Move To All Grain For Thirty Bucks

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Get hold of brew mate, there is a dilution calculation tool in one of the menus there. It'll let you know how much water you can whack in there.

I'd be aiming for 1.048, so you'll have some water to add. 1.064 is nice, but if you used nick's recipe, probably not what you're looking for.

Goomba

 

[Nick JD]

If you want to dilute in the fermenter, here's the maths.

Say you have 7L of 1.062 ... but you want a 1.047 beer ...

...how much water do you need to add? Or rather, what's the volume of this batch?

Here's the formula:

current gravity divided by target gravity multiplied by current volume

(62/47) x 7 = 9.23

So you need to top up your 7L to 9.23L to have a batch that's 1.047.

 

[Paleman]

Been reading this thread from the start, bloody fantastic. I just realised it was a few years old but great reading.

I dabbled quite a bit in partial mashing, doing mini full mashes is just as easy.

Will have a crack for sure.

 

[colonel]

Thanks Nick.

So, if I followed your recipe/method, and was left with only 6 litres, I assume I should have just had a gentle simmer going?

Or, would it be better to to have a full rolling boil, but start with more water (15 litres for example)?

If you want to dilute in the fermenter, here's the maths.

Say you have 7L of 1.062 ... but you want a 1.047 beer ...

...how much water do you need to add? Or rather, what's the volume of this batch?

Here's the formula:

current gravity divided by target gravity multiplied by current volume

(62/47) x 7 = 9.23

So you need to top up your 7L to 9.23L to have a batch that's 1.047.

 

[Nick JD]

Thanks Nick.

So, if I followed your recipe/method, and was left with only 6 litres, I assume I should have just had a gentle simmer going?

Or, would it be better to to have a full rolling boil, but start with more water (15 litres for example)?

Adding a few jugs of boiling water at the start of the boil will both speed up the time to get to boil, and dilute it to a better starting SG. Add water until it's around 1.040. Of course, stop before around 15L, or you'll have a boil-over issue.

You always want a "rolling boil". Worry about hitting volumes and that sort of thing once you've done a few more. There aren't many problems with boiling a higher SG (as long as you allow for slightly more hops), and some of the "problems" can actually make for a nicer beer by increasing the "maltiness" and the colour. Aim to evaporate at least 10%, more if you are using lager malts.

Experiment. Check out some of the popular recipes in the database here and scale them down to what you can do. It's through doing that you'll get knowing. Small batches educate brewers much faster than big ones.

 

[colonel]

Adding a few jugs of boiling water at the start of the boil will both speed up the time to get to boil, and dilute it to a better starting SG. Add water until it's around 1.040. Of course, stop before around 15L, or you'll have a boil-over issue.

You always want a "rolling boil". Worry about hitting volumes and that sort of thing once you've done a few more. There aren't many problems with boiling a higher SG (as long as you allow for slightly more hops), and some of the "problems" can actually make for a nicer beer by increasing the "maltiness" and the colour. Aim to evaporate at least 10%, more if you are using lager malts.

Experiment. Check out some of the popular recipes in the database here and scale them down to what you can do. It's through doing that you'll get knowing. Small batches educate brewers much faster than big ones.

Ok, thanks for that.

 

[String]

First go at BIAB last night using this method and a 19l Big W pot.
Ended up with 15 litres of 1.061 beer, aiming for 1.049 for the CPA clone in the receipe DB.
So overall 19L of beer after dilution and the starter.

I think I lost some efficiency with the sparge. After dunking the bag in the sparge water and draining, the sparge water seemed to barely take any more sugar out of the bag, looking like very weak tea.
I got much more concentrated liqour out by sitting the bag in a colander over the pot and squashing it with the potato masher.

 

[1974Alby]

Just spent all aftenoon putting down my first All Grain brew inspired by this thread... thought all was going well until I went to transfer from cooled 19L pot to fermentor, there was a big weird looking ring, a bit like a massive fairy floss doughnut below the surface of the wort. Couldnt manage to prevent it from pouring into the fermentor so filtered through a sieve and voile...made no diffeence as nothing was left behind in the seive or voile, except some hop flowers right at the end (I stopped pouring as the first of these entered the seive as I was getting down to the bottom litre or two.

So what was the big fluffy ring? and is it really bad that it made it into my fermentor?...I must say after spending 5 hours to get about 7 litres of 1047 wort in the fermentor the beer better taste pharkin good. Not sure if i will bother with this again with the grief it caused...still gotta clean up too so it hasnt stopped yet!

Im really bummed, was on a high that I had done an All Grain but now think Ive stuffed it and wasted a day.

 

[Nevalicious]

Just spent all aftenoon putting down my first All Grain brew inspired by this thread... thought all was going well until I went to transfer from cooled 19L pot to fermentor, there was a big weird looking ring, a bit like a massive fairy floss doughnut below the surface of the wort. Couldnt manage to prevent it from pouring into the fermentor so filtered through a sieve and voile...made no diffeence as nothing was left behind in the seive or voile, except some hop flowers right at the end (I stopped pouring as the first of these entered the seive as I was getting down to the bottom litre or two.

So what was the big fluffy ring? and is it really bad that it made it into my fermentor?...I must say after spending 5 hours to get about 7 litres of 1047 wort in the fermentor the beer better taste pharkin good. Not sure if i will bother with this again with the grief it caused...still gotta clean up too so it hasnt stopped yet!

Im really bummed, was on a high that I had done an All Grain but now think Ive stuffed it and wasted a day.

That fluffy doughnut looking thing sounds like it would've been hotbreak or coldbreak. Doesn't matter it went into the fermentor. Leave it be, it'll settle out with the yeast and other stuff at the end of fermentation..

Too easy

Nev

 

[Bribie G]

Most likely cold break. If you'd swirled it then let it settle for a few hours it would have sunk to the bottom. However cold break doesn't affect the flavour of the beer and as nev said it sinks out with the yeast and hop materials anyway.

 

[RdeVjun]

Albanian, its a pity you stopped pouring- I've found that in a colander the whole hops flowers make a reasonable filter bed for the remainder of the break material, so I use them quite a lot (or hops plugs) and pour the whole lot through. There's probably a big can worms that could be opened about whether break materials are desirable in the fermenter, however I've decided to remain objective- some reasonable competitive results demonstrated sufficiently to me that the flowers/ colander method evidently removes enough break, plus there's no obvious flavour faults, oh and I've quite enjoyed the beers myself!
Now, I'll also remind listeners that MaxiBIAB, which is the method I'm using, is slightly different to the one here- it is largely about filling a fermenter from a 19L stockpot, so the loss of a couple of litres of concentrated wort is quite undesirable, hence the effort to recover as much as possible. However, there's no reason why it wouldn't help with brew length here, but failing that, remember the lost kettle trub wort can be strained and re-boiled to recover it for yeast starters.
Oh, and to answer your question, as per Nev and Bribie, that fairy floss sort of material is normal, it would be break, most likely the cold variety and largely harmless. So relax, you've done well and congratulations on your first AG! :icon_cheers:

 

[1974Alby]

well thats a relief!..RdeVjun, I stopped pouring as the break material had already largely entered the fermentor before the first hop flower entered the seive...so I figured they would do a lousy job of forming a filter bed as most of the cr@p had already gone through.. The whole reason I used some flowers in the boils was that I had read they make a good filter bed when using a seive...but they cant do any filtering when they enter the seive too late?

 

[RdeVjun]

A fair query Albanian, I'm not suggesting flowers in the boil will capture all of the kettle trub, that they certainly will not do, but enough of it is trapped when poured through a colander. Most of the trub that comes through before the flowers arrive and form the filter matrix seems to be cold break, IMO that's fairly benign, the coarser break material and other hops debris that is usually mixed up with the flowers is the stuff that I'm more concerned about. I'd be sure to use enough flowers too, I use a minimum of two plugs, so 28g, often quite a lot more, but the colander needs to be big enough to capture them without overflowing, sometimes a second pour to filter the remainder is required after the first colander- full has drained.
This issue did concern me to begin with as it may be contrary to conventional wisdom, but as I say though, the actual results have been more than satisfying. B)
Hope your first AG is a cracker! :icon_cheers:

 

[Nick JD]

Albainian - with this method (and any other method of slow-chilling the wort) it's best not to leave any hops in the pot while it's cooling, as these hops will be adding to the overall bitterness while the pot is still hot enough to extract bitterness compounds.

If you sped up the chill using an ice bath then no worries.

Again (broken record), this method is not meant to be something anyone does regularly. It's a teaching method ... like teaching someone to ride a motorcycle ... this is a 50cc scooter. If you crash, there's less blood, and you're more likely to get back on the proverbial brewing horse.

There's two kinds of break material in the pot if you "slow kettle chill". The hotbreak forms in the pot when it's boiling (all those cooked eggwhite flecks). They settle first, as soon as you turn the heat off. This is handy because they go to the bottom. The cold break forms as it's cooling. Cold break will land on top of the hot break (or as you found, sometimes it floats ethereally like a jellyfish). Hot break looks like cottage cheese, hot break looks like yoghurt - which is essentially what they are - BARLEY TOFU.

When you pour, don't worry when the yoghurty cold break goes in. Stop when the cottage cheese hot break starts going in. The hot break has fat in it, you don't want that in your beer. Cold break - no worries.

If your hotbreak does go in (I've poured the lot in before to see what happens) it's not really that much of a problem - still tastes great - just not perfect.

 

[chug!chug!]

Albainian - with this method (and any other method of slow-chilling the wort) it's best not to leave any hops in the pot while it's cooling, as these hops will be adding to the overall bitterness while the pot is still hot enough to extract bitterness compounds.

I was planning to add hops to my slow chilling kettle as I have read it would be equivalent to a twenty minute addition? Would it be better to add them at the end of the boil
then whirfloc?

 

[Nick JD]

I was planning to add hops to my slow chilling kettle as I have read it would be equivalent to a twenty minute addition? Would it be better to add them at the end of the boil
then whirfloc?

If you're aware of the impacts of having hops in your slow chill then I reckon go for it.

If you're not, then I'd leave hops out of the slow chill until you're familiar with what this will do to the beer's flavour. There's a thread here somewhere on hopping in the no (slow) chill cube with all the numbers.

 

[1974Alby]

Cheers Nick, I used a big sink and changed the water about three times and added a couple of trays of ice to each sinkful. probably took about 40min to get the pot down to pitching temp....

I like the analogy about the 50cc, makes sense. It is smelling good and I will no doubt try again, maybe a maxiBIAB, as it wouldnt be much more effort for a lot more beer..

.the reason this thirty buck thread appeals to me is it doesnt use brewing jargon and prattle on about 'efficiency' and which software package gives you what numbers. As soon as I start reading about brewmate and beersmith my eyes glaze over. Is it possible to do nice tasting BIAB brews without a computer?...I really dont get excited about efficeincy %, IBU, EBC etc ..just want to enjoy the beer. Am I alone is such a simple outlook on brewing?

 

[Maheel]

Is it possible to do nice tasting BIAB brews without a computer?...

yes i reckon it is sometime using the computer just gives you more things to worry about that may not be "helping" you

i find you can make very good beer even stuffing up half the recipe
get the recipe right and you will have even better beer.


best way is to mash in and see what happens :icon_cheers:

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I think the big thing to realise with computers is that the "flavour" versus "real bitterness" isn't in the calculation. You could add a motherload of hops at 10m, it'd read as a really high IBU, but not feel (from the taste) to be that way.

Yet, you could add a small amount of hops at 60mins and the bitterness is certainly there, and not flavour.

I found initially that I was using the program to construct a beer to x ibu, but not taking into account the timing and the effect it has.

Get that bit sorted, my house APA/AAA has the same standard time additions, if I whack a bit of cara-something in, the longer addition is increased in quantity of hops just a little to compensate. This "feel" is only experience, no computer program can give you that bit.

Goomba

 

[Nick JD]

Is it possible to do nice tasting BIAB brews without a computer?

Yes, but an online IBU calculator and a strike temp calculator are essential for formulating a recipe to hit your bitterness/flavour/aroma targets; and mash target.

IMO, the best way to get to supurb beers is to follow the styles. It's really tempting to make up your own "fusion" beers, like a wheatbeer stout with apple cores and eye of newt - but that stuff will work way better for you once you know the road a little better. Thing is, there's so many styles and variations on them, that you'll never exahust the proven recipes. Recipes proven over hundreds of years by people who've done all the cauldron bubbling for us.

Get yourself a copy of this:

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf

It almost describes the recipes of all the world's classic beers without giving you the exact recipe. A quick google search will give you the exact recipe most of the time. Scaling them down or up is pretty easy.