Started moving to the (AG) dark side

I found out about BIAB last week and spent my evenings studying like a good student.

Went out on Friday morning and collected 2 BIAB bags and some grains.

Late Friday night I was messing with my 5 Gallon pot on the stove to see if the stove could bring 4.5 gallons to a rolling boil. Yes just 4.5 because part of my homework was fiddling an AG recipe down to half batch size.

Got the pot to a nice rolling boil and nicely conditioned. Poured the conditioning water out and looked at the clock, only 11pm.

Got the sucker back on the stove and filled up. Wound up the heat and let it run until just short the 170 strike temp. Put my bag in and clipped it to the side. By this time I'd pulled out all the grains I'd bought earlier in the day, oops, the previous day by then I opened up the pale malt and poured it in while stiring, then added the flaked barley and followed that with the roasted. The pot only just made it Gave it a good stir and checked the temperature which had dropped to 158. Time to raid the linen cupboard and wrap the poor pot up for an hour. (yes it's still winter here in South Africa and it does get coolish)

Got back to the pot after an hour and nearlly panicked as the temperature had dropped to 148, then i remembered RDWHAHB. I turned on the heat and took it up to 170 which IO also missed. This almost lead to a panic removal of the bag, fortuneately I calmed down and gently pulled the bag and lowered it into a colander in a bowl that i had ready next to the pot. While the wort was now heating for the boil i messed with the bag and collander to get the last of the precious liquid out of the grains. (the smell from the pot was just amazing) I managed to start out with 3.5 to 4 gallons of liquid the gravity at this point was around 1042, I didn't check the temperature of the sample to correct the reading, I just cooled it till i could touch it.

Once the pot got to a nice rolling boil I tossed in an ounce of East Kent Goldings pellets yes, just like that with no bag. An hour later I had 3 gallons of hot yummy looking wort. I had a huge volume of what I gather was hot break material that I kept scooping off. Carried the pot to the bathroom and let it have a bath to get it down to pitching temperature. Got it down to 66 degrees in about 30 minutes. During beer bath time I rehydrated the yeast (Nottingham Ale)

By now I was tired and really just wanted my bed, but the beer had to be put to bed first. I poured it into my fermentation bucket, gave the yeast bottle a good shake and pitched it. Carried the fermentation bucket through to my brewing room and turned on the lid. (the family still call it the dinning room) Filled the three piece air lock up to the line with vodka, fitted it into the grommet and went to bed. I'd managed to hit the OG of 1053.

I awoke yesterday morning to a very active airlock and a lovely smelling beer. This morning the airlock has slowed quite a bit, almost time for the first post yeast garvity reading.

The recipe I adapted was this Guinnes Clone.

4.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 66.67 %
1.50 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 25.00 %
0.50 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8.33 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [6.20 %] (60 min) Hops 43.0 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) Yeast-Ale

I know I skipped the soured Guinnes, thats what happens when you do things on the spur of the almost midnight moment

EDIT: This was my 4th batch, the first three were all kit n kilo beers.

Nice, sounds like a good brew! I'm waiting for my first AG kit to come in the mail, I'm excited!

This looks to have settled on 1020 FG. Another week or two then bottles