Lurks
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 15/11/11
- Messages
- 133
- Reaction score
- 22
I can't believe this worked but ... I managed to divert attention from the fact I splashed out on a second fermenter and a 50L stockpot by telling the missus she could choose the next beer. At least I'm still alive anyway. She chose Boddingtons, a Brit bitter she remembers fondly from the pub back in Blighty.
So I found this recipe and ordered the goods from Grain and Grape, completely forgetting to buy the bittering hops (I have heaps of EKG anyway) ... so need to make recipe changes, easy enough to Beersmith. What I ought to have done was feed the recipe into Beersmith first, because when I did it looked pretty darn thin to me.
Allegedly for a 23L batch:
3.30 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.25 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine
0.12 kg Crystal Malt - 60L
0.03 kg Chocolate Malt
The issue is that I think the alcohol and gravity are pretty low unless reducing the batch, so efficiency looks like it will count. Fiddling with various mashing regimes in Beersmith, I tried to find something that would get me the beer I want. The best I can do is BIAB medium body profile (which is a 75 minute mash) and with the volume reduced to 20.5.
I do have I have an actual point here... and that's whether I can squeeze out some efficiency by doing some sort of dunk sparge, or not?
Some things I could do:
1. I could mash in the esky and just hope, somehow, I imagine to get the temperature right this time.... heat up some sparge water in the Big Ass Pot and sparge in that for 10 minutes, then drain, tip in the esky and go for boil.
2. I could just do what Beersmith seems to think the best is, which is a 75m mash with a massive 26L of water (isn't that a ridiculous grain to water ratio?!) with no-sparge at all. At least I'll get the mash temp right since I do it on the stove.
3. I could do some sort of staged sparge. Although setting two-step batch sparge infusion in Beersmith seems to get worse results than the BIAB.
I'm all for going simple but the weedy grain bill looks like there's some benefit to getting a bit more out of them. You can tell I'm a bit baffled how to approach BIAB in Beersmith if you're going to do anything other than no-sparge. The last two AG (my first two) brews I did, I basically just kept emptying and filling my esky with sparges until my kettle was full but that's just totally out there was far as trying to aim for a specific result in Beersmith.
Save me Obi-aussiebrewers, you're my only hope!
So I found this recipe and ordered the goods from Grain and Grape, completely forgetting to buy the bittering hops (I have heaps of EKG anyway) ... so need to make recipe changes, easy enough to Beersmith. What I ought to have done was feed the recipe into Beersmith first, because when I did it looked pretty darn thin to me.
Allegedly for a 23L batch:
3.30 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.25 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine
0.12 kg Crystal Malt - 60L
0.03 kg Chocolate Malt
The issue is that I think the alcohol and gravity are pretty low unless reducing the batch, so efficiency looks like it will count. Fiddling with various mashing regimes in Beersmith, I tried to find something that would get me the beer I want. The best I can do is BIAB medium body profile (which is a 75 minute mash) and with the volume reduced to 20.5.
I do have I have an actual point here... and that's whether I can squeeze out some efficiency by doing some sort of dunk sparge, or not?
Some things I could do:
1. I could mash in the esky and just hope, somehow, I imagine to get the temperature right this time.... heat up some sparge water in the Big Ass Pot and sparge in that for 10 minutes, then drain, tip in the esky and go for boil.
2. I could just do what Beersmith seems to think the best is, which is a 75m mash with a massive 26L of water (isn't that a ridiculous grain to water ratio?!) with no-sparge at all. At least I'll get the mash temp right since I do it on the stove.
3. I could do some sort of staged sparge. Although setting two-step batch sparge infusion in Beersmith seems to get worse results than the BIAB.
I'm all for going simple but the weedy grain bill looks like there's some benefit to getting a bit more out of them. You can tell I'm a bit baffled how to approach BIAB in Beersmith if you're going to do anything other than no-sparge. The last two AG (my first two) brews I did, I basically just kept emptying and filling my esky with sparges until my kettle was full but that's just totally out there was far as trying to aim for a specific result in Beersmith.
Save me Obi-aussiebrewers, you're my only hope!