Okay Let's Give This All Grain Thing A Go. (biab)

[simon.sillitoe]

Today a special package arrived in the mail:

!

Basically I'm looking at doing the Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale as is (so as not to over-complicate my first batch), but I've substituted with BB Ale Malt instead because it's cheap and I've heard that it's decent anyway. Also slightly less of it as I'm looking to hit 20L in the fermenter instead of 23.

The other part of the plan is to brew slightly over-gravity as I have but a 30L urn and a cube that holds only 15.8L, which previously held a FWK. (I accurately measured that capacity today). I've read up on high-grav+dilution at various sources including here and have come to the conclusion that 20% dilution in the fermenter will not be too much of a problem, especially considering that's what the FWKs are anyway. If the worst does happen I'll either buy a bigger cube or just brew 16L batches in future (probably the former. Moar = better).

To counteract the lower hop utilisation which apparently results from a higher gravity boil I'll scale the hop additions up to 90g in total, with the added benefit that I won't have 10g sitting around afterwards. Beer Engine tells me that I'll end up with 50 IBU in 16L, so 40 IBU in 20L, which is pretty close.

Stupidly I forgot to buy a thermometer (the wall one only goes up to 50C, i.e. useless) so I'll have to head to the shopping centre in the morning and pick one up. But hopefully the urn thermostat is accurate anyway.

Without knowing the evaporation rate of my urn I'm going in blind in terms of how much water to use. If anyone has a better idea (and literally anyone will, lol) let me know, but the plan so far is 25 liters. At this stage I suspect I may need a bit more, especially considering it's a 90 min boil. But I'll have additional boiling water on hand to add towards the end if need be.

Anyway that's all a bit of a rant; apologies. Wish me luck tomorrow~! I'll be sure to take plenty of photos!

 

[matho]

all the best for tommorow

you have started down a slippery slope and there won't be any turning back

cheer's matho

 

[crundle]

Better in my opinion to go with slightly less water, you can always add more later on. The big issue will only start once you add your hops, as then the 60 minute counter is going and you have to hope to hit your target volume by the end of that time or you will be getting a higher bitterness than you were after.

What type of urn is it?

If it is a Birko, the boil should be quite good from what I have been led to believe, but if it is a Crown (like mine) then they are a bit lacking in grunt until they are modded.

Once the boil begins, you can measure the height of the water in the urn and then boil for 30 minutes to get an idea of how well it evaporates, working out at what point you will be wanting to start your hops so as to gain your desired final volume and bitterness at the same final time.

Hope it all goes well for you, you wont look back. Take plenty of notes and photos, the notes especially will become invaluable in tweaking your setup and problem solving in future.

Hope to read how well it went soon!

cheers,

Crundle

 

[daemon]

It'll be good fun, if you've never used grains before in your brew the smell as it mashes will be lovely compared to a kit tin Nothing wrong with using BB Ale at all, you'll find it just as good as any others to start with. One thing I'd recommend is you check your efficiency, on the first few AG brews most people are a little bit out. This will affect how you want to bitter you want the beer, many are under their original estimate and can sometimes only hit 50-60%. If you're not sure about efficiency, I'd recommend downloading Beersmith (www.beersmith.com). It's free for the first 30 days to trial but is well worth the money.

My local supercheap / bunnings have the 20L willow cubes for $14 still, not a huge overlay in the long run! Good luck with tomorrow.

 

[simon.sillitoe]

Thanks for the words of encouragement

Part 1 is done, presently mashing away in the garage. Few piccies...

Testing accuracy of my el-cheapo thermometer. Pretty good?

[11:05] Urn just before turning on the heat.

[11:30] This was where the urn cut out when set to 70 C, precisely where I want it (after mixing it of course)...

[11:35] Dumped the grain and pummeled away at it for a few mins. Caught a few balls, hopefully I got all of them. 66.0 C anyone?

[11:40] All rugged up (camping mat, sleeping bag, two old jackets and a sporting jersey).

It's pretty damn warm in the garage today so hopefully there won't be too much heat lost at all!

Notes:
9cm depth for each 8L. Would have been nice to have 1:1 ratio there
2.5 C drop from adding 4.6kg grain at 30 C.

 

[Bribie G]

Looks textbook to me, so far. How are you going to hang the bag, skyhook? I'm also thinking of going overgravity for some brews as I have a couple of 15L cubes and even though my urn is a 40L I reckon I could knock out a good UK bitter with 20L in the fermenter and exactly fit one Keg.

Also how are you going to contain your hops during the boil?

Keep posted :icon_cheers:

 

[simon.sillitoe]

Looks textbook to me, so far. How are you going to hang the bag, skyhook? I'm also thinking of going overgravity for some brews as I have a couple of 15L cubes and even though my urn is a 40L I reckon I could knock out a good UK bitter with 20L in the fermenter and exactly fit one Keg.

Also how are you going to contain your hops during the boil?

Keep posted :icon_cheers:

Well I was just gonna dump the hops straight in. Is this a bad idea? I was gonna hold one of those large plastic spoons with holes in it over the tap outlet (inlet? on the inside of the urn anyway) while draining to keep them out. Low tech yes?

No skyhook or anything. I was thinking of just wedging the garage door half open and attaching the bag to the handle on the bottom.

 

[Nick JD]

No skyhook or anything. I was thinking of just wedging the garage door half open and attaching the bag to the handle on the bottom.

Where's ya muscles, man! Just hold the grain bag over the urn until it's completely drained.

 

[Pennywise]

No skyhook or anything. I was thinking of just wedging the garage door half open and attaching the bag to the handle on the bottom.

The shit us HB'ers come up with to brew beer is just awesome B)

 

[Bribie G]

Actually that bag is quite a dainty looking model, I'd personally dump the grain then use the bag as a loose hopsock and tie it off at the end loosely round a bit of wooden dowel or whatever and just let it dangle in the boil, next time you order from Craftbrewer... looks like their product ... a proper hopsock is one of the best things I ever bought.
If you only have 'low hanging' capability nothing wrong with suspending the bag off something like a doorknob and let it drain / squeeze into a nappy bucket or baby bath or big bowl then tipping back into kettle.

 

[katzke]

Just dump them in and do a whilpool before slowly opening the tap. The spoon should help.

Have fun and enjoy.

Not spell checked.

 

[Tony]

Bloody tops!

Well done

I love seeing people starting out with much better equipement that i started with.

Had no AHB to help with all the great pics ect. I recon this site has made starting out into AG a lot easier for most.

Win Win!

cheers

 

[simon.sillitoe]

Actually that bag is quite a dainty looking model, I'd personally dump the grain then use the bag as a loose hopsock and tie it off at the end loosely round a bit of wooden dowel or whatever and just let it dangle in the boil, next time you order from Craftbrewer... looks like their product ... a proper hopsock is one of the best things I ever bought.
If you only have 'low hanging' capability nothing wrong with suspending the bag off something like a doorknob and let it drain / squeeze into a nappy bucket or baby bath or big bowl then tipping back into kettle.

Hehe, I actually ended up doing this in the end. When I opened the hops they looked quite eager to clog up the tap, so I just washed out the grain bag and pegged it over the edge (as you'll see in pics: soon to come).

Had a few fun moments (read: mishaps). I was able to measure the amount boiled off in 30 mins and adjust the level accordingly, but then in the last hour there were several times the urn's safety cut in so there was substantially less boiloff. In the end, though, the extra volume worked out perfectly, although I suspect that all other things being equal I won't have hit my OG (which I forgot to take today). In any case all that means is less dilution water tomorrow (if any) I'm a bit curious about why more ended up in the cube than expected -- my best guess is that the hot wort allowed the cube walls to soften and bend a bit and thus hold a higher volume.

The hose slipped off once -- but I was watching it like a hawk so the loss was negligible. Easily mopped up with an old pink shirt from college. I definitely need another tap anyway so I'll make sure I get a slightly fatter one when I do replace it.

Anyway, pics to follow.

 

[simon.sillitoe]

Measuring hops.

Lost 2.2 degrees over 90 mins. Not bad for a first effort I thought!

Draining the bag. [managed to burn myself trying to squeeze it too ]

Not sure what happened to this photo -- starting to boil.

Was getting to be a fairly hot day in the 'bra !

 

[simon.sillitoe]

Oops, almost forgot the key ingredient

Makeshift hop sock

Multitasking!

Draining into cube

All done

 

[roverfj1200]

Very nice CUBED goodness there..

 

[Nick JD]

Draining the bag. [managed to burn myself trying to squeeze it too

When you get some "washing up" rubber gloves - watch out, the cheapo Coles ones are lemon scented . I'm not sure if it gets into the beer or not - but who wants to be the first to have Dishwashing Ale?

 

[legham]

nicely done simon! Looks like we both had a good brew day!

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=39673

 

[simon.sillitoe]

So this morning I notice there's a substantial amount of trub in the cube -- not unexpected. But I'm worried that if most of this gets in the fermenter it'll cover up the tap. What should I do here? Strain through something -- eg tissue paper?

 

[RdeVjun]

So this morning I notice there's a substantial amount of trub in the cube -- not unexpected. But I'm worried that if most of this gets in the fermenter it'll cover up the tap. What should I do here? Strain through something -- eg tissue paper?

I'd not be worrying about it too much Simon, but there's a couple of things you can do- depending on how you drain the cube you may be able to leave much of it in there when you empty it into the fermenter, then also lean the fermenter over slightly with a block or wedge under the base to keep the tap free of sediment. The layer should compress a fair bit of its own accord, even if it does come up to the tap it shouldn't cause a blockage anyway, just run a bit through before taking an hydrometer sample. No biggie.

If you do decide to filter it, just remember anything that comes into contact with the wort has to be scrupulously sanitary. I've run some through cooking oil recovery filter (cone- shaped, sits in a funnel), it can be a bit of farting about with blockages at the end and another infection risk for what is really a negligible benefit.

Welcome aboard too BTW and congratulations on the successful batch, may it be the first of many more to come! This BIAB caper is easy as, hey?! :icon_cheers: