, being closer to the correct gravity readings and volume.

cheers,

Crundle

 

[Pollux]

Looks great.....


Did you have issues with the voile hopsock retaining ALOT of liquid? I know I did....Doing a Belgian today (yes, that's 4 done in 4 days......) and I'll try not using a hopsock and see how much of the hop material the whirflock helps to drop...

The urns are easy to clean anyway.

 

[gava]

Can you keep your wort in a container like this for a extended period of time until your ready to place in the fermenter? and if yes how long until it goes bad? store at certain temp?
This might be handy because I only have a small area for brewing and if I can "cue" up some worts to ferment it'll be better for me. or even better brew some for mates that can ferment in their fridges..

 

[Pollux]

gava, check the No Chill article, if correct procedure is followed, some people have kept them for months.

 

[crundle]

For the first brew, the hopsock did retain a heap of wort, but the second time it didn't retain so much. The only difference was that the hops were fresh the first time, whereas they had been kept in the freezer before the second brew, only 5 days or so later. Not sure if this makes a difference, but it is the only change I made.

4 brews in 4 days, sounds like a good name for a brewing book.....

I agree that the urns are great for cleaning, and BIAB seems to be easy to clean up from as one part of the brewing day finishes, the stuff can be cleaned while the next is going. After cubing, it only takes me about 10 minutes to clean the urn and get everything sanitised and drying, ready to be packed away for the next brew.

Crundle

 

[crundle]

Can you keep your wort in a container like this for a extended period of time until your ready to place in the fermenter? and if yes how long until it goes bad? store at certain temp?
This might be handy because I only have a small area for brewing and if I can "cue" up some worts to ferment it'll be better for me. or even better brew some for mates that can ferment in their fridges..

Heard of cubes being kept for up to a year, although a few months seems to be quite normal and safe. Just like a fresh wort kit you make yourself.

Crundle

 

[Bribie G]

Crundle, where did you get the cake stand? I've decided to get one for my Birko exposed - element job and do decoction type mashes / mashouts using the element during mashing itself.

Love the cube, I've been struggling with my 20 L cube and decided to go bigger - where did you get yours and $$ ?


Edit: just had another look at the pics.

Textbook BIAB brew, mate. Do you use whirlfloc? really makes a difference. I've just read that you should only use half the tablet, I had been putting in a whole tablet as they are cheap as chips but apparently that works against you.

Also a 'coarse mesh' hopsock from Ross is a great investment and drains perfectly:




Cheers

 

[Pollux]

For the first brew, the hopsock did retain a heap of wort, but the second time it didn't retain so much. The only difference was that the hops were fresh the first time, whereas they had been kept in the freezer before the second brew, only 5 days or so later. Not sure if this makes a difference, but it is the only change I made.

4 brews in 4 days, sounds like a good name for a brewing book.....

I agree that the urns are great for cleaning, and BIAB seems to be easy to clean up from as one part of the brewing day finishes, the stuff can be cleaned while the next is going. After cubing, it only takes me about 10 minutes to clean the urn and get everything sanitised and drying, ready to be packed away for the next brew.

Crundle

Mine had a shocker yesterday and it was the lightest weight of hops I'd used yet, for some reason 42g of Northdown made it harder to drain than 85 of cascade/williamette I had in it on the maiden run....

And yes, I've been a busy boy, 2 in fermenters now, one in a cube, the other is mashing....After this there will be a pause, I'm just taking advantage of being on annual leave, the wife is at work, daughter is in daycare on mon/tues, perfect time to get some brewing done.

 

[raven19]

This is what is left after pouring, about 1 litre of liquid and trub. Next time I will experiment to see how well the hop bag filters this, but I didn't want to for this run as I had to finish up quickly to get to work.

Can I suggest saving this portion also for starters? You can freeze, then reboil when making a starter (assuming its at a reasonable gravity).

Well done, love the pics.

 

[crundle]

Great idea of using the trub portion for starters Raven, I will do this with the next one for sure.

BribieG, the cakestand was from Kmart or such, and the camp toaster from Anaconda. Together they keep the bag nicely off the bottom. Got the cubes from work where they use the distilled water for recharging batteries for robots. They say it is 20 litres, but I have held 23 litres cold in it no worries.

I used half a whirfloc tablet for each brew, seems to work quite well.

For my second brew, the volumes are much closer to the recipe requirements, finishing at 20.5 litres in fermenter, but my gravities are all low, post boil gravity came out at 1.038 instead of 1.047. I measured the temperature with my thermometer to be 68-66 during the mash, with frequent lifting and plunging of the bag when measuring to ensure even temperatures, but after finishing the brew, tested the thermomenter and found it to read at 102 when in boiling water. I guess that I have mashed too high then, which might explain lower gravities, is this correct to assume?

I found my last DSGA finished at 1.006 instead of expected 1.012, but I think that might have been leaving the fermenter to raise in temperature for the final two days before crash chilling, so I will keep an eye on final gravity a bit closer next time.

I might need to get a decent dial thermometer for the next brew to make sure I hit the right temperatures for the mash, it seems that there is a very small window between making a beer with little alcohol and more body and the opposite. Once I get the temperature right, I *should* be able to set the thermostat and just check the temps as I have been, and then start hitting the expected gravities. For the record, I mash for 60 minutes and boil for 90 minutes.

I love the AG taste, can't see myself ever going back to kits now, but I need to understand my apparent woeful efficiency and how to hit gravity targets. Hopefully several more attempts at Dr Smurto's Golden Ale recipe will result in me getting closer to my gravity targets as has been the case with volumes.

Now the obsession draws me in further........

Crundle