2nd All-Grain and 1st All-Grain IPA (Recipe + Updates)

Just brewed my 2nd All-Grain batch. Still BIAB for now. The better AG setup is currently being saved for so I should have it by Christmas. BIAB is fine for now but it's just hard to get all of the water out of the bag.

Followed this recipe - All-Grain - Citra IPA from Battery_BreweryNJ.

I did a few tweaks though:

1. Added 16oz of Corn Syrup at the start of boil.
2. Started with 2 ounces of Citra @ 60 instead of .75 ounces.
3. He dry hopped with Simcoe. I will most likely dry hop with 2 ounces of Citra instead. Will see. I have 2oz of both but leaning toward all-citra on this batch.

Boil size was 4 gallons reduced to about 2.75 gallons at the finish. I somehow got away with keeping the lid almost on the kettle the whole time. No idea how that worked w/o boiling over.

Battery reported an OH of 1.060. I measured 1.040 @ 60 Degrees F

This scares me because, I followed his recipe exactly + added 16 ounces of corn syrup yet I I scored under. My beer recipe application said, with this I should hit 1.078. ****.

I guess that's the problem with BIAB. You simply don't extract the level of fermentable sugars needed. This sucks.



Going to rack this now and will update with OG + some photos as I brew & in the glass.

====

If anyone has any yays or nays on the switch from 2oz Simcoe Dry Hop to Citra instead, let me know. I have still 10-14 days before I dry hope.

I have not done a biab, but could you post your grain bill I'm sure someone else will be able to help. The link was to a 5 gallon batch,was it scaled down proportionatly?

BrewerBear said:

I have not done a biab, but could you post your grain bill I'm sure someone else will be able to help. The link was to a 5 gallon batch,was it scaled down proportionatly?

Click to expand...

That's what I did..a 5 gallon batch. Here's the recipe..pretty much identical:

I would be much more concerned that you left the lid on the pot the entire boil. It's going to be have a lot of DMS.

Also why did you add corn syrup? If you were trying to bump up your gravity, you should have added some extract instead.

Efficiency problems can vary widely from your equipment to water to your crush (main culprit generally). Once you have an idea what your typical efficiency is you can dial in your grain bills.

I didn't leave the lid on the pot. I left it half on. A lot of evaporation still happened. It's very cold up here today. My last batch of hefe lost 50% of my wort. So I wanted to avoid that.

Also, Midwest supplies crushed the grains. I assume they would have done a good job.

For BIAB, you can ask for double crushed grains, which will help with efficiency a lot. I gained 10% efficiency from 60% to 70% double crushing alone. there's no need to worry about a stuck sparge with BIAB.

Also, make sure that all starches are converted with an iodine test just to make sure it's all converted.

Don't blame BIAB. You will get yelled at for that in a matter of minutes on here. I have recently been doing BIAB and the worse efficiency I've gotten was 2 points under the targeted OG. It was about 68% since recipe was formulated for 70%.

I did not see mash times or temp listed that can make a difference also.Sorry if I missed it.

BrewerBear said:

I did not see mash times or temp listed that can make a difference also.Sorry if I missed it.

Click to expand...

60 Minutes @ 154F.

DMosPickles said:

For BIAB, you can ask for double crushed grains, which will help with efficiency a lot.

Click to expand...

I was not aware of this being possible. Thanks for the tip.

tonyc318 said:

Don't blame BIAB. You will get yelled at for that in a matter of minutes on here. I have recently been doing BIAB and the worse efficiency I've gotten was 2 points under the targeted OG. It was about 68% since recipe was formulated for 70%.

Click to expand...

Not blaming but, I've seen guys who do batches without the bag and they seem to be able to sparge a lot easier than I was able to. So I just assumed I'm not getting as much as I can out of these grains.

Did you stir in the bag and ensure even distribution of water through the bag? Then, did you "tea bag" it plenty? Also, it helps to have a second kettle of 170f water to mash out in. Again, stirring and tea bagging. Another technique is making sure you have a big enough bag, otherwise then grain swells, limiting water circulation through the mash. Its kinda like packing a metal tea ball too full, makes weaker tea than using proper amount. Make sure you hang or squeeze the bag as well.

My iPhone didn't show your recipe attachment last night. I see now that you added 1.78 gallons of water to your fermenter. I would really suspect that your lower gravity reading might be because your gravity sample wasn't thoroughly mixed. Water is less dense than wort so your sample might not be indicative of your actual gravity. I've read that BIAB can result in lower efficiencies, but that's way low and makes me a bit suspicious.

On a side, why did you add top off water to your fermenter? Is it a kettle size issue? If you can afford it, it's a great investment as full boils will definitely enhance your beers quality.

Darwin18 said:

My iPhone didn't show your recipe attachment last night. I see now that you added 1.78 gallons of water to your fermenter. I would really suspect that your lower gravity reading might be because your gravity sample wasn't thoroughly mixed. Water is less dense than wort so your sample might not be indicative of your actual gravity. I've read that BIAB can result in lower efficiencies, but that's way low and makes me a bit suspicious.

On a side, why did you add top off water to your fermenter? Is it a kettle size issue? If you can afford it, it's a great investment as full boils will definitely enhance your beers quality.

Click to expand...

Hi. Not a kettle size issue. My kettle is an 8 gallon and holds a full boil just fine.

I started with 5 gallons, brought that up to desired mash temp, soaked the grains and even after sparging and squeezing the insanely hot bag (hello 1st degree burns) as hard as I could, I only had 4 gallons left.

Then, I didn't add water and did a boil. Even with the half-on lid, I lost another 1.5 gallons due to evaporation. So, can't remember what the recipe shows but I actually ended up with 2.5 gallons and then I added water to bring it back up to 5.

I'm sure somewhere in this description I did something wrong

adamjackson said:

60 Minutes @ 154F.

I was not aware of this being possible. Thanks for the tip.

Not blaming but, I've seen guys who do batches without the bag and they seem to be able to sparge a lot easier than I was able to. So I just assumed I'm not getting as much as I can out of these grains.

Click to expand...

The original intention behind BIAB is not to sparge. Like others have mention, stir often and stir well. Also, I find a 75 min mash helps a bit along with a finer crush. I also have a 2 bucket drain system. I let a bunch of wort drain out while holding it over the pot for a few minutes, then I put it in a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. This allows it to drain into another bucket while I start to bring the wort to boil. 20 mins later and I've collected a fair amount that has drained. No sparge and I'm getting fairly consistent results and darn close to the target results.