1st Biab attempt deemed succesful.

[M1ndless15]

I opened the first bottle of blonde ale yesterday, which I brewed about a month ago. It was my first brew in a bag (and of course first all grain attempt). I had about 4 extract brews under my belt.
All of the extract brews turned out drinkable, but were nothing I was too proud of.. The blonde ale however, turned out great!

My Biab brew day went very well. I ended up with about 5.25 gallons of wort, and og was 1.042 (expected 1.044-1.046). I also lost a few ounces to a minor boil over, but caught it quickly. Overall, I found the biab experience to be simple, and the beer turned out great.

I could not get my autisiphon to work properly on bottling day, and ended up pouring half the beer in to the bottling bucket. I was worried about aerating the beer, but the beer turned out great in the end! I have ordered the ingredients for my next biab attempt. I am going to attempt to clone mac and jacks african amber beer. I found a couple different recipes online, and ended up formulating my own recipe based off of the ones I found. Hopefully I can figure out the autosiphon by the time the ingredients arrive.

 

[Hefanatic]

Nice. Congrats. Always nice to make a long brew day successful.

 

[ACbrewer]

Add and autosiphon to your inventory... If your tap gets buggered up again, you can use it to siphon the beer out of the bucket into your bottling bucket. I like to ferment in a bottling bucket - easier to move without the siphoning, but I sometimes have to siphon and the autosiphon makes life much easier. Congrats on your brew. It is very gratifying making a beer that is enjoyed.

 

[M1ndless15]

I have an autosiphon, but could not get it maintain the siphon. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. It looked simple enough to use that I did not bother to practice with it before attempting to use it. After struggling with it, i watched a few youtube videos of people using their autosiphons, and they did not appear to be doing anything differently than I was... It was probably user error, Im just not sure what the error was. I will practice with a bucket of water until I figure it out.. I suppose the autosiphon I received could be faulty, but more than likely im just a noob that didnt know how to use it..

 

[Changeduser123]

Do you have the regular autosiphon, or the large one ?

 

[M1ndless15]

Fermtech large (.5 inch) autosiphon.

 

[Changeduser123]

Fermtech large (.5 inch) autosiphon.

This explains your issue. After using the regular one for around 2years, I just got the larger one to transfer wort faster from kettle to fermenter. I must say that it is much harder to prime it, compared to the regular one. I had to make sure that:

* the seal of the tubing over the siphon cane is good, so that absolutely no air bubbles get in. For some reason 1/2" tubing does not fit tightly...
* when you start the flow, make sure to have wort all the way in the tubing. If you do not, the flow will stop quite quickly. More than one pump actions are needed.

I must say that I was quite disappointed with the larger autosiphon. Yes it goes faster once it starts, but it was not as easy to use as the regular one.

 

[M1ndless15]

Thanks for the tip. I am going to buy new tubing, and see if i can get a nice tight fit. After reading a few other threads some people seem to think increasing height difference between vessels seems to help. I'm going to try these two things, and hopefully I will have success next time.

 

[thughes]

Congrats on the successful brew!