So after a dozen or so kits and extract + grain brews I acquired a cheapo 48L urn and a big grain bag and ordered a brown ale all-grain recipe pack, including WLP002 yeast - first time BIAB and first time liquid yeast...
Playing with the BIAB beer designer spreadsheet I estimated I needed 30L of water to start with, to end up with 22L of wort. Oh how wrong I was.
Anyway, all went relatively smoothly until the end of the boil, when I realised that the level of the wort hadn't dropped as much as I thought it might. I pitched the yeast as I was siphoning to get it mixed in well, filled my FV to 22L and still had quite a bit left over. Luckily I had a clean 5L demi-john handy that used to be used for wine making, so I quickly rinsed it out with no-rinse sanitiser and filled it with wort. Only problem, the yeast was all in the FV...
I didn't want to risk contaminating the main brew by sticking a wine thief in to get some yeasty wort out, and wasn't sure I'd even get enough yeast to make it viable. A quick scout round the brewing cupboard yielded a plain white packet of yeast from a kit beer ages ago. Could be six months old, could just as easily be a couple of years. So I just chucked it in, without even rehydrating it to see if it was still viable :huh: With hindsight I should have just left the demi-john sealed and ordered some fresh yeast online.
The main brew started fermenting within 12 hours and looks promising. The 5L was still inactive after four days... but today, lo and behold, it's bubbling away merrily. I'm hoping that it's a case of insufficient yeast numbers to start with, so it took a while, rather than it being some wild yeast that got in, but it'll be interesting to compare how the two yeasts turn out.
And also, the OG was 1.040 so even though it was a bit diluted I'm hoping to get a decent session beer out of it :drinks:
Playing with the BIAB beer designer spreadsheet I estimated I needed 30L of water to start with, to end up with 22L of wort. Oh how wrong I was.
Anyway, all went relatively smoothly until the end of the boil, when I realised that the level of the wort hadn't dropped as much as I thought it might. I pitched the yeast as I was siphoning to get it mixed in well, filled my FV to 22L and still had quite a bit left over. Luckily I had a clean 5L demi-john handy that used to be used for wine making, so I quickly rinsed it out with no-rinse sanitiser and filled it with wort. Only problem, the yeast was all in the FV...
I didn't want to risk contaminating the main brew by sticking a wine thief in to get some yeasty wort out, and wasn't sure I'd even get enough yeast to make it viable. A quick scout round the brewing cupboard yielded a plain white packet of yeast from a kit beer ages ago. Could be six months old, could just as easily be a couple of years. So I just chucked it in, without even rehydrating it to see if it was still viable :huh: With hindsight I should have just left the demi-john sealed and ordered some fresh yeast online.
The main brew started fermenting within 12 hours and looks promising. The 5L was still inactive after four days... but today, lo and behold, it's bubbling away merrily. I'm hoping that it's a case of insufficient yeast numbers to start with, so it took a while, rather than it being some wild yeast that got in, but it'll be interesting to compare how the two yeasts turn out.
And also, the OG was 1.040 so even though it was a bit diluted I'm hoping to get a decent session beer out of it :drinks:
