Brew_G
Well-Known Member
As some of you regular readers of this sub-forum may already know, I'm very new to the brewing game, and bottled my first AG/BIAB batch a little over a week ago. I brewed my second batch this past Sunday (a hoppy brown ale with harvested Bell's yeast), and I can already start to see that some similarities exist over this small sample size. As many of the rest of you, I'm a kitchen brewer.
Finally, I bit the bullet and invested in a Barley Crusher. I decided to buy 55 lbs of Maris Otter at my LHBS last week (at a *massive* discount from their 10 lb bag price) and needed to have a way to mill on my own, so the Barley Crusher went in my cart. I have to say...it was really nice to be able to crush the grains at home. I used my drill as the crank and powered through 11.25 lbs of grain in about 5 minutes! I may tighten up the rollers just a little to get a finer crush, but it seems like the factory setting was alright. Perhaps if I re-set it, it might help get me above that 75% efficiency. No more double-crushing with a hand crank at the LHBS...
I've said it before, but I am loving this whole brewing thing! :rockin:
- I hit my OG almost dead on with my first batch, but my second came in .002-.003 low for an expected 5.5-gallon batch. However, I realized after transferring my wort that I had almost a half gallon more wort than I expected, so I can attribute some of it to that. So, based on the numbers I'm using in Brewer's Friend, it looks like I'm getting ~75% with my "system."
- This comes from #1. When I added my water to the kettle for my brown ale, I added enough to account for absorption and eventual boil-off - basically trying to do a full-volume mash. But when I pulled the bag I put it on a strainer on a different pot and sparged. Then I added about 1/4 gallon or so of the sparged wort to my boil because I was concerned I would boil off too much and be left with too little wort after the boil. That would certainly account for the large amount of wort in the fermenter! :smack:
- This follows on from #2. For my brown ale mash, I came perilously close to the top of my kettle, but because of the amount of wort I ended with, I realize I probably had a bit too much strike water to start. So I now know that I can do a full-volume mash on beers up to ~1.059-1.060! Anything above that (which would be very rare for me) can be accomplished by sparging to get to full volume. Easy peasy.
- Mash temps. On both my mashes, I've lost 3F during a 60-minute mash. I cut the heat and wrap an insulated jacket around the kettle, then check the temp and stir every 20 minutes. It's a nice feeling to know that I've got consistent (and relatively minimal) heat loss during my mash. I don't know quite what it means to lose that amount of heat during my mash, but the consistency is key for a beginner like me because I can adjust if/how necessary.
- Hop bag! I didn't realize how much gunk a few ounces of hop pellets can create, but in comparing side-by-side pictures of my first two batches, I can see it plain as day. BIAB already produces enough trub, so eliminating hop gunk with an easy solution makes sense to me.
- Ice bath. In my "First BIAB" thread, I documented the chilling problems I had with that first BIAB session. This time, I prepared myself with much more ice by freezing gallon jugs and 4-cup containers to use in the ice bath. I also decided to use a sanitized spoon to swirl the wort occasionally. For some reason, I thought swirling was a bad idea, but after reading more it seems like a pretty common practice. It took a little over an hour, but I got my wort down to a consistent 67F for pitching.
Finally, I bit the bullet and invested in a Barley Crusher. I decided to buy 55 lbs of Maris Otter at my LHBS last week (at a *massive* discount from their 10 lb bag price) and needed to have a way to mill on my own, so the Barley Crusher went in my cart. I have to say...it was really nice to be able to crush the grains at home. I used my drill as the crank and powered through 11.25 lbs of grain in about 5 minutes! I may tighten up the rollers just a little to get a finer crush, but it seems like the factory setting was alright. Perhaps if I re-set it, it might help get me above that 75% efficiency. No more double-crushing with a hand crank at the LHBS...
I've said it before, but I am loving this whole brewing thing! :rockin: