BIAB Basic Ale -- Simple and Good -- what recipe?

[Oberon67]

After having made two one-gallon brews and with two more in the fermenters, I'm ready and willing to step up to an all-grain five-gallon batch.

I have a turkey fryer (including pot, lid, strainer, and burner) for mashing and boiling, and a water-cooler jug for a carboy. I have a stopper and tubing and a racking cane, a hydrometer, a thermometer, and some US-05 yeast I harvested from my last small batch. I plan to acquire a mesh bag for brew-in-a-bag, because I don't have a five-gallon lauter tun.

So I'm wondering, what's a simple basic ale recipe I could start out with? I will be buying my ingredients once I decide on the recipe. I'm thinking something top-fermented, not a lot of ingredients and not too complex, that is easy to get right the first time. Maybe a basic brown ale, malty, with only bittering hops? Or maybe an amber, ditto ditto?

I've been looking at the recipes, and frankly I'm bewildered by the choices.

 

[watermelon83]

After having made two one-gallon brews and with two more in the fermenters, I'm ready and willing to step up to an all-grain five-gallon batch.

I have a turkey fryer (including pot, lid, strainer, and burner) for mashing and boiling, and a water-cooler jug for a carboy. I have a stopper and tubing and a racking cane, a hydrometer, a thermometer, and some US-05 yeast I harvested from my last small batch. I plan to acquire a mesh bag for brew-in-a-bag, because I don't have a five-gallon lauter tun.

So I'm wondering, what's a simple basic ale recipe I could start out with? I will be buying my ingredients once I decide on the recipe. I'm thinking something top-fermented, not a lot of ingredients and not too complex, that is easy to get right the first time. Maybe a basic brown ale, malty, with only bittering hops? Or maybe an amber, ditto ditto?

I've been looking at the recipes, and frankly I'm bewildered by the choices.

Hard to go wrong with a SMaSH recipe, if your going for malty, get enough Maris Otter (Vienna is tasty as well, so is Golden Promise from what I have read) to get you to your desired SG and keep the early hop additions small. Mash it around 156 for 60-90m. yum

 

[McKnuckle]

You're likely to be bewildered by all the responses, too!

But I'd suggest something English like a bitter or mild. Even a SMaSH, say with Maris Otter pale malt and Kent Goldings hops at 60, 30, and 5 minute additions (35 IBU). Mash around 154. Use WLP002 English Ale Yeast, ferment in mid-60s.

[Edit: The first reply and mine are not that far off...]

 

[Oberon67]

About how much grain is the right amount for five gallons of more or less standard English bitter?

 

[bleme]

You can toy with the recipe at http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/

I would aim for a starting OG between 1.040 and 1.055.

 

[McKnuckle]

About how much grain is the right amount for five gallons of more or less standard English bitter?

Are you using software to formulate recipes for your system?

The OG range for bitters is in three ranges:

1.032-1.040 Standard
1.040-1.048 Special
1.048-1.060 Extra Special

Personally I'd go with something around 1.050. I come up with about 10.5 lbs of Maris Otter for 5.5 gallons in the kettle (less into the fermenter, targeting 5 gallons packaged). This is at 70% efficiency.

 

[dkevinb]

How big are your boil kettle and fermenter? I found that I can only brew a batch about half the size of my brew kettle doing classical no-sparge BIAB. In my 8-gallon kettle a 4-gallon batch was about the best I could do. I get around that now by adding a dunk sparge step, but I think you'd be better off doing no-sparge to start with.

I agree with doing a SMaSH, or maybe 2 grains and 1 hop. Keep things simple to start with.

 

[mr_rogers]

Since you say you already have the yeast selected (us 05 slurry) you can't really go for the English ale flavor. US 05 generally finishes pretty well (dry) so you will want to mash in on the hot side like mcknuckle and watermelon have already said. This will give the beer more sweet malty characteristics.
Depending on how alcoholic you want your brew to be you could go anywhere from 7-15 pounds of base malt.

I too recommend a SMASH recipe

 

[Oberon67]

Well, if I had to pick up another yeast it wouldn't break my heart. I haven't been using software to guide my choices; maybe that's the next step I should take.

 

[mr_rogers]

Also, if you can avoid it I would recommend using a brew bucket, better bottle, or glass carboy over the water jug.

 

[Psylocide]

BM's Centennial Blonde comes to mind.

 

[mr_rogers]

You don't really need the software as much when you're first starting out. It's an expense that I waited on for a while. I would recommend looking in the recipe section. Here is a recipe I've tried that's pretty good.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/what-does-term-smash-mean-138096/

 

[McKnuckle]

Don't use software to guide your recipe choice - use it to help you formulate how much grain, hops, and water you'll need for your "manually" chosen recipe. BrewersFriend.com is a great tool and you can play around with it for free.

 

[Oberon67]

How big are your boil kettle and fermenter?

My fermenter is a five-gallon springwater jug from a water cooler. I picked up a No. 10 stopper and tubing to fit. I am unsure of the volume of the turkey fryer... more like six gallons or so, by eyeballing it. After some thought I think about a 4 or 4.5-gallon batch is about the best I'll be able to do with this rig.

 

[Psylocide]

My fermenter is a five-gallon springwater jug from a water cooler. I picked up a No. 10 stopper and tubing to fit. I am unsure of the volume of the turkey fryer... more like six gallons or so, by eyeballing it. After some thought I think about a 4 or 4.5-gallon batch is about the best I'll be able to do with this rig.

I just did a BIAB 5.5 gal batch in a 7 gal turkey fryer and it was sketchy to say the least. Green bay rackers calculator said it would only take up 4.9 gal of space, but it was off... not sure if anyone else has run into that.

But, I would find out what the volume of your kettle is. Add a gallon at a time and count 'em out.

 

[Oberon67]

Also, if you can avoid it I would recommend using a brew bucket, better bottle, or glass carboy over the water jug.

I imagine I'll get the glass carboy eventually. But out of curiosity, why do you recommend it over the water jug?

 

[bobbrews]

6 gallon boil
5 gallon batch

1.055 / 1.013

10 lb. American 2-row
1 lb. Vienna
1 lb. C-60
0.5 lb. Carapils

0.50 oz. Centennial @ 60 min
0.50 oz. Amarillo @ 10 min
0.50 oz. Centennial @ 10 min
0.75 oz. Amarillo @ post-boil
0.75 oz. Centennial @ post-boil
0.75 to 1 oz. Amarillo @ 5 day dryhop
0.75 to 1 oz. Centennial @ 5 day dryhop

Safale US-05

 

[Oberon67]

1.055 / 1.013

10 lb. American 2-row
1 lb. Vienna
1 lb. C-60
0.5 lb. Carapils

0.50 oz. Centennial @ 60 min
0.50 oz. Amarillo @ 10 min
0.50 oz. Centennial @ 10 min
0.75 oz. Amarillo @ post-boil
0.75 oz. Centennial @ post-boil
0.75 oz. Amarillo @ 5 day dryhop
0.75 oz. Centennial @ 5 day dryhop

Safale US-05

Oh nice. Thank you.

 

[mr_rogers]

If it's your standard water cooler water jug than they can leach harmful carcinogens into your beer. I believe it's called Biphenol-A? Don't quote me on that though... There has been a big move away from polycarbonate (#7) recently because of it.

Arguably the larger issue is that they are usually 5 gallons, which means you have no headspace for the active fermentation.

 

[Tinpanharry]

This Common Room ESB looks really good. Its going on my list.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/common-room-esb-83878/

You can dial back the hops or use Marris Otter for a more malty balance.

Cheers!
TPH

 

[McKnuckle]

Oberon, I think you're fine with your current gear. There's always room for improving and expanding. Get the basics down and learn about your preferences first.

I almost never brew the "industry standard" 5 gallon batch. I don't want that much of one kind of beer around; I don't drink more than a couple pints each day and I don't have a huge network of thirsty/greedy friends. So I stick to batches in the range of about 2-3 gallons. I have gear to brew up to 9 gallons, but only go to 5 or so for something I know I like and have successfully brewed before.

The turkey fryer is fine for a 4 gallon batch. I have one that's about 6 gallons in size and I still use it, even though I have fancier kettles. The water bottle is fine for a primary, although I dislike the blue color and grainy texture as they inhibit visibility to some extent. I'd use it for a start and then upgrade. The Poland Spring ones are #2, not #7, so no chemical issues (they have drinking water in them to start with!).

Personally I dislike large glass carboys because they are scary - Google that and you'll find plenty of people who agree. But the 3 gallon glass carboys are fine and I use them regularly. I also ferment in 6 gallon pails.

 

[PGEduardo]

I am unsure of the volume of the turkey fryer... more like six gallons or so, by eyeballing it.

This is pretty important to know, in my opinion. Even with gallon markings on my kettle I still end up measuring the headspace throughout the brewday just make sure I'm hitting my predicted volumes (and thus gravity).

I recommend checking out the BIABrewer forum to download their spreadsheet. You can basically just measure your kettle dimensions and determine volume by how far the liquid is from the top of the kettle.

For a first BIAB, I would do a crisp maris otter and centennial SMASH like others have recommended. Figuring out your boil-off rates, grain absorption, trub loss, strike temp, etc. will give you plenty too learn on your first BIAB.