First BIAB - Winging it with this Recipe

[BrewRick]

Hi all,

After being too scared to start my first ever BIAB (and not much help from LHBS's in Hobart, grrr), I'm just going all out and attempting my first BIAB.

The recipe is as follows, making an Irish Red Ale, cut and pasted from the BIAB Spreadsheet made by IanH.



Beer Name

Hail the Red Ale



Brewer

Rick



















Rehydrate

S04

yeast in 100ml of boiled water cooled to < 30C

Grains

Crush the following grains















Pilsner Malt

4.50

kg











CaraPils

1.01

kg











Barley Roasted

0.10

kg









































































































Crown Urn

Bring

30.7

litres

355

mm to

66.7

C



















Water Treatment in grams

5

CaCl2

5

CaSO4

2.5

MgSO4



















Mash for

90

mins at

64

C sparge at

78

C for 15 mins



















Bring to rolling boil and boil for



60

mins

add hops









%AA













Fuggles

4.9

13

g

60

Mins





Fuggles

4.9

12

g

20

Mins





East Kent Golding

6.5

12

g

10

Mins





East Kent Golding

6.5

13

g

5

Mins





































































add brewbrite 10 minutes from end of boil











Take SG sample for efficiency before adding adjuncts







ADJUNCTS













































































No Chill













When below 20C pitch ale yeast or if using lager yeast cool to below 12C before pitching





















Predicted

OG

1.054



IBU

22.4







FG

1.011



EBC

28.8





%alc

Keg

5.7



Bottle

6.1





















Grain T

18

Gr Abs

0.32

Losses

1.5





Evap

3.5

Eff

75







I'm a bit scared, but have milled my grain and am ready to go (Crown urn, no chill).

Doing it later this afternoon. Only thing I don't have is the brewbite or whirlfloc. Is it OK to go without this?

How does the recipe look? I'm hoping for a reasonably malty beer, with not too much hop bitterness.

I'm sick of worrying about every little detail and just need to brew now, with the opinion of if I stuff it up, I'll learn from it, adjust and go again!

 

[BrewRick]

Ooops. The spreadsheet didnt cut and paste too well.

Grain Bill:

4.5kg Pilsner Malt
1 kg Carapils
0.1kg Roasted Barley

Hops:

13g Fuggles at 60 min
12g Fuggles at 20 min
12g East Kent Goldings at 10 min
13g East Kent Goldings at 5 min

Yeast - S-04

Crown 40l Urn, No Chill method.

Hopefully that's a bit clearer!

 

[wbosher]

A couple of queries...why use Pilsner malt over a pale malt? Not saying don't, just wondering why. It seems as though you're trying to brew some sort of English ale looking at the hops.

Also, that's one hell of a lot of Carapils. Usually from what I understand, it normally makes up about 5% of the total grain bill, that's closer to 25% I've never used it myself, but it just seems like a lot to me.

Edit - D'oh, just looked at your original post, Irish Red Ale. My queries still stand though.

 

[manticle]

As you say - brew and adjust next time (since you're already cracked and rolling). I would take a stab that you will find this beer pretty thick and may struggle to get it to attenuate using S04 and that much carapils. If you do - you know why. Your 64 mash for 90 may help combat that a little.

Good on you for having a crack. If you want a great Red recipe, brew better red than dead from the database. One of only two recipes others have written that I have brewed (love designing my own) and would do it again in a flash.

 

[Mattress]

Mate,
Don't be scared.
My process now is quite different to my early BIAB's, but I still managed to brew very drinkable beers back then.
I've found one of the things I enjoy about BIAB (or any brewing process really) is that you get to learn your individual process and make changes along the way that will improve your end product.
It's all part of the fun.

 

[wbosher]

As the above posters have said, good that you're having a crack and have fun. Hope you didn't think that I was bagging your recipe, just curious as to why you chose what you did.

I'm still learning myself, and like hearing about others recipes, and why they use any particular ingredient.

 

[BrewRick]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
wbosher - no, didn't thinking you were having a crack, and wouldn't mind if you were. That's why I posted. I'm actually using an ale malt (not pilsner malt). The pilsner malt listed in the BIAB designer was closer to the EBC of my ale malt, so I selected that.
Will take note of the recommended % for Carapils for next time.
The reason I'm using certain grains is because the two LHBS's in Hobart are pretty bad for customer service (in my opinion) and I pretty much spat it and just selected a heap of different grains. I wanted the pale ale malt, as I heard that it was a good general base malt, but neither LHBS had any left. I got what I thought was the next best thing.
Once I've done this brew, and followed it up with a pale ale, my next ingredients will come from online, I think.

 

[surly]

Hey BrewRick,

I just finished my second BIAB about an hour ago. So an absolute novice too. I also started with an Irish red, but made a few mistakes along the way.
This time I am brewing DocSmurtos Golden ale from the recipe database on this forum. So far, I am only aware of making one mistake which was the over-pitching of yeast (accidentally chucked the whole pack in instead of half for my 10L ferment). For this brew and my next (an ESB) I bought my grains already milled from craftbrewer. Not the cheapest way to do things with the shipping etc, but they had the exact grains I wanted and delivered quickly, so I am pretty happy