Questions for first BIAB

[Chris7]

Hi all,

So this weekend I will be attempting my first BIAB. I will put my recipe (I put it into the BIAB spreadsheet but am on my phone so I think it's what I had put in) below and then the my questions after. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

4kg golden promise
250g Crystal medium

Cascade 15g at 60mins
Cascade 35g at 10mins
Cascade 40g dry hop

15L batch, fermented with US05.

Firstly, I only have a 19L bigw pot. Will this be big enough to do a 15L batch or am I going to have to find a workaround?

I have only chilled using near frozen water in the past, but given the smaller batch, I'm not sure I will be able to add enough to make a difference. Should I put the pot in the fridge over night and add my 10min addition then instead rather than during the boil? (FWH?) I had been told by a friend that you can do the bittering hops and put the wort in the fermenter to cool, but keep a small amount aside to do the flavour additions the next morning doing a small boil and then cool that quickly and add to the fermenter.

Also I am not 100% sure what the mash temp should be. If I have read correctly, lower mash will be more fermentable, but a higher mash will retain more mouthfeel etc. it is my first attempt so I am expecting mistakes. Would around 65-66c be a suitable temp?

Thanks in advance everyone. Any other advice will happily be taken on board as well.

 

[RdeVjun]

There are many ways to skin your maiden BIAB cat, what is important is to keep it simple and not to over complicate the process with some of the many variations on the basic mash in a bag process. A useful guide for the simplest process in the 19L pot is Mini-BIAB on biabrewer.info , you should be able to brew 13L without breaking a sweat.
As far as a second hops boil goes, don't bother, I would just add the late hops at 10 minutes prior to flame out, it should give reasonable flavour character, then dry hops for aroma accent although I would split the last addition into half at flameout then the remainder (or more) as dry hops.
Mashing around 65 or 66 should be fine.
HTH!

 

[Chris7]

Cheers for your advice mate. Have looked over at biabrewer.info and will see if they can provide some guidance. Was really expecting a bit more of a response from here though. Owell, thanks again!

 

[pajs]

You might find for a first go at BIAB that a slightly smaller volume could make things easier. Use Brewmate for some easy adjusting of volumes etc. A starting point for me (aiming for around 9 litres in the fermenter) is to start with about 2kg of base malt, touch of specialty malt if you want it, 13 litres in the pot and a litre for rinsing the bag with (sparging). Keep the hopping schedule pretty simple to start with: maybe half your IBU for a 60 minute addition and split the rest between 10 minutes and zero. Think about mashing for 90 minutes rather than 60 too. Mashing at 65 or 66 will be fine.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

With one big w pot using BIAB (stovetop), I could eke out 12L but not much more.

With my 2 pot stovetop method (2x19L pots) and a bucket in bucket lauter and esky as a mash tun (this allows me greater mash volume as I'm not constricted by the size of the big w viz water and grain), I can get 25L comfortably, and have managed 30 L of high grav with a workaround and 38L of low grav (mild) beer.

 

[beercus]

Get yourself a cube for chilling, and add your 10min hop addition to the cube. (read the no chill article. Some people cool in fermenter overnight but you will have some oxidation, some people think this does not matter, i would go for the cube, you will use it over and over again)

Aim for 66oC for your mash and possibly mash out at 75oC, remember to heat strike temp higher probably about 71oC for mash, (your spreadsheet should tell you a temp. Maybe try Beersmith on the 21 day trial or get the mobile version for ipad or iphone)

Follow the mini-BIAB method for your first one. I did the same and was able to fill a 17L cube. (Or get another pot and go with the Goomba method, and get a 20L cube from bunnings)

Dont stress, you are probably going to **** up something but you will only make that mistake once! and chances are the beer will still be better than any kit or extract!

This was my first attempt:
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/80645-first-ag-volume-less-than-desired/

enjoy it

Beercus

 

[pat86]

Yeah rdevjun is a legend of maxi biab so listen to him. I use similar set up and tbh often get about 11L in the fermenter before top up if I leave ALL the trub in the kettle. As the others said, keep it simple, have fun and record all the numbers BUT don't worry too much about the numbers. I did ok on my first and jumped up about 15% on my second. 1st was probably a better beer though!

 

[Chris7]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I will look at getting brew mate or brew smith or one of the similar programs.
So if I wanted to stretch the beer further in theory, I could just mash more grain right? But as that would affect the gravity pre boil, it would affect the utilisation of the hops? I'm not expecting a cracker of a beer at all, I'm just trying to suss out the physical processes more at this stage.

 

[pajs]

Brewmate is a free download and easy to use. Really helps understand the consequences of making changes in your ingredients or processes (like how much water you'll need to work with for a 60 or 90 minute boil, using the same grain bill). Start with a simple recipe and a single temperature infusion, without trying to max out volumes. You'll get a good handle on the processes if you can repeat a basic recipe, varying one or two things at a time. Best of luck.

 

[RdeVjun]

Yes, you can indeed add more grain and so on to get better OG and/ or ferment volume performance out of the 19L pot, that's part of the rationale behind Maxi-BIAB with its limited kettle volume. It is slightly more complex in terms of process though and I would only recommend novices try it once comfortable with the Mini-BIAB process. There's multitude BIAB variants that can solve various problems such as this, it's quite a versatile approach to mashing.
With higher specific gravity from more grain there may be some negligible impact on hops utilisation during the boil, however IIRC theoretically you could increase hops mass by 10% per 1.010 over 1.050 (nb. not OG- Maxi-BIAB has a dilution after the boil), my understanding is that this formula applies to the final anticipated specific gravity. However, it's not the sort of adjustment I would be focussing much energy upon, there are bigger fish to fry.
Hope that helps!

Why thanks pat86, now I am blushing!

 

[Chris7]

Ah awesome, cheers for that. Yeh I want to just do a few brews to get the mashing process right, trying to keep temperatures as steady as possible etc. At the end of the day though, as long of the beer is drinkable, I am a happy man. Once I get a crown urn, I will try and hit the specifics and will look at fine tuning everything a bit more. Cheers