First Biab Recipe

[Weatherby]

Got a 19 litre pot and am waiting on my ebay thermometer, so am going to craftbrewer today to get a bag and some ingredients.

I will be attempting to brew similar to Nick's stovetop lager thread methods.

I want to keep it simple and cheap so 1 grain type and 1 hop type if I can.

English bitter/pale ale (hopefully between 4 and 5% or thereabouts)

4kg Golden Promise mashed for 90 min at 66deg in 12L
sparged in 4L 76deg (maybe 3L so it don't boil over)

30gms EKG 5%AA 60min 20ibu
30gms EKG 5%AA 20min 12ibu
30gms EKG 5%AA 5min 4ibu
whirfloc 10 min

total ibu 36 those results are from entering calcs into beer alchemy calculator with 1.060 SG and 16L boil

I will check the gravity readings and adjust hops when I brew.

Will the recipe be o.k., does it need some other grain? any other opinions

I have the calculator on beer alchemy, but the trial period has expired so am in the dark a bit.

 

[argon]

Chuck in 120g of Caraaroma and you'll have a stunning beer. :icon_drool2:

Also get Ross to give you a good quality english yeast... the craftbrewer blend for dry yeast or WYeast Ringwood if you want a liquid.

Edit: added links.
Good luck with the first brew...it'll be a cracker

 

[Weatherby]

Thanks argon, that grain looks good. I just spoke to them on the phone and there is no min amount if all grains are cracked together so I will be adding some extras.

 

[argon]

Thanks argon, that grain looks good. I just spoke to them on the phone and there is no min amount if all grains are cracked together so I will be adding some extras.

You won't regret it... Golden promise with a touch of caraaroma is a highly regarded yet simple combo, go for it.

If you really want to add another touch of complexity to it, replace the 5min addition of the EKG with Styrian Goldings... either way it'll be good, up to you.

 

[Weatherby]

Thanks again, it would be nice, but 1 pack of hops will keep the cost down

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Hi there,

Great looking recipe.

I would be tempted to use Bairds Perle malt. I tend to use it with 200g of caramunich I and it works well for english and american pale ales and bitters (it has a fantastic malt backbone to help with beer construction).

You may consider buying 5kg, both because it drops by $1 per kg (meaning that at $3.50 per kg reduced, 5kg is 50c cheaper than 4kg), and this might be an insurance policy against less than ideal efficiency (something that just about any first time BIABer suffers from). Having said that, it might make efficiency worse because you are doing higher grav BIAB, but either way, it's the same price and you'll end up with the required quantity of beer.

EKG FTW! Perfect hop choice. If you are looking at cutting costs, you might go first gold, styrian goldings or bobek (depending if any are reduced in price).

Argon is right - CB blended English yeast is a cracker, as is Windsor if you want some residual body and sweetness to balance the bitterness. Nottingham works well for a drier beer, but you may end up with a higher abv % beer as a result.

Finally, use beer mate, or beercalculus.hopville.com - both are free and will do the hard work for you.

Goomba

 

[Bribie G]

Looks good. As suggested, if you buy over 5kg the price drops markedly. Before I got my mill and started buying sacks, (and even now if I get a batch of malt that I don't require a full sack of) I order at least 5k. For example 8K to make two batches of 4k, and the lads will pack in 2x4k if you ask. Perle is my favourite ale malt for all purpose, GP for Yorkshire Ales as it's more biscuitty.

 

[Bribie G]

Also, another good forum to visit is Biabrewer - ralph on the forum there does a cracking yorkshire bitter along the lines you are looking at, and uses a 19L pot in similar fashion to Nick

 

[goomboogo]

4kg Golden Promise mashed for 90 min at 66deg in 12L
sparged in 4L 76deg (maybe 3L so it don't boil over)


total ibu 36 those results are from entering calcs into beer alchemy calculator with 1.060 SG and 16L boil

I may have missed something but if I've read correctly, you're total water use is 16 litres(12 litres mash-in and 4 litres sparge). This will not give you the desired 16 litre boil volume as it doesn't account for water being absorbed by the grain. A starting estimate is 1 litre of water absorbed per kilo of grain used. This will depend on a variety of factors so it's a case of taking measurements when you brew and adjusting for future brews.

 

[Nick JD]

No need to worry about your sparge volume too much. You don't need much at all to rinse out your grain bag - always err on the "less" side.

It's really easy to fill your coffee kettle with 2L of water and turn it on when you are sparging. If you end up with not enough volume in your pot after you've sparged, no worries, just top it up with boiling water.

The only reason to top up at all is to get the SG into the ~1.050 territory, so the hop utilisation is optimised (and the malt darkening reactions are lessened - although this can be used to advantage in some recipes). Otherwise, you can up your hops a little and boil the stuff at 1.065+, certainly saves time and power only boiling half the amount. If you are getting your hops cheap - it's an option.

Remember, it's high-gravity brewing - how "high" you take it is up to you. It'll always require dilution in the fermenter (unless you are making 10L of 7.5% beer, like an IPA), but this is great when starting out, because it lessens one of the difficult things to crack initially: volumes.

 

[Weatherby]

I got gp and caraaroma, EKG and cb english ale yeast, forgot the whirlfloc.

Just bought the grain I need today I will get 5kg lots when i do more brews, thanks for the tip.

Anthony at craftbrewer(who was very helpful) suggested dropping back the ibu to 25/30 for my first brew so might do that

I am on mac so no brewmate.

Checked out ralph's recipes on biabforum too thanks bribie.

Thanks to Nick for the inspiration.

Thanks to everyone else for the helpful replies.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

<snip>

Anthony at craftbrewer(who was very helpful)...

Great guy, very helpful.

He put me onto Citra when Riwaka was out, and it's now one of my absolute must have favourite hops.

He's right, because if you don't cool as quickly as anticipated (if you are cooling) you can pick up a few extra IBU. I always aim (for a standard gravity ale - yes I know that's being vague) for up to 30IBU, and I go further when I want something specific (such as an IIPA, or a higher grav beer that needs extra hopping to balance out).

Goomba

 

[stux]

I am on mac so no brewmate.

I'm really enjoying BeerSmith 2 on my mac

Soooo much better and less annoying/limited than Beer Alchemy

And I even have Beer Alchemy on my iPhone

BS2 has very good BIAB support

 

[Weatherby]

The end result

 

[argon]

Nice one mate looks great. well done on the first biab.How' she taste? Great i'm expecting. :icon_cheers:

 

[malt_shovel]

The end result

Looks great. How'd you find the balance of bittering / malt /alcohol? I was reading the previous posts thinking that an OG of 1.060 and 25 - 30 IBU (was that for no-chill or immediate chilling?) would be a bit light on bitterness, so would be good to hear your thoughts. What FG did it reach and what mash temp?

Feel like a beer now!

Cheers
:beer:

 

[Weatherby]

Argon

Nice one mate looks great. well done on the first biab.How' she taste? Great i'm expecting. icon_cheers.gif

Yeah mate I am very pleased with it, picked up a biscuity taste :icon_drool2:

Looks great. How'd you find the balance of bittering / malt /alcohol? I was reading the previous posts thinking that an OG of 1.060 and 25 - 30 IBU (was that for no-chill or immediate chilling?) would be a bit light on bitterness, so would be good to hear your thoughts. What FG did it reach and what mash temp?

Feel like a beer now!

Cheers
:beer:

Alcohol was pretty spot on, malt was about right too, but would go a bit bitterer next time. I only managed to get a mild boil going on the stove, so that may have affected the ibu's.

The 1060 was a pre dilution estimate in the stovetop method, diluted it to 1048. chilled the pot in the laundry tub

Mashed at 65deg and kegged at 1012 FG

That was a sample from one of a few bottles I kept seperate, wish I had more. YEEHAH :super:

 

[Nick JD]

...wish I had more. YEEHAH :super:

Easily solved!

 

[Weatherby]

Planning batch 2. I would like thicker beer (have some 1469 so guessing that will finish thicker than craftbrewer English Ale blend) I would also like more caramel taste and a darker head, so gonna double the caraaroma.

I did previously say that the bittering was lacking(doesn't seem so bad now) but might up the 60 min anyway.

 

[Weatherby]

I was really looking forward to this one this arvo, batch 2, knew the keg was getting low. When the froth died down a bit, I thought I would top it up so that I could really enjoy it. :icon_drool2:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH