Psych

Recipes 

So awesome, did an American Amber last night, lightly hopped though. This is my fifth brew, and my first all grain, and also my first brew in a bag. It was a small batch, 2.5 gallons expected, done with a 5G pot on my stove.

Basically took 4G up to mash temp, threw in my bag, threw in 5.5lbs of grains I ground on my pasta mill DIY grinder (woo, thank you homebrewtalk!) and popped that baby in the oven. Grain bill was 4.25lbs 2-row, 1lb crystal-80, .25lb carapils. Mashed in at 156 or so, oven was on at 170 MOST of the time, I periodically turned it off then on again a couple times. After a full hour I took the pot out (go figure the handles were hot, huh!) and temps showed 156. Nice!!!

Mashed out at 165-168'ish for 5 mins, got scared and started tea bagging my grain in the brew pot for a bit, left it in a strainer sitting in another pot, squeezed it like there's no tomorrow, got another 500ml's out of it or so.

Hopped it with .25oz centennial at 60 mins, .25oz cascade at 30 mins and .10oz cascade at 10 mins.

Used my home-made 3/8th inch 25 foot immersion chiller for the first time too, unfortunately my digital thermometer decided to start reading about 40F higher than actual, so I had that running for WAY longer than I needed to. Brought 2.5G of wort down to 60F or so pretty fast!

My gravity after mash out was around 1.029 at around 160F, so 1.049'ish maybe? Guessing on the temps...then after boil it was 1.051 or so. Hurray, I brewed beer from grains!

I even pitched in some washed S-04 from a batch I bottled a week ago, checked the fermenter this morning and ZERO activity but now after 8 more hours I have bubbles! Hurray!

So sweet to go from grain to beer, and to have ground it myself using a $30 homemade grinder, AND chilled great (yucky massive cold break, ewww!) with my $40 homemade immersion chiller, AND to have spent nothing on yeast! Hurray for $7 for 2.5gallons of beer!

I think my efficiency was around 66%, pretty bad but my crush was a bit off on the first 2lbs of 2-row, will work on that and on better bag draining/squeezing/mild sparging.

cyclonite

Recipes 

Congrats!!! It feels so good going to all grain, doesn't it?!?!

I was a bit intimidated by all grain brewing at first, but after doing one partial mash, going to BIAB was just a matter of using a bigger bag . I finally found that grinding the grain twice gave me a good boost in efficiency (you can go pretty fine with BIAB since there is no worry of a stuck sparge) - getting around 77-80% pretty consistently now. I also started using the sparge method of dunking in another kettle to good effect too around the same time, so not sure how much of that efficiency came from the double grind versus the sparge.

Have fun!

__________________
On Deck: DH 90 Minute IPA, Wee Heavy, APA, RIS, Session Stout
Primary: Jamil's Evil Twin, Milk Stout, Belgian Blonde, #9
Secondary: Empty!
Bottled: ESB, Fraoch, Witbier, IPA, Irish Red, Hefeweizen, Pepper Porter, BBQ Brown, Tripel, Woody Wee Heavy
Kegged:CDA, Peach Cider
"Beer, it's whats for dinner!"

sendkyleanemail

Recipes 

Can you share the thread from which you gained the knowledge required to use a pasta mill for crushing grains? Thanks!

Beer sounds mighty tasty, BTW!

kcpup

Recipes 

Horray for you! You'll love BIAB and the challenge and opportunity of all grain.

For me it's a gas to reuse yeast as well. All grain and reused yeast is a big money saver. :-)

Enjoy!

Erroneous

Recipes 

Just did my first BIAB/AG as well. Hit my estimated OG of 1.047 after temp corrections. Used my strainer I got from a restaurant supply store for $9 to hold the grain bag above the pot instead of squeezing (heard squeezing is bad, but idk why). Did 2 2.5 gallon boils in succession since I only have that 5 gallon pot. Chilled in ice bath, going to take another OG and pitch here in a minute. Did Bier Muncher's Centennial Blonde.

BIAB seems to be working for many people!

*edit: guess I didn't have the volume I wanted for my first SG measurement. Came out to 1.034, 55% efficiency. Next time I'm going to get some pH stabilizer. Maybe wait until I get a bigger pot too.

Psych

Recipes 

Sure thing: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/using-pasta-maker-mill-grain-75784/

It's a pasta roller from Michaels or any craft store, for rolling clay I think? Works a treat, just had to re-grind up my rollers to get it working nicely.

Cyclonite: Yeah I think I'll try a finer crush next time, or crush twice. I shouldn't be afraid of the flour I guess

cyclonite

Recipes 

Don't be afraid of the flour... With BIAB flour == efficiency!!! The only downside i have seen with flouring (is that even a word??? ;-) is haziness. But, it still tastes freakin' great!

__________________
On Deck: DH 90 Minute IPA, Wee Heavy, APA, RIS, Session Stout
Primary: Jamil's Evil Twin, Milk Stout, Belgian Blonde, #9
Secondary: Empty!
Bottled: ESB, Fraoch, Witbier, IPA, Irish Red, Hefeweizen, Pepper Porter, BBQ Brown, Tripel, Woody Wee Heavy
Kegged:CDA, Peach Cider
"Beer, it's whats for dinner!"

SolidBrewRider

Recipes 

Squeezing the tea bag results in extracting the tannins from the husks. This is the puckering effect your beer likely has, almost like drinking a very young cabernet wine. You'll want to let the bag drain naturally or "rinse" it by pouring additional sparge water over it while draining into your BK.

Enjoy the beer. Once I went to AG, I haven't done an extract since.

Grahambo

Recipes 

Ignore the previous post.

Congrats on your BIAB AG cherry. Sure does make things easy

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Big Beer........ I has it.

bschoenb

Recipes 

I've done two BIAB thusfar. Using a standard Mill from My LHBS, with MAsh out and no Sparge/bag squeezing, etc... 61% effeciency.....

What I like about it more than anything is the fact that I can do a small 2 1/2 gallon "test sample/I gotta try this recipe" for my small keg.

This give me a real simple way to try lots of variants and flavors that Malt Extract can't give me and I don't have to commit to lots of other pieces of equipement.

So far so good

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Cat Man Brew

~ BIAB : All Grain Made Easy ; Mash, Sparge, Boil all in the same Kettle ~ all you need is a bag and a hook!