Some Random Thoughts

[ben_harvey]

I've done a few BIABs now, and just thought I'd share some random thoughts for comment...

I've started using liquid yeast, and to make it last longer I split the yeast up. At the moment I split the yeast into about 5 sample jars, and store under refrigerated, boiled demin water. The rest goes in a 500 mL erlenmeyer with 200 mL of 1.040 LDM and is stepped up to 1L of 1.040 after a day or two. I'll usually decant the liquid and pour just the yeast into the fermenter (rinsing with some cool, boiled water if I think it needs it). Does anyone see an issue with storing yeast this way? I assume it will keep for a few months. Once I think it's getting old I assume I can just step up one of the sample jars and then split it up again and store the next generation the same way.

I've added a sparging step to my BIAB brews as in Nick JD's aussie lager thread. Usually a couple of litres of ~70 C water in a bucket with the bag. I'll undo the bag and stir it around a bit then tie it up and let it drain. Repeat.

Refractometers are brilliant.

I 'crush' my grain in the blender at the moment as I can't justify buying a grain mill. It gets it very fine but the bag takes ages to drain. Any suggestions to increase the permeability of the grain without resorting to buying a mill? Squeezing the bag a bit helps but it's hot and I always spill sticky wort everywhere. The only coffe grinder I have looks like a mini blender, so I don't think that would help.

Even with my sparging steps and the pulverised grain, I still only got about 58% efficency on my last batch (I assume I calculated it right. I entered my final volume and grain bill into Brewmate and changed the efficiency until the target SG matched up with what I had). Any suggestions for increasing efficiency? I'm using a red bucket, could that be it? Perhaps I am doing something wrong with my sparging or not letting the grain drain long enough? It may have something to do with the fine crush - perhaps a lot of the wort is getting trapped in the middle of the bag (due to the low permeability of the grain).

Any help on the above would be most appreciated. I still haven't tasted any brews using the liquid yeast but they look tasty. I have Doc's Bavarian Weizen and a LCBA clone on the go...so thirsty...must wait for ferment...

Ben

 

[Guysmiley54]

How do you dough in? I did 2 batches where I milled straight into my brew bag and dropped the whole bag into my mash water. Bad dough balls! Now I clip my bag in and add in 3-4 lots add the grain stirring each one in. My efficiency is through the roof now! Just my 2c ymmv

 

[ben_harvey]

I pour the grain in in a couple of goes (usually because it won't all fit in one bowl) then stir the crap out of it to get rid of the dough balls. There's always a few that slip through the cracks but I wouldn't have thought it would make that much difference as I also stir it a lot when 'sparging'. I might try stirring more often next time (i.e. after adding each bowl of grain.

Also for the record I usually add about 5 kg of grain to 12 L water as that's all I can fit in the pot. The sparge water helps to dilute it and I'll usually end up with 14-17 L in the fermenter.
The one time I measured the SG of the water in the pot (before adding sparge water) it was 1.084!

 

[Bribie G]

I don't sparge with lower gravity brews, but a sparge step with high gravity brews definitely helps efficiency. Just brewed a 7% Bock with a sparge using 6L and it hit expected efficiency.

Alert: quite a few BIABers of the "traditional school" frown on anything that isn't "simple" as they touted BIAB to be the simple straightforward way to do AG brewing. For example I now use a "wort press" to drain the bag as I'm letting Sir Isaac Newton do my bag squeezing for me (it also makes the sparging step a breeze) while I'd attending to other things. I also do stepped mashes - depending on style - and now always do a mashout.

These "complications" are often frowned on by many BIABers and even sneered at by HERMs people who say "hey isn't BIAB supposed to be simple?"

The implication is that if BIAB is no longer simple then you might as well go to three vessel or HERMS etc. To me that's a complete non-sequitur. It's based on the old worn out "systems war" theories that HERMS just has to be better than RIMS just has to be better than 3-vessel, just has to be better than BIAB, ad nauseam. The "loss of simplicity" issue makes old school BIABers uncomfortable because it knocks out one of the props of their original propaganda about BIAB - the speed and simplicity. Many of them even hold up their hands in horror at the thought of giving the bag so much as a squeeze.

One reason I don't post on a certain baggy forum anymore, my wort press got universally flamed :lol:

BIAB is great for playing around with and it can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it.

Edit: try doing a mashout, hoist bag (or use a cake rack and apply direct heat) and get the mash to 78 and give it a good pump as you are going, paint stirrer that looks like a giant pototo masher is a good tool.
Then do a sparge if you like - similarly a good stir. The boil a bit longer to get the wort level back down to where it should have been.
I got myself an over the side heater as well that rips the wort level down quite quickly after a good sparge.

As for doughing in, yes a thin stream and lots of stirring avoids maltesers.

 

[Spork]

I hit my target gravity for the first time the other day. I think my new mill helped, also the way I mashed in. I used a big paint stirrer and pumped constantly while slowly pouring 5kg of milled grain in. I spent 4-5 minuted slowly adding the grain, in the past I've put it all in the bag and dropped that in, or poured the grain in in 20-30 seconds then mashed. I still got a few dough balls, but they were small and few.
I also gave the bag a bit of a squeeeze (rubber gloves!), but did not sparge.

 

[lespaul]

anything to do with the excess quantity of water your using to sparge? may dilute the wort indicating a poor efficiency?

 

[ben_harvey]

hmmm maybe Sir Isaac is the way to go...I never thought of that.
I'm a bit apprehensive of mashing out as I use a gas burner (on the stove) and my 'bag' is actually a 1 x 1.5 m sheet of voile which hangs over the sides of the pot a bit and might get a bit close to the burner if I'm not careful and oops...

The excess water may make a difference, however I only ended up with about 17 L at 1.054ish (which I'll dilute down to about 20 L at 1.046). I halved the ingredients in the recipe, which means I should have got 26 L at 1.046, minus maybe a couple of litres as I'm mashing with a smaller volume of water which wouldn't help the efficiency I guess. I wouldn't think it would have made too much difference though.

Recipe - http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=301

Also cheers for all the help guys.


P.S. f@ck the traditional school :icon_chickcheers:

 

[O'Henry]

I'd be wary of using distilled water to store the yeast (which I am assuming you are doing) as it can stress the yeast due to osmosis bewteen the yeast and the mineral free water. This may not be a problem in homebrewing so much, so how much you worry about it is up to you.

Yeast wise, everything else is bang on.

 

[ben_harvey]

Ok good point. What would you suggest? Tap water instead? I don't want to use slants because they seem like a bit much work. Do you think I'll get a few months of storage still?

 

[O'Henry]

Boiled tap water would work fine.

Also, I'm not talking about every cell being damaged, as am sure you have noticed that your beers stored this way have been fermenting well from these yeasts. It would be a % of the cells, which might cause your starter to take longer or need to be stepped more.
I have stored yeast/funky bugs the way you have descirbed and it has worked fine.

 

[going down a hill]

P.S. f@ck the traditional school :icon_chickcheers:

New school, old school, shit I didn't even go to school. Whatever floats your boat in these beer waters.

Bribie's sparge press is a good thing, I only use one fridge grill and press down on it after mash and sparging, plus you don't spill a drop it's a great way to improve efficiency. My second biab lost so much wort on the kitchen table that something had to change and that was what got me from losing wort and decreasing efficiency to gaining efficiency.

I put on a LCBA yesterday! Its going to be tasty :icon_drool2:

 

[ben_harvey]

I put on a LCBA yesterday! It's going to be tasty :icon_drool2:

Damn straight! :beerbang:

 

[manticle]

P.S. f@ck the traditional school :icon_chickcheers:

Why?

 

[Nick JD]

Also for the record I usually add about 5 kg of grain to 12 L water as that's all I can fit in the pot.

Above is your answer to efficiency woes.

Your limiting factor (all other things being perfect) is your liquid to grain ratios from start to finish.

The more you push high-gravity brewing, the less efficiency you'll get - to get great efficiency you'd have to sparge more than your system's volume capabilities.

The 19L Stovetop "sweet spot" is 3.5kg of grain. 75-80% efficiency with a decent bag squeeze, no sparging. Lift the bag, squeeze it, done.

In effect, by mashing 5kg in 12L you're getting 75% for the first 3kg of grain; 50% for the next kg; and 10% for the last. It's not your techniques that are affecting your efficiency - it's your gear.

Two ways of fixing it: bigger gear or smaller batches.

I reckon you'd get the same SG from 4kg as you'd get from 5kg in that pot. That extra kg is largely getting in the way.

 

[ben_harvey]

Above is your answer to efficiency woes.

ok then, easily solved. I kind of figured that the higher gravity brewing would reduce the efficiency but I didn't think it would be this much. I suppose in hindsight I would have needed about 10L of 1.1 SG wort to get 25L of good beer so perhaps a little more thought on my part would have been in order...
However, now I have a challenge!

Why?

Because I said so

 

[kdaust]

I ran into Nick's issue the other night. 4kg of grain in the big w pot with 12 litres of water. Then topped it up a bit once I had added all the grain.

I 'sparged' twice with approx 3L of water each time and couldn't add it all to the pot for the boil. It would have overflowed.

Problem was, I could see there was still wort in them there grain bag! But I couldn't get to it. No capacity.

Efficiency ended up at about 72%

I see merit in BribieG's mashout and then sparge idea. And the press might stop me burning my hands on the sweet sweet baby-beer juice. But I realise i'll never make a huge amount of full strength beer in my $20 pot. I think I like this brewing caper, but I don't need to run a microbrewery.

 

[ashley_leask]

... I now use a "wort press" to drain the bag as I'm letting Sir Isaac Newton do my bag squeezing for me

Bribie, how do you find the press affects your wort clarity? Reason I ask is I've noticed a huge difference between the nice clear wort that drains from the hoisted bag when I leave it alone, whereas squeezing seems to force a lot of particulates through the mesh.

I've been experimenting with this to reduce the amount of trub in the urn after the boil, as I've been leaving about 4L in the bottom of my urn. I suspect my last batch where I let the wort drain freely would have had much less trub in the bottom of the kettle if I had remembered the Whirfloc.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes I think it's probably swings and roundabouts. On the other hand if you look at my new proposal for a Pressinator Mk 2 then a bit of wort recirculation would be possible. **** yeah I'm going to do it today. :icon_chickcheers:



Read Mark^Bastards post on that thread to see what he's proposing. We'll have to call this one the BribieBastardPressinator

 

[drtomc]

hmmm maybe Sir Isaac is the way to go...I never thought of that.

Brainy guy. Many brilliant inventions, like gravity. Did go a bit strange and do things like poke an awl in around his eye into his eye socket to see what would happen....



T.

 

[Bribie G]

Yes I think it's probably swings and roundabouts. On the other hand if you look at my new proposal for a Pressinator Mk 2 then a bit of wort recirculation would be possible. **** yeah I'm going to do it today. :icon_chickcheers:



Read Mark^Bastards post on that thread to see what he's proposing. We'll have to call this one the BribieBastardPressinator

Oh dear I have just destroyed my nappy bucket with a stanley knife




:unsure: