First BIAB urgent help please

[doctr-dan]

A bit backwards, my sister turned up with a 30ltr urn said he wanted to a all grain brew.
I raced to the LHB an asked for some basic IPA ingredients.
4kg of pale grain
500g of crystal dark
60g centennial hop pellets.
He squad the instructions were on the website.
Got home printed the instruction (general biab)
But no real recipe as such.
Hence no idea when and how much hops to add??????
Currently have cleaned everything, 20ltrs of water boiling in the urn and no idea what to do next .......

 

[fletcher]

download brewmate (brewmate.net), it's free software, and you can plug in all your ingredients to get a good idea of how and when to add them.

for an IPA a 'general' course of action is to add 1/3 of the IBU at about 60 mins, then the remaining 2/3 to make up to your desired IBUs with the flavour/aroma additions. with only 60g centennial though, i'd suggest perhaps adding more at 60 and then the remaining at about 5 minutes left.

i'm at work so can't bring up my brewmate but hopefully someone else can chime in and add them in for you if you cannot get brewmate yourself.

 

[pk.sax]

Without going into it too much

2 options:

1. Download free brewing software - brewmate and put in ingredients etc and follow directions.

2. Work out what temperature water to put grain (in biab bag) into urn to achieve about 65degrees C +/- 1C.

Retain grain in bag at that temperature for an hour and then hoist the bag out, squeeze if you want to. Aim for about 24L of wort in the urn before boiling it. Turn the urn up to boil, once it's started rolling add say - 30g hops. Start a timer. In 50 minutes from now add the other 30g. In 10 minutes from then, turn the heat off and figure out a way to chill this down to 16-18C and pitch yeast.

Good luck.

 

[doctr-dan]

Thanks guys.
Had a quick look at brew mate and it doesn't have the names of the ingredients that I have in the drop down boxes ?

 

[fletcher]

pale grain is pale malt, or ale malt, or 2-row
dark crystal might be under crystal 120L

 

[Bribie G]

Same as Fletcher



With that amount of malt I wouldn't go more than a 20L batch myself, would turn out around the same strength as Tooheys New.

With the Centennial Hops I haven't gone too heavy, being first brew you might want to start off not too radical in the hops dept.


Next step, after mashing at around 66 degrees for an hour (lag the urn with a sleeping bag or doonah, no need to heat during mash).

Then as you are using a 30L urn which is a wee bit too small for a full volume batch, I'd suggest doing a sparge in a side bucket (I have used one of those $8 white round laundry bowls from Supermarket) and collect enough runnings to make up to around 25L in urn, switch on and do hop additions as posted above. I've suggested a 60 min addition and a 10 min. That means 10 mins from the end.

Should turn out more than drinkable. If you want something stronger personally I'd be quite happy to chuck in a small amount of sugar, say 300g.. wouldn't affect flavour noticeably and a bit more bang for the buck.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Here are some simplistic BIAB instructions

Assuming trub losses of 2-3 litres

Fill urn to 25lt
Bring water to 69 degrees
Put bag in
Put grain in and stir it up.
Temp should be at 66ish
Put lid on urn and wrap in blankets or towels
Leave it for 60 mins

Remove blankets
Lift bag and allow to drain
Feel free to squeeze as much as you can out of the bag (careful its hot. use 2 saucepan lids to squeeze)
Turn urn up to full bore
When it reaches a rolling boil start the 60min timer
Throw in your first hop addition ( if you have bag use that)
50 minutes later (10 minutes left of the boil) throw in your next hop addition
10 minutes later turn off the urn.

You didn't mention having whirfloc - if you did that should go in at the 10 minute mark to.
Stir the urn vigorously to create a whirl pool and allow trub muck to settle in the centre of the urn.

Allow it to settle
Drain to the fermenter.

The rest I assume you know....if not let us know

 

[doctr-dan]

These are all good tips I should have gotten before we started.

The way it's rolled so far
Heated 20ltrs of water to 72 degrees
Added all the grain and crystal
Turned the urn down but not off and it stayed at about 64d for about 50mins then I think the dial got bumped and it heated up to 75d for the last 10mins.
Lifted the bag out , squeezed and ran 5ltrs of hot water through the grain.
Not really sure if the volume of liquid any more so assuming its roughly 24ltrs ( just pure guessing) got the urn cranked to start boiling.

Is this going to turn out crap?

 

[daveHQ]

Your off to a good start, do you have a hydrometer? If so grab out a bit of wort and measure the SG to see where your at

The hydrometer will be calibrated at 20deg so you'll have to know the sample temp so you can correct the reading to get a correct reading

 

[Foster]

I take it the grains were crushed Doc?

 

[doctr-dan]

Your off to a good start, do you have a hydrometer? If so grab out a bit of wort and measure the SG to see where your at

The hydrometer will be calibrated at 20deg so you'll have to know the sample temp so you can correct the reading to get a correct reading

Yep have a hydrometer. Are you saying check it during the boiling process or just before I pitch the yeast?

 

[GrumpyPaul]

You will probably lose 3.5 to 4 litres an hour of boil off.

If at the end of the boil volume is lower than expected you can top it up with boiled water. Check the SG, based on Brewmate it should be at 1.047. If it is higher just water down until till you hit 1.047.

The 10 minutes at 75 will probably help rather than hurt so dont worry about that.

Sound like your on the right track

 

[doctr-dan]

I take it the grains were crushed Doc?

Hmmmm not sure, the guy at the shop didn't say anything about needing to crush them............

 

[Danwood]

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. That 'bump' of the dial moved the temp. to what is called 'mash-out' step (73°C usually).

This will have made your sparge a bit more effective. So long as you don't scorch the bag/grain on the element, you're all good.

Follow the above hop schedule advice and good luck with it.

Dan

 

[fletcher]

post a picture of them mate

 

[Danwood]

Hmmmm not sure, the guy at the shop didn't say anything about needing to crush them............

Oh dear...that's a problem

 

[daveHQ]

Yep have a hydrometer. Are you saying check it during the boiling process or just before I pitch the yeast?

Both, it's good to know where your at before, during and after the boil

 

[doctr-dan]

A pic after the mash

 

[fletcher]

they looked crushed to me

 

[Danwood]

If the grains are whole the enzymes can't get to the good stuff inside.

If you BIAB you can afford to mill very fine to get a larger surface area for water and enzyme coverage, resulting in better efficiency.

Hopefully, you're grain was kindly milled for you by LHBS. But if you didn't ask for that service and he didn't mention it either...I would guess he assumed you'd be doing it yourself.

Ed- Never mind...looks fine...phew !