Fat Bastard
Brew Cvlt Doom
- Joined
- 11/8/11
- Messages
- 914
- Reaction score
- 226
Did my first BIAB yesterday using this recipe which I developed myself with help from here and Brewmate:
Bongin Bongin IPA #1a (American IPA)
Original Gravity (OG): 1.068 (P): 16.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.017 (P): 4.3
Alcohol (ABV): 6.68 %
Colour (SRM): 14.7 (EBC): 29.0
Bitterness (IBU): 62.0 (Average)
82.8% Pale Malt
8.28% Crystal 60
8.28% Vienna
0.64% Black Malt
1.5 g/L Super Alpha (12% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Nelson Sauvin (11.5% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Pacific Gem (13.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop)
0.0 g/L Whirlfloc Tablet @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes
Fermented at 19C with Safale US-05
Recipe Generated with BrewMate
Lessons learnt:
The centre of the mash is probably not the ideal place to take temperature readings from. My kettle was supposed to be temp. controlled with the probe at the same level as the element, but the damn second hand controller blew up in testing so I had to revert to the standard method of lagging the pot. Took a reading at 66 degrees, threw some blankets on and left it. Half an hour later, when I checked on it, the mash was 71 degrees. Damn. I'd stirred the buggery out of it before taking the initial reading, so my guess is that the false bottom in my kettle makes some areas impossible to stir up properly. I left the lid off and it dropped back down to 66 over the course of the next hour.
BIAB is ok if you have the headspace to lift the bag out. I didn't and had to spoon the mash out with a slotted spoon into some handy swiss voile squares (I suspected this might be the case and had prepared) What a pain in the arse.
After sparging and squeezing 4 mini bags, my fingers were burned to buggery, and I was only getting a refrac of 1.060.
Boil went smoothly, added hops at 60 minutes and 5 minutes. Forgot the whirlfloc at 15minutes, so I chucked it in at the end.
Lessons Learnt: Use a damn hop-sock. My whacky-do home made hop-blocker lived up to it's name and blocked immediately, resulting in a tiny trickle coming out the end of my plate chiller. It took nearly an hour to drain to the level I could see the top of the hose clamp holding it on, so I ripped it off (more burned fingers) and filtered the remaining wort through some more swiss voile, which also blocked rapidly. I had the shits at this point and just dumped the rest into the fermenter. This raised the temp to about 26 degrees, so it was all good, but there's an awful lot of mud in the fermenter now.
Questions About Gravity: I hit 1.060 post mash (target 1.064), so I expected not to hit my post boil target of 1.068, but I hit it anyway, which I was pleased about. I saved a bit of the wort, and after clearing the gear away, re tested it. I got 1.078 from the refractometer and cross checked it wth the hydro and got a reading of 1.080. I took a sample from the fermenter this morning and got 1.074. All samples were cooled to ambient in the bulb of the dropper sitting in a glass of ambient temperatue water.
Which reading is right? If it really is 1.080, my efficiency is about 83%, which is probably possible, but not for a first timer like me.
The wort tastes super sweet, with a hint of caramel which seems to be overpowering the hops, but it's certainly palatable, and if the ferment goes ok, should turn into drinkable beer!
Cheers for reading my long post, and thanks to all the folks who've answered my questions either directly or in threads I've read. I've been reading this site constantly for the last couple of months, and it's a real font of knowledge!
Bongin Bongin IPA #1a (American IPA)
Original Gravity (OG): 1.068 (P): 16.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.017 (P): 4.3
Alcohol (ABV): 6.68 %
Colour (SRM): 14.7 (EBC): 29.0
Bitterness (IBU): 62.0 (Average)
82.8% Pale Malt
8.28% Crystal 60
8.28% Vienna
0.64% Black Malt
1.5 g/L Super Alpha (12% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1.2 g/L Nelson Sauvin (11.5% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Pacific Gem (13.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
2 g/L D Saaz (5.4% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop)
0.0 g/L Whirlfloc Tablet @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes
Fermented at 19C with Safale US-05
Recipe Generated with BrewMate
Lessons learnt:
The centre of the mash is probably not the ideal place to take temperature readings from. My kettle was supposed to be temp. controlled with the probe at the same level as the element, but the damn second hand controller blew up in testing so I had to revert to the standard method of lagging the pot. Took a reading at 66 degrees, threw some blankets on and left it. Half an hour later, when I checked on it, the mash was 71 degrees. Damn. I'd stirred the buggery out of it before taking the initial reading, so my guess is that the false bottom in my kettle makes some areas impossible to stir up properly. I left the lid off and it dropped back down to 66 over the course of the next hour.
BIAB is ok if you have the headspace to lift the bag out. I didn't and had to spoon the mash out with a slotted spoon into some handy swiss voile squares (I suspected this might be the case and had prepared) What a pain in the arse.
After sparging and squeezing 4 mini bags, my fingers were burned to buggery, and I was only getting a refrac of 1.060.
Boil went smoothly, added hops at 60 minutes and 5 minutes. Forgot the whirlfloc at 15minutes, so I chucked it in at the end.
Lessons Learnt: Use a damn hop-sock. My whacky-do home made hop-blocker lived up to it's name and blocked immediately, resulting in a tiny trickle coming out the end of my plate chiller. It took nearly an hour to drain to the level I could see the top of the hose clamp holding it on, so I ripped it off (more burned fingers) and filtered the remaining wort through some more swiss voile, which also blocked rapidly. I had the shits at this point and just dumped the rest into the fermenter. This raised the temp to about 26 degrees, so it was all good, but there's an awful lot of mud in the fermenter now.
Questions About Gravity: I hit 1.060 post mash (target 1.064), so I expected not to hit my post boil target of 1.068, but I hit it anyway, which I was pleased about. I saved a bit of the wort, and after clearing the gear away, re tested it. I got 1.078 from the refractometer and cross checked it wth the hydro and got a reading of 1.080. I took a sample from the fermenter this morning and got 1.074. All samples were cooled to ambient in the bulb of the dropper sitting in a glass of ambient temperatue water.
Which reading is right? If it really is 1.080, my efficiency is about 83%, which is probably possible, but not for a first timer like me.
The wort tastes super sweet, with a hint of caramel which seems to be overpowering the hops, but it's certainly palatable, and if the ferment goes ok, should turn into drinkable beer!
Cheers for reading my long post, and thanks to all the folks who've answered my questions either directly or in threads I've read. I've been reading this site constantly for the last couple of months, and it's a real font of knowledge!