First all grain, BIAB recipe conversion

[Hetheria]

Hello fellow brewers!...

after much research and etc, I have come to the conclusion that after a few brews the best path to take is getting to all grain ASAP.
after further research in all grain and going to a grain and grape demo of a BIAB I feel I'm ready to tackle a BIAB.

gear = 40 litre Urn, ball valve attachment, brew bag, cube

I attended GABS last weekend and I have found i much prefer sweet ales, so I've decided to make a honey brown ale.

I found a PDF on the northernbrewer website and converted it to metric.
it looks like a simple one for my first brew, only one hop addition, standard 60min boil, 60 min mash, 10 min mash out... etc... and honey!

can you please have a look at my grain bill and see if it needs adjusting?

OG target: 1.050

3.6kg of Rhar 2-row Pale
110g english chocolate malt
110g bries caramel 120
110g belgian biscuit
110g bries special roast

20g Cluster (60 min)

450g Honey (0 min)

Safale US-05

Grain and grape said they can fill this, although it might be a different brand of malt, but I'm not fussed at the moment.

where can i find a calculator to know how much water i need to start with to end up with a ~23 litre batch?

brews I've done so far:
cascade pale ale (full extract kit)
chocolate redwood ale (I would call it a partial as it needed grain steeping and boiling of hops)

any input or direction would be awesome! I have not ordered the grains yet but i would like too shortly and get this beer done and possibly kegged for a trip to Rye in late July.

 

[Nick JD]

Download BrewMate.

 

[taztiger]

Or IanH's BIAB Beer Designer Spreadsheet from on this forum.

 

[Bribie G]

Brewmate is a good classical "Windows Form" type application, Ian's is for people who are more comfortable with spreadsheets.

Brewmate is very easy to figure out and is free. You can run it both ways "lock ingredients" which will tell you what you asked for above or "unlock ingredients" which will tell you what quantities of ingredients you need to do a 23L batch or a 25L batch or whatever.

With a Birko I'd be gunning for a 23L batch, would be ideal for the system. American recipes tend to be in gallons and suited to their carboys they use, and are often a bit "off the mark" if you apply them directly to our common sorts of equipment here.

Congrats on making the move to better beer :beerbang:

Edit: oops, Brewmate Here

 

[Bribie G]

Also if you want it sweeter, mash it higher at say 67-68 degrees. If it still turns out a bit dry to your taste, consider using a less attenuating yeast for a second batch - for example Windsor dried yeast or some of the Wyeast English Ale liquid yeasts.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

What Bribie said.

I've pushed Mash temps to 72 degrees on Windsor and ended up with sweet wort. For my tastes, I countered with extra early addition bitterness to get the beer balanced. But yeah, go 67-68, and make adjustments until you get where you want to be.

 

[Hetheria]

Thanks guys!

I'm at work atm, but I'll check when I get home!

 

[Hetheria]

well guys, due to no edit post... I have to double post.

I ran brewmate, put in my ingredients as per the conversion and put in how much i want to yield and what I want to aim for in an original gravity. (1.050)
and it adjusted my quantities.

4.8kg x Briess 2 Row
150g x Dingemans Biscuit
150g x Joe White/Maltcraft Chocolate
150g x Briess Caramel 120L
150g x Briess Special Roast
1 x Cluster Hop Pellets 40g <- ill only be using 20g
1 x DCL Safale yeast US05 11.5g
450g of Honey

starting water volume of 30 liters, finish with 23 liters, with 70% efficiency.. I dont fully know my efficiency yet! but i will calculate that after my first brew with this equipment and adjust all further recipes

so how does this sound? I've already put the order through and should have it eventually... It will be my first all grain in a BIAB style with a 40 liter urn.

I suppose now comes the real learning and experimenting and exploration of beer you cannot get with extracts and partials.. I hope it goes well
before i know it, I'll be making some crazy beers. I've been inspired by GABS to give anything a try. and all in all... it was still a hell of a lot cheaper for that grain bill than going extract cans and kits.

 

[Yob]

Also, keep an eye out in the bulk buy section, it gets even cheaper when you are getting grain by the sack full, you just missed a grain bulk buy a little while ago but another wl pop up soon enough.

 

[Hetheria]

It just clicked and wandered...

I adjusted the grain bill for 1.050 but i just remembered that I'm adding 450g of honey.

how much will 450g of honey effect my gravity?

should i re-adjust for the original grain bill which was slightly less in quantities?

I've already ordered my grains, but atleast i know i cannot run short!

edit again: I fiddled with brewmate and found where i can add the honey, it was under the grain / fementable's, not in misc where i looked
I added it, 450 grams. and it came to 1.054, I'm aiming for 1.050!
I put in the grain bill i ordered and the honey and bumped it up to a 25l batch. and BANG! perfect on 1.050!

I'm all prepared to go, i know how much water i need, i know what i need to do... now comes the adventure of my first all grain!

wish me luck!

 

[pedleyr]

but another wl pop up soon enough.

Sounds like Yob is volunteering to run one...

 

[bum]

Via mail order would be nice...

 

[Hetheria]

I mail ordered my grain bill, shipping was like $12...

hey, still cheaper than a kit!

I won't be buying bulk yet, I don't have anything yet that's air tight to store large amounts of grains

 

[JDW81]

well guys, due to no edit post... I have to double post.

I ran brewmate, put in my ingredients as per the conversion and put in how much i want to yield and what I want to aim for in an original gravity. (1.050)
and it adjusted my quantities.

4.8kg x Briess 2 Row
150g x Dingemans Biscuit
150g x Joe White/Maltcraft Chocolate
150g x Briess Caramel 120L
150g x Briess Special Roast
1 x Cluster Hop Pellets 40g <- ill only be using 20g
1 x DCL Safale yeast US05 11.5g
450g of Honey

starting water volume of 30 liters, finish with 23 liters, with 70% efficiency.. I dont fully know my efficiency yet! but i will calculate that after my first brew with this equipment and adjust all further recipes

so how does this sound? I've already put the order through and should have it eventually... It will be my first all grain in a BIAB style with a 40 liter urn.

I suppose now comes the real learning and experimenting and exploration of beer you cannot get with extracts and partials.. I hope it goes well
before i know it, I'll be making some crazy beers. I've been inspired by GABS to give anything a try. and all in all... it was still a hell of a lot cheaper for that grain bill than going extract cans and kits.

I wouldn't be too hung up on efficiency for your first few brews. It took me quite a while to work out my system and processes before I finally become consistent. Part of it is learning the process, part of it (in Thirsty Boy's words) is the brewing furies screwing with you. Best way to go ahead is to take religious notes with each brew, find out where things change from brew to brew and try to nail the basics every time (correct volumes, strike temps etc). Efficiency will become better and more consistent over time.

FWIW and IMHO I don't believe efficiency is quite the holy grail that some people seen to make it out to be. My system runs between 70 and 75% and I'm more than happy with that. Listen to some of Jamil's podcasts, and he reckons that a good home brew efficiency is around 65% (that is what all his published recipes are calculated for).

As far as learning goes, if you don't learn something from each brew, then you're not paying enough attention.

JD

 

[soundawake]

With my 40l crown urn with exposed element, I'm getting about 70% efficiency with a boil off rate of 10-11% per hour.

So your targets should be ok.

 

[Hetheria]

excellent. this reassures me!

I will take a lot of notes, not bad doing an all grain for my 3rd brew!!!

I'm super excited!, I also have a crown 40ltr urn with a concealed element

 

[Hetheria]

Mash! the urn kept a perfect 67~ degree temp, I set the thermostat and checked with a digital thermo... it went perfectly

Urn kept a nice rolling boil for a full 60 min duration,

after all of this was done, I had about 20~ liters that I transferred into a cube. The cube has some air/head space, but I will be putting it into the fermenter tonight,

the gravity reading while hot came out to something like 1.056~1.058.. Once i get it into the fermenter I will test the gravity at 20 degrees and adjust/dilute to achieve 1.050

Thank you for all of your help! my brew went very well, I planned and organised as much as i could, I used my fridge as a whiteboard to mark down timings, pre-weighed all of the hops and additions.

now lets see how the final product ends up. I have officially been bitten by the brew bug, I had so much fun and learnt so much from this, I cannot wait until i do my next brew!