First Biab - Og Very High?

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.

GrumpyPaul

Well-Known Member
Joined
14/4/10
Messages
2,289
Reaction score
1,471
Location
Melbourne
Hi Guys

I just finished my very first AG brew using BIAB.

The recipe is below - was a 10 litre batch. (I just wanted to do a smallish batch for the first go until I knew what I was doing.

I started with 12 litres in the urn.
Strike temp was 71 - aiming for 67 after the grain went in.
After the hour it was at 64.5 (so I only lost a couple of degrees during the mash)

I "sparged in a bucket" by rinsing the grain bag with a further 1.5 litres of water (at about 67 degrees)

The recipe i used suggested taking 2 litres out of the wort - put it in pot and boil to reduce by half (to caramilse the flavours) then put it bact into the urn with the boing wort.

So I started with 13.5 litres (12+1.2-1) in the urn - at the end of the boil, according to the site glass I only had 8 litres left.

Is it normal to lose so much during the boil?

So I added 2 litres of cold water into the fermenter (just like I would wiht and extract/kit) to bring it back up to 10 litres.

Hydrometer sample just before pitching say og was 1072 - a lot higher than the 1062 that Brewmate calculated.

Is this because I boiled off so much and condensed it down?

Is this going to ruin my beer?

Heres the recipe (it will be put onto rum soaked oak chips in the secondary when its ready)

Is that a Gunn in your pocket (Scottish Light 80/-)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.062 (P): 15.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.016 (P): 4.1
Alcohol (ABV): 6.09 %
Colour (SRM): 19.6 (EBC): 38.6
Bitterness (IBU): 26.9 (Average)

87.72% Maris Otter Malt
8.77% Caramalt
3.51% Chocolate

1.8 g/L Fuggles (5.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)

4.0 g/L Oak Chips @ 0 Days (Secondary)

Single step Infusion at 67C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 20C with Wyeast 1728 - Scottish Ale


Recipe Generated with BrewMate
 
By my calculations if you add 1.5 litres water to mix you will be back around 1.062.

1.072 seems very high for what you have used.....I punched it into brewmate and only got 1.050 for a 10 litre batch.



Are you sure your temps are right, possible you mashed lower and produced a much stronger wort.
Did you use the correct amount of grain, as per the recipe...excess grain would account for differences in OG.
 
By my calculations if you add 1.5 litres water to mix you will be back around 1.062.

1.072 seems very high for what you have used.....I punched it into brewmate and only got 1.050 for a 10 litre batch.



Are you sure your temps are right, possible you mashed lower and produced a much stronger wort.
Did you use the correct amount of grain, as per the recipe...excess grain would account for differences in OG.

I am confident the grain amounts were spot on. A mentioned I list a couple of degrees during the mash. It was 64.5 at the end of the hour.

what should the fg get down to if it starts that high?
 
you will only get a difference of a few points.

If you dont want it really alcoholic then water it down, as I said 1.5l will get you about right for expected abv.
My calculations you will ended up about 7.8% after priming(assuming bottles), water down to about 6.6%..commercial mark.

Also with your oak chips Innes & gunn use bourbon barrells so rum might not work the best, but depends what you want to achieve.

Hope it works out all right, am doing a clone myself soon, a little different grain bill anf EKG instead of fuggles.

let me know how it works out.
 
Will it be ok to add the water after the yeast has been pitched.out am I risking infection?

Just boil the water let it cool amd tip it in?

And with the chips it was actually him beam, don't know why I write rum...it was getting late!
 
Without knowing the mass of grain you used its imposable to work out what really happened.
There is always the possibility that your reading is distorted by the addition of the condensed wort, if was put into the fermenter first or being heavy it sank to the bottom your sample could be heavier than the total for the beer.
As with kit brewing, it is very important to mix everything thoroughly and clear the contents of the tap before you take a sample.

I am surprised I cant see a total grain mass anywhere there, would be a bad design flaw in the software if it isnt showing that.
Mark
 
I agree with Mark, without a total grain bill I don't understand how brewers are giving you answers, unless I'm missing something as well.


Cheers Ross
 
That's what I thought. How did yum beer manage to punch it into Beermate and get 1.050? Using just a percentage I can get any number you want.
 
Sounds like you added the wort then the water.... Your tap may have been holding extra un mixed wort, if you can take another sample and let us know how you go.
 
Well just very roughly at 80% brewhouse efficiency the OG in 10 L should have been about 1.072 give or take a couple. Frankly you have got exactly what you should have, it's Ok to rely on software but a bit of basic finger counting to see if you're in the ballpark isn't a bad idea 2.85 Kg of malt, just very roughly (like I said finger counting) call it about 80% potential and call the BHE 80%

2.85 *0.8*0.8 = 1.824 Kg of Extract (be about as good as you would expect)

1.824/10(l)*100 = 18.24oP or 1.07296 SG (From SG=((oP*4)/1000)+1)

I know there is a lot to learn starting out, at present everyone's advice is to get brewing software. That is to my mind a bit like handing a kid a calculator and saying push the 2, push the X, push the 2 = Now you can do maths.

Take the time and learn some of the basics of brewing maths, it isn't complicated and will save you a whole pile of grief.

Mark
 
Go into Brewmate's Settings-->Default Setting--> and change "efficiency" to 80%.
 
Good efficiency... I calculate it at 86% into fermenter. Did you leave nothing behind in the kettle?

Anyway, you should probably have started with 2.5KG of grain and 16L of strike. With your 5.5L evaporation and 1.5L of sparge, that would've got you 10L at 1.062

And estimated into fermenter efficiency is 86%. Your efficiency is so high for three reasons, relatively MASSIVE boil-off, sparge and no kettle loss.

Without the sparge it would've been 81%

I've attached a spreadsheet I used to calculate this out. Its already got your grainbill in the grains tab.

Since the evaporation is dialed in, simply change the Desired Fermenter Volume and Desired Fermenter OG and it'll calculate your strikes, and grainbill etc.

No need to fiddle with efficiency since this calculator derives that too!

View attachment CE_BIABcalc_2012_02_24_3.xlsm.zip
 
That's what I thought. How did yum beer manage to punch it into Beermate and get 1.050? Using just a percentage I can get any number you want.


the percentages given calculated on a 10 litre BIAB batch give 1.050.
Appears OP did not follow his recipe in regards to water quantities. Easily 5 litres under on strike water. No wonder his OG is over the top.
 
Total grain mass was 2.85kg
2.kg maris otter
250g cara
100g choc

Just spotted these new numbers.
OK that tallies up now,
would have been good to have these 'correct' figures initially, its a fair way off the percentages quoted.

Hard to give good advice when info supplied is incorrect.
He certainly got exactly what he should have. No f&%^ng problem, but caused a stir anyway.

Still want to know how it turns out and still say add 1.5litres of boiled and cooled water to your wort before it ferments too much more.
 
Well, I bottled this last night and despite the initial dramas (see above) I think it it's going to be ok.

Taste out of fermenter is nice, nice oak finish. Color really nice with reddish tinge when held to light. Almost crystal clear, which will only better agen it suits for a while.

For a first ag experiment I am happy. Despite the massive boil off resulting in a much smaller batch than planned (intended 10 l ended up as 8...which indeed up as 7 in bottles).

As mentioned above og was high at 1072 but hit the expected fg of 1016 spot on.

1week in the primary, 2 weeks secondary on the oak chips.

Can't wait till this carbs up to be able to taste.

did you guys get this excited about your first ag? Can't imagine how I wl be if I do one that everything works out and I make no mistakes.

S bytand for a photo in a couple of weeks
 
You Excel wizard, Stux. I was hoping to check your calculator out, but after extracting the zip it only opens as jibberish code language in wordpad, despite also opening Excel in another window? :S



Good efficiency... I calculate it at 86% into fermenter. Did you leave nothing behind in the kettle?

Anyway, you should probably have started with 2.5KG of grain and 16L of strike. With your 5.5L evaporation and 1.5L of sparge, that would've got you 10L at 1.062

And estimated into fermenter efficiency is 86%. Your efficiency is so high for three reasons, relatively MASSIVE boil-off, sparge and no kettle loss.

Without the sparge it would've been 81%

I've attached a spreadsheet I used to calculate this out. Its already got your grainbill in the grains tab.

Since the evaporation is dialed in, simply change the Desired Fermenter Volume and Desired Fermenter OG and it'll calculate your strikes, and grainbill etc.

No need to fiddle with efficiency since this calculator derives that too!

View attachment 52854
 
Back
Top