First attempt, possible fail

[tarmenel]

Hi all,
Some I tried my first attempt at a BIAB last night. I did a few things wrong the most important being miscalculating the amount of liquid. I understand that one of the keys is that you add all the liquid in the beginning. Problem is that I've a pot with a max of 16 liters (4.2g). I'm looking at making smaller batches 12 liter (3g) batches. More experimenting.
I'm using Beer Smith and realised in hindsight that I needed to boil 19 liters initially. I had no space. So my question is that how could I work around this problem using my current equipment. Make smaller batches? Or can I somehow split the grain and mash it in two seperate phases with a longer mash?

 

[tarmenel]

Forgot to add. I used three liters of frozen water blocks that I use to help with the cold break. I'm wondering whether using bottles in plastic might be a better idea to avoid the dilution.

 

[Kharnynb]

can you outline the steps/recipe?

You could do partial boil, but it would be nice to know what you do now.

 

[slym2none]

There is a method called the Texas Two-Step, where you make two smaller batches of wort instead of one large one. Do a search on this site for that term and it will explain it all in detail, and see if it works for you.

I can't help you with the ice/cold-break question, I am still a pretty green noob when it comes to brewing - sorry! I am sure someone else will come along that can help you there.

 

[tarmenel]

American Pale Ale
=======================================================================================================

250g Caramalt
150g Crystal
1600g Pale Ale

30g Cascade (30 Min)

S-33 Yeast

150g Sugar for bottling

Volumes
-------
Start: 15 liters
Per-Boil: 13 liters
Fermentation: liters
Bottling: liters

Gravity Readings
----------------
Pre-Boil: 1.032
OG: 1.030
FG:

=======================================================================================================

24 hours prior to beer prep boiled 3 litres of water and froze
Placed this it the freezer.
Also filled 5 1 litre bottles with water and placed those in the fridge too.

Mash
----
Started the day having to sew the bag for the brew in a bag (BIAB).
First attempt at brewing all grain and the face that I don't have a huge pot means needing to make a few personal adjustments.
Firstly I don't have a 20 liter pot required for the 17 liters Brew Smith recommends.
Also I could only put in a max of 15 liters of liquid in the pot.
So basically I started with about 2.5 liters too little water for the mash.
I then also removed about two liters so that I could put the grain in without it over flowing.
I let basically 13 liters of water sit with the grains for 1:30
Wrapped it in a blanket and gave it a stir every now and then

Pre-Boil
--------
I then had to do a mash out. I have no idea what this is and will need to find out on the forums how to do this.
The liquid really drained quite easily from the bag but I think the material might not hold up to many brewing days.
I added back the two or so liters I had removed and the pre boil volume is 13 liters.
Took out some of this mash and placed it in the fridge to cool down to take a gravity reading

Boil
----
23:00 Boil started.
Boiling well and gave it a stir every now and then. Also removed the foam/scum that had formed on top
30 min added 30g Cascade

Post-Boil
---------
Turned off heat at 60 min and added 30g Amarilo
Also added 3 liters frozen water to bring the final volume up to 13 liters
Brought the temp down nicely to just above 60 C
Into the ice bath and trying to get the temp down to 25 as quickly as possible
The yeast also looks good.
Added the mash to the yeast to give it a bit of a start half an hour into the boil after taking the gravity



=======================================================================================================
Changes Made
------------
BIAB for the first time
Using frozen Water made the day before to cool.

Next Time
---------
Measure a batch for BIAB that the max liquid is 15 liters, probably end up with a 8 liter batch
Still came out pretty bitter. Need to half the bittering. 15g at 30 min and then 15g at 15 min to see if that can take some of the bite out.
Maybe also the cascade hop is just too bitter or has too much of a bite. Can also be the fact that the quatity is hald of the actual 20 liter batch.
Might need to take the amount of hops right down.
New hops. Cascade is bitter as hell!!!!!!!

 

[slym2none]

Again, Cascade is on the lower-end of alpha-acid hops, and AAs are what mainly gives off the bitterness. Read my post in your other thread.



PS - Mt. Hood or Williamette hops are also low in AAs, might want to try those in addition to what I listed in that other thread.

 

[Kharnynb]

I do 20L batches in a 26L kettle, and in a 15L you should be able to do 12L batches.

Sparging/mash-out is "rinsing" the grain with extra water. So instead of just adding 2 liters to get back to pre-boil 13L, you rinse 2 liters of water through your grainbag.(this water should be around 72 deg. C). using some kind of collander or (clean) grill-roster on top of your kettle.

You really shouldn't have too bitter a beer with only cascade at 30, did you add no hops at start of the boil at all?
my hop scedule with northern brewer apa, which is much more bitter(at 20L batch)
-15g at 60
-30g at 20
-30g at 5

 

[ol-hazza]

This is going to be fine, i wouldnt think it would be too bitter as you mentioned, give it time as flavours change with fermentation and bottling before dismissing the recipe.

First point to mention is that 150g sugar to bottle is way too much.
Check out a calculator but im thinking you will be closer to 40ish, but check the calculator. Im just going to say check the calculator oone more time.

Second point is that everyones system is different regarding efficiency and boil off, maximum yeilds etc, and every brew day is a learning curve. You will soon enough learn the limitations and opportunites of your system and adjust to suit. The good news is your second brew day is a heap easier than the first.

With your system i think your method is pretty good, but i would follow the advice above regarding the mashout/sparge. Also make sure the ice you add at the end has been boiled or treated some way for bugs, or use bottled water. Freezing doesnt kill bacteria. You could also do a batch with double grain and put enough water in after the boil to have a 20l batch, which is known as a partial boil.

 

[joshesmusica]

American Pale Ale
=======================================================================================================

250g Caramalt
150g Crystal
1600g Pale Ale

30g Cascade (30 Min)

S-33 Yeast

150g Sugar for bottling

Volumes
-------
Start: 15 liters
Per-Boil: 13 liters
Fermentation: liters
Bottling: liters

Gravity Readings
----------------
Pre-Boil: 1.032
OG: 1.030
FG:

=======================================================================================================

24 hours prior to beer prep boiled 3 litres of water and froze
Placed this it the freezer.
Also filled 5 1 litre bottles with water and placed those in the fridge too.

Mash
----
Started the day having to sew the bag for the brew in a bag (BIAB).
First attempt at brewing all grain and the face that I don't have a huge pot means needing to make a few personal adjustments.
Firstly I don't have a 20 liter pot required for the 17 liters Brew Smith recommends.
Also I could only put in a max of 15 liters of liquid in the pot.
So basically I started with about 2.5 liters too little water for the mash.
I then also removed about two liters so that I could put the grain in without it over flowing.
I let basically 13 liters of water sit with the grains for 1:30
Wrapped it in a blanket and gave it a stir every now and then

Pre-Boil
--------
I then had to do a mash out. I have no idea what this is and will need to find out on the forums how to do this.
The liquid really drained quite easily from the bag but I think the material might not hold up to many brewing days.
I added back the two or so liters I had removed and the pre boil volume is 13 liters.
Took out some of this mash and placed it in the fridge to cool down to take a gravity reading

Boil
----
23:00 Boil started.
Boiling well and gave it a stir every now and then. Also removed the foam/scum that had formed on top
30 min added 30g Cascade

Post-Boil
---------
Turned off heat at 60 min and added 30g Amarilo
Also added 3 liters frozen water to bring the final volume up to 13 liters
Brought the temp down nicely to just above 60 C
Into the ice bath and trying to get the temp down to 25 as quickly as possible
The yeast also looks good.
Added the mash to the yeast to give it a bit of a start half an hour into the boil after taking the gravity



=======================================================================================================
Changes Made
------------
BIAB for the first time
Using frozen Water made the day before to cool.

Next Time
---------
Measure a batch for BIAB that the max liquid is 15 liters, probably end up with a 8 liter batch
Still came out pretty bitter. Need to half the bittering. 15g at 30 min and then 15g at 15 min to see if that can take some of the bite out.
Maybe also the cascade hop is just too bitter or has too much of a bite. Can also be the fact that the quatity is hald of the actual 20 liter batch.
Might need to take the amount of hops right down.
New hops. Cascade is bitter as hell!!!!!!!

some thing that stood out to me in red.
1) your pre-boil gravity reading should never be higher than your OG. but the reason why is what you addressed later on. if you're doing all-grain, there's no reason to top up. it's only going to water it down. meaning that you're going to end up with the weak beer that you ended up with. 1.030 is starter size material. even if you get that down to 1.010, you're gonna end up with 2.6%...

2) as far as the size of the batch in beersmith, you adjust that the way you want. there is, unfortunately, a bit of a learning curve with beersmith, but once you get it set right to your equipment profile, it's numbers are spot on. i've actually been super impressed how exact it is in its estimations. but you also mentioned that at the end. you need to figure out what the max amount of water you can hold in your pot is, with the grains and everything, and do that size batch.

3) where did you read to remove the foam/scum from the boil? there's not really any need for that.

4) i've never heard of cascade being overly bitter. i think it's the amounts, and not the hop. also try a lot of late additions with that one, it's got really nice flavor and aroma.

 

[Kharnynb]

150 grams of priming sugar, didn't notice that one....

That's about how much i use for 20L of wheat beer....

 

[joshesmusica]

Mash out is raising the temperature of the mash in order to make the wort more viscous and in order to denature the enzymes so that conversion doesn't continue to happen during the sparge.
In the biab method you're not usually sparging, and therefore you don't technically need this step. Although I got the recommendation to go ahead and leave the grains as my temperature rises, because it doesn't hurt. Just pull the grains out when the wort reaches about 75c. Just make sure the grain bag isn't touching the bottom of your pot while the burner is on.
And just to add to the point that the problem isn't cascade, after you lower the amount in half, do one batch with that weight of cascade, and one batch with the same weight but use warrior or pacific gem or citra or any hop that has alpha acids over 10%. You won't think cascade is so bitter any longer.
This is why it's a good idea to not read the recipes for the amount when it comes to your bittering additions, but rather look at how much ibus they're adding.

 

[ol-hazza]

1) your pre-boil gravity reading should never be higher than your OG. but the reason why is what you addressed later on. if you're doing all-grain, there's no reason to top up. it's only going to water it down. meaning that you're going to end up with the weak beer that you ended up with. 1.030 is starter size material. even if you get that down to 1.010, you're gonna end up with 2.6%...

1. There is no problem with brewing low alcohol beers.
2. Topping off the batch after the boil is perfectly acceptable for any method of brewing, its called partial boil.
3. You make it sound like its going to be hard to get to 1.010, a batch of 1.030 should easily go to 1.009 even with s-33, and most likely below that.

 

[joshesmusica]

1. There is no problem with brewing low alcohol beers.

2. Topping off the batch after the boil is perfectly acceptable for any method of brewing, its called partial boil.

3. You make it sound like its going to be hard to get to 1.010, a batch of 1.030 should easily go to 1.009 even with s-33, and most likely below that.

1) of course there's no problem if that's what he's going for, but clearly he's not, as he's hoping (in another thread) that fruit will boost the abv.

2) yes of course it's acceptable if that's going to benefit the recipe. In this case it made his post boil gravity lower than pre boil. So again, likely gonna be pretty watery tasting.

3) I suppose you're right that the word even shouldn't have been used.

 

[tarmenel]

Thanks for the feedback. I guess IO'll just wait and see how it turns out.
I'm also going to try and get my Beer Smith setup corectly and see if that changes the settings.