ron,ar
Well-Known Member
Still fairly new to AG, 4 behind me now. The last 5 gallon batch 14 days ago had a terrible stuck sparge. I used a 10 gallon cooler with manifold screen for a MLT. I fermented it anyway and plan to bottle sometime next week. The gravity is at 1.010 now but I will let it wait til the weekend. The really good news there is that I took a free mini fridge, built a collar around it and made a fermenting chambe and the temp stayed pretty constant at 69-72 which is a huge improvement over my past fermentations.
Two days ago I did my first BIAB, just to try it. Pretty easy too, may try it again. This time I used an online recipe which I scaled down using Brewsmith. I scaled it down to 2 gallons, but didn't notice that it originally was a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil. My OG was too low, target was 1.061 but only achieved 1.050. I attribute this to shorter mash time than shown and my mash temps were a little lower due to inexperiance. I only mashed at 150. Worried too much about getting it too hot. I did hold it fairly constant at that temp for an hour tho.
So that brew was a first BIAB, first smaller volume brew and my first use of Brewsmith, so all in all I think it went well. As my 6 gallon fermenter is still in the modified minifridge, I have the 2 gallon fermenter in a swamp-cooler water bath. Never used one of those either so it's been a week of learning new things.
Thanks a lot for all the help, info and advice you folks have given me.
Ron,ar....who is still learnin' here
Two days ago I did my first BIAB, just to try it. Pretty easy too, may try it again. This time I used an online recipe which I scaled down using Brewsmith. I scaled it down to 2 gallons, but didn't notice that it originally was a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil. My OG was too low, target was 1.061 but only achieved 1.050. I attribute this to shorter mash time than shown and my mash temps were a little lower due to inexperiance. I only mashed at 150. Worried too much about getting it too hot. I did hold it fairly constant at that temp for an hour tho.
So that brew was a first BIAB, first smaller volume brew and my first use of Brewsmith, so all in all I think it went well. As my 6 gallon fermenter is still in the modified minifridge, I have the 2 gallon fermenter in a swamp-cooler water bath. Never used one of those either so it's been a week of learning new things.
Thanks a lot for all the help, info and advice you folks have given me.
Ron,ar....who is still learnin' here
