First AG BIAB and SWMBO joins in

[LabRatBrewer]

Today was my first AG BIAB. I tried for an English Bitter. I used Alton Browns Turkey Derek (altonbrown.com/pdfs/AB_turkey_derrick.pdf) to hoist the bag. Here is a pic:

And SWMBO even joined in:

I'm not sure why the pic's are sideways. Maybe too many home brews? I'll edit them to rotate if I can figure it out. (They show up vertical in Picasa).

At any rate, according to Beer Smith my efficiency was 70 % which seems decent. However, I ended up with about a gallon of wort more than I expected. My specific gravity at pitching was within the expected range but on the low side. Would less water increase the specific gravity? Or would that require more grains?

Albert

 

[cowgo]

Wow, it's weird to see a current pic of green grass. What calculator did you use to determine your total water volume to start with? There's so many variables in the finished total: your evaporation rate, hot break and hop absorbtion, grain absorbtion, how hard you squeezed your bag.... It'll be a dialing in process to work out exactly what you need to start with to get what you want into your fermenter.

I'll be firing up a new eBIAB keggle here shortly so I'll be doing the same dialing in over the next several batches.

 

[djfriesen]

My specific gravity at pitching was within the expected range but on the low side. Would less water increase the specific gravity? Or would that require more grains?

Both things would increase your SG. It's only a ratio measurement of dissolved sugars in your water, so the same amount of sugar in less water is the same as more sugar in the same amount of water.

As cowgo said, every AG setup is different. And every time you add/change/upgrade a piece of your setup, you'll have to adjust and tweak your recipe and procedure to match. Keep good notes; it's more important here than in extract brewing. So many factors go in to how much wort you get into the BK, that writing everything down and going back to study it later is about the only way to figure out what's what. That said, once you know what your system is doing, it's not hard to adjust for it.

This is part of the appeal of AG brewing to me. I like having a little more control and understanding of what's going on.

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Thank you for the information djfriesen. Cowgo, I used BeerSmith 2 to calculate the water, but any fault is totally user error as I am just beginning to play with the program. I look forward to dialing and re-dialing my equipment in over many beers.