Nearly ready for first Biab

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tonyt

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Ok, nearly ready for my first Biab, using the crown 40 l urn, just one last question........ During the boil should the lid be left on/ off or slightly covered. And i read somewhere about a SS plate on top of wort to help with the boil, whats that one about?

Cheers
 
definately boil with the lid off...
 
tonyt said:
During the boil should the lid be left on/ off or slightly covered.
On or partially covered while the boil ramps up is fine but lid should be off during the boil itself.

Floating an ali pie plate or similar will help make the boil a little more vigorous if you're having trouble - something to do with reduced surface area. I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you think you need it after having a bash at it.
 
You want the lid off so that certain undesirable volatiles get boiled off, with the most well known being DMS. The idea of the small floating lid is to ensure a vigorous enough boil to encourage the right reactions in the boil, the crowns (depending on a few factors) sometimes struggle with this hence while you'll see reference to insulating them, or adding the floating pie tin. It's merely a way of reducing surface area to get a better boil
 
Bugger, sorry forgot to also ask, when reading a typical AG recipe, are all aspects of the recipe same if doing Biab or full mash 3 vessel method
 
tonyt said:
Ok, nearly ready for my first Biab, using the crown 40 l urn, just one last question........ During the boil should the lid be left on/ off or slightly covered. And i read somewhere about a SS plate on top of wort to help with the boil, whats that one about?

Cheers
As above.
It's fine to leave the lid on to bring your wort to the boil but remove it for the boil duration.
Which urn have you got? Exposed element or concealed?
I have the exposed element urn & using BrewMate software, I have my boil off rate @10% which is fine. I don't have any insulation on mine at all.
I'll PM you a really good APA recipe using BrewMate & no chill if that's what you want to do.
I've made it heaps of times already & it's a great beer.
It doesn't matter if you Biab or 3V. The only real difference is Biab is full volume mash, ie: sparge water included.
 
Thanks fo all the replies. Crusty, mine is the concealed element. Yes please, send me that recipe when you get a minute.

Cheers
 
Minimum 75 minute mash followed by a mash out will make a huge difference.
Other than that have a go, see what happens
 
shmang said:
Minimum 75 minute mash followed by a mash out will make a huge difference.
Other than that have a go, see what happens
Very true.
I do a 90min sacc rest followed by continually pumping the mash up & down with a paint stirrer when ramping from sacc rest to mash out.
Once at 78deg, turn off the urn & hoist the bag.
 
A few lessons that I learnt doing my first couple of BIAB with a concealed element crown urn:

Continual pumping/stirring for mash out as mentioned above is the go, if you don't stir the heat gets trapped at the bottom and the temp won't rise very much at all.

Get a 'paint masher' from the big green shed, much better than an all metal paint stirrer.

After each brew, give the element cover a good scrub so that it is shiny again. If it gets a bit of a build up on it, you won't get a good boil.

The boil for my first brew was not very vigorous, but after that batch I got a good boil. A bit weird, I'm not sure why.
 
shmang said:
Minimum 75 minute mash followed by a mash out will make a huge difference.
Other than that have a go, see what happens

Crusty said:
Very true.
I do a 90min sacc rest followed by continually pumping the mash up & down with a paint stirrer when ramping from sacc rest to mash out.
Once at 78deg, turn off the urn & hoist the bag.
I'm only just starting my BIAB and AG brewing. My first and only brew I hit 68% efficiency into the kettle. Not really that good. That was with a 90 min mash at 67 degrees. No mash out. That equated to 1.044 instead of 1.050 for my starting gravity. (I'm pretty sure my figures are right). Hopefully the mash out will help me out with my next brew.
 

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