First Attempt BIAB Stout With What I've Got

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

spryzie

Well-Known Member
Joined
30/3/13
Messages
246
Reaction score
40
I've only got US-05 yeast and 2.5kg of Ale Malt, 500g of the specialty malts except the crystal which I only have 200g and only 10g of EKG pellets and 50g of the Willamette.

This is what I've come up with to make tomorrow.

My big question is, is it too bitter?

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 11.0
Total Grain (kg): 3.300
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.064
Final Gravity (FG): 1.016
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 6.29 %
Colour (SRM): 38.8 (EBC): 76.3
Bitterness (IBU): 49.9 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
2.500 kg Pale Ale Malt (75.76%)
0.300 kg Flaked Barley (9.09%)
0.200 kg Crystal 120 (6.06%)
0.150 kg Chocolate (4.55%)
0.150 kg Roasted Barley (4.55%)

Hop Bill
----------------
35.0 g Willamette Pellet (4.8% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (3.2 g/L)
10.0 g East Kent Golding Pellet (5.9% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
Safale US-05
 
with that grain bill i wouldn't think so. looks alright to me
 
Should I make it more bitter then? I can get it to 65 IBUs with what I've got on hand...
 
Really depends on personal preference.

Do you like highly hopped stouts?
 
I quite like Sinha Stout. I guess that's not super bitter.

I'll stick with my gut and leave it as is.

Cheers.
 
It's all personal preference but I'd use the goldings for bittering and get flavour from the willamette. Alter bittering and late additions so 25% of IBUs come late in the boil. Aim for BU:GU ratio of .70-.75

But I emphasis -personal preference
 
Here it is in pictures! 10 minutes left in the boil...

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/gallery/album/1005-spryzies-pics/

My notes so far:

Striked @ 71 for mash temp of 67. After 90 minutes mashing temperature was 65.

Mashed out to 76 degrees. Took 18 minutes.

Lifted bag and drained. After lifting bag, wort temp read as 80. Perhaps limit ramp up to 15 minutes next time? Can't really detect "tannins" just a very roasty wort!

Note to self: Don't trust thermometer with grains in the mash, only when the mash is a liquid does it seem to read accurately (it's digital).

Wort SG is 1055 @ 52 degrees. Corrected to 1065 which is target gravity!

Rinsed bag with 1L of 75 degree water. Squeezed about the same out of the bag.

SG is 1055 @ 51.5 degrees still (but we have about 1L more wort now? So better efficiency?)

So at least 70% efficiency (expected) or maybe even 73%.

60 minute hops (35g Willamette) in a hop bag.

15 minute hops (10g EKG) in naked.
 
It's in the cube and will be ready to pitch tomorrow!

Very pleased with this effort. Nothing went wrong and the grain bag didn't explode (I borrowed the wife's sewing machine).
 
Next day, pitched with rehyrdated US-05 yeast (rehyrdrated at 27 degrees for about 15 minutes). Fermenter was sterilised with 1/2 cup bleach and filled to brim with cold water and left sit for 1 hour.

Fermenter reads as 11 Litres of wort at about 17 degrees.

So might have to think about sparging process and boil off rates as I thought we might have about 11.5 or even 12 litres of wort with the extra sparging 1 litre. This method seemed to work well so will just stick with that for a while (until those evil tannins appear).

Have taken a SG reading and taste test from fermenter. SG is 1067/8 so that's a 72/3% efficiency - I'm happy with that. Tastes sweet, toasty and roasty, can really smell the hops as well as taste the bitterness this time (unlike the very first shambles attempt where it was lolly water and not enough bitterness).

If the yeast do their job this should be a good beer! 10 times better than the first attempt anyway. With the better than expected SG it'll be a 6.7% beer which will just what I wanted.

BIAB is easy as pie! :lol:
 
Well done, good stout drinkin' weather coming up.

After nearly five years of doing full volume BIAB, towards the end of the process I often find myself thinking "hang on, that was all too easy - surely I've missed out a step somewhere - "
I'm doing an end to end double batch today just to give myself a challenge.

:p
 
Congratulations spryzie. Sounds like you had had a pretty stress free brew day. Post an update once it's ready and let us know how it tasted.
 
Can anyone shed any light on why this recipe has finished up as 1022 SG? BrewMate said it would get to 1017.

Krausen dropped at 4 days in, It's 8 days in and it's been steady for 3 days now at 1022. I gave the thing a swirl yesterday but nothing has changed.

Still a nice enough beer and it's hit 5.9% ABV so I'm still fairly happy and I'll bottle it this weekend.

Just wondering if mashing at 67 degrees is the cause of not finishing all the way?
 
1022 is quite high, I would be wary of bottling.
What temp did you ferment at? If low like 16-17 try ramp it a degree a or two see if it stirs..
 
Fermented 18-22 (varied a little).

I'll leave it 2 weeks from pitching before I bottle.
 
Well, I tasted it today 2 weeks in primary and 1 week in the bottle. I have one plastic bottle I squeeze and it was firm a few days ago.

Quite a fruity noise. Nice burnt coffee roasty taste. Definitely tastes like a Foreign Export Stout should.

It's very flavoursome, I like the amount of roastiness and fruit very much. It's like a Cascade Export Stout only better! :)

My only issue is that it's a little thick. It's not unpleasant but it finished at 1021 (was expecting something lower) and I figure that's either due to the amount of dark grains/flaked barley or I mashed a little high.

I've mashed 1 degree lower for another beer I've got in the fermenter right now and it attenuated perfectly so I plan to just mash at 66 degrees instead of 67 for everything from now on until I find a fault with that.

Might do some reading and tweak the amount of flaked barley and crystal down a bit as well next time.

I think the hop schedule is fine as it is.

Maybe a little more carbonation would be good (but if I get the attenuation problem worked out it might just be OK - I'm still just using carb drops).

Will definitely brew more of this. Not bad for my second BIAB attempt. Not bad at all.

This all grain business is easy peasy!
Hmmm, after finishing the glass, I'm regretting only putting one stubbie in the fridge. :chug:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top