First BIAB Brew

[hotsawce]

Hey all,

I will be brewing my first BIAB brew this weekend. I am NYC, so I am limited on space and equipment and was hoping the community here could chime in on methods that would work best for me. I am also seeking modifications to the brew recipe I have given the setup I will be using. I already know some of my suggestions will be sacrilegious, but I'm looking for a painless first brew day before I try more complicated techniques. I have a kit consisting of a 5 gallon stainless steel kettle and 2 HDPE buckets. I am brewing a 2.5 gallon batch of beer.

The recipe I have is for a Belgian style pale ale. There's a mash, then boil with a 1oz hop addition at the beginning of the boil and another 1oz addition 15 minutes before the end of the boil (45 minutes in.) Spices are added 5 minutes before the end of the boil (55 minutes in.)

Because I am so limited on space and lack some other equipment, I am hoping to do a no-sparge, no-chill method with the full volume of water in the kettle from the beginning at the mash step. I've read some people don't really have issues with efficiency or flavor doing things this way so if it makes my first brew a little easier I'm down to try. I have a few concerns, however.


1) Can anyone recommend a process that has me using 2 containers at most? Ideally, I would like to cool in the stainless steel kettle then go into the fermentation bucket, pitch my yeast, and let it ride. Less equipment and less steps is best for my situation right now.
2) I see a lot of people using cubes for the no chill beers to eliminate air contact. My bucket will have some headspace; will I be okay no-chilling with that extra headspace? I don't even have the space for an effective ice bath, so it really is preferable.
3) Recipe modifications. I've read hop additions need to be tweaked for no chill methods. Any suggestions for when I should add hops for this recipe given the no-chill preference?
4) This first brew I will be going straight into bottles, so I am expecting sediment. Can anyone recommend how much gelatin to add and how to add the gelatin should I wish to use it to clear up the beer a bit?

Finally, I anticipate I will want to move quickly into force carbonation in 2.5 gallon kegs after the first few brews. Can anyone recommend the easiest and most cost effective system for making this happen? From the keg, I'll likely want to go into bottles (for the sake of eliminating sediment) so I can share my brews.

My goal is to start simple and efficiently and move forward from there, and any recommendations would be sincerely appreciated!

 

[doomy86]

Hey all,
1) Can anyone recommend a process that has me using 2 containers at most? Ideally, I would like to cool in the stainless steel kettle then go into the fermentation bucket, pitch my yeast, and let it ride. Less equipment and less steps is best for my situation right now.

Good idea, you can put your kettle into the sink/bathtub filled with cold water and ice for quick chilling.

2) I see a lot of people using cubes for the no chill beers to eliminate air contact. My bucket will have some headspace; will I be okay no-chilling with that extra headspace? I don't even have the space for an effective ice bath, so it really is preferable.

I would not combine plastic and boiling hot wort. Your container is probably not made for hot liquids.

 

[BufferNuggets]

You can use a kettle, with the bag/false bottom, to do your mash and boil. If you intend to cool in the kettle as well I would suggest an ice bath or PURE ice added to your kettle post boil. If you are doing smaller boils the space left in the kettle after the grains are removed can replaced with frozen clean water to help restore some volume as well as quickly help chill your wort. However, if you do this making sure you account for the amount of vol you are adding to make sure your OG is on target after the water addition. Once cool you can move it to a fermentation vessel of your choice.

NO CHILL is doable but you would need to add in the cubes to do it. The bucket/carboy is not built for boiling hot liquid and you will cause massive damage to yourself if you try. They make plastic capable to handle the boiling hot liquid as well as contract as it cools. Look up Aussie NO CHILL method if you choose to go this way. It would be extra equipment but if you lack the ability to chill the wort correctly/safely if may be the best bet. Also, the rule of thumb is 20 min added to any hops, they have charts made for no-chill hop times to adjust for hops. It is not to big an adjustment but if you do not correctly adjust your hop times the beer will come out a lot different then you intend.

Adding any fining agents like gelatin are done in the fermentor,(or can be added to keg) the amounts differ depending on the gelatin used. This is not really something that super important. Cold crashing or just drinking so fast you don't notice is my policy as it really is only for looks and does not alter the beer's tast (at least positively)

 

[Sadu]

Full volume BIAB mash in the brew kettle is a great idea. You should get about 70% efficiency which is what most recipes are built on.

You may want to include a bit of acidulated malt into your grain bill as the pH will come out higher because of this. I would recommend 2% acidulated malt if you don't have a water report, it will make better beer, otherwise use the spreadsheets if you do.

The cubes are a special kind of plastic (HDPE I think it's called) that can withstand boiling wort. Not all fermentation buckets are designed for this and many will destroy themselves when faced with these temps. I would recommend no-chilling in the boil kettle with sanitised lid if you don't have a proper cube.

If you can get the wort temperature down a bit before you no-chill that would minimise the extra bitterness you get from the late hops. Personally if you are trying to minimise extra steps then I wouldn't worry about it, but maybe chuck in the hops at flameout instead of 15?

Going from primary into bottles is fine. Pale ales don't need to be crystal clear, but normally you would cold crash the fermentor then once it's at fridge temps then you add 1 teaspoon of gelatine with 1/2 cup of water (plenty of info on how to do this). If you skip the cold crash then gelatin won't be as effective, but a bit of extra time in the fridge once it's bottled should clear it up nicely.

 

[soccerdad]

I think there is some confusion here as to whether you want to no chill or slow chill. No chill brewers often set a 'cube' aside for weeks or even months before pitching yeast. They use specialized containers to do this. Slow chill is simply letting your wort sit overnight without using an immersion chiller or an ice both. In the morning it is room temp (or close). Depending on where you live, outside air can perhaps get you down in the 60's and pitchable temps.

 

[hotsawce]

My mistake, slow-chill!

And guess who doesn't have a bath-tub for an ice bath in their tiny NYC apartment

The containers I have are HDPE 2.

I think there is some confusion here as to whether you want to no chill or slow chill. No chill brewers often set a 'cube' aside for weeks or even months before pitching yeast. They use specialized containers to do this. Slow chill is simply letting your wort sit overnight without using an immersion chiller or an ice both. In the morning it is room temp (or close). Depending on where you live, outside air can perhaps get you down in the 60's and pitchable temps.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Ok, I'll happily buck convention here.

I would full volume mash in your boil kettle, slow chill overnight with your kettle lid on, when adequately chilled pitch your yeast into your kettle and ferment in your lidded kettle. You can use a sheet of plastic to better seal the kettle by placing the sheet over the kettle and securing it with a tightly wrapped string or rubber band.

You can bottle prime and transfer to bottles or transfer to keg someday.

I believe it is also possible to prime in the fermenter with very gentle stirring of the priming solution and also waiting an hour or so for the principle of diffusion to disperse the solution.

"You want an easy solution, ask a lazy man" lol

To all the sanitation Nazi's out there, let's all remember that beer was once chilled in open coolships and fermented in open stone vessels.

 

[bfabry]

The HDPE buckets will deal with boiling wort fine, they're HDPE, same **** the cubes we use in Aus are. The cubes are a bit better because they have a small screw on lid which allows less air to suck into the vessel while the wort cools down, they also stack, that said I think a bucket would also be perfectly sanitary using No Chill. I don't think there's a distinction between "No Chill" and "Slow Chill", very very very few people in Aus keep wort around for more than a day, "No Chill" is the description used for the process of not actively chilling the wort. As someone else said, you might want to adjust your hop schedule.

 

[davemattb]

I've used large plastic containers to do ice baths. You can store your brew stuff in there as well.

 

[hotsawce]

I read up a bit on when to add hops to a no-chill/slow chill batch. When should I remove them?

Should I strain them out the next day, when going into the primary fermenter bucket? Should I add them in bags and pull them out before that?

 

[BufferNuggets]

If you have hop bags (same stuff as BIAB bags) they work wonders to quickly remove the hop sludge out so you do not have to worry about it. You just pull these bags out before you toss everything into the fermenter. If you do not have these bags, then just everything into the fermenter and it will settle out as the yeast do there work. You'll just have a bit more trub in the bottom.

 

[hotsawce]

The bags I have don't feel like nylon...more like stretchy cheese cloth. There's two of them...they are kind of long and tubular. I don't know why these were in my kit. Any ideas?

Also, my brew kettle is 5 gallons, and I had intended mashing the grains (5 lbs) with the full volume of water (estimated 4.32 gallons) in that kettle. Has anyone had issues with a kettle of this size? It seems like it's going to be a tight fit getting that water and the grain in that kettle...

If you have hop bags (same stuff as BIAB bags) they work wonders to quickly remove the hop sludge out so you do not have to worry about it. You just pull these bags out before you toss everything into the fermenter. If you do not have these bags, then just everything into the fermenter and it will settle out as the yeast do there work. You'll just have a bit more trub in the bottom.

 

[wilserbrewer]

The bags I have don't feel like nylon...more like stretchy cheese cloth. There's two of them...they are kind of long and tubular. I don't know why these were in my kit. Any ideas?

Also, my brew kettle is 5 gallons, and I had intended mashing the grains (5 lbs) with the full volume of water (estimated 4.32 gallons) in that kettle. Has anyone had issues with a kettle of this size? It seems like it's going to be a tight fit getting that water and the grain in that kettle...

Sounds like something similar to a paint strainer, they will work but they are likely not as fine a mesh as would be optimum IMO. Polyester voile fabric makes a nice bag and is the material of choice of many.

Your mash volume is close to the max, what I would suggest is withholding say a 1/2 gallon and iether adding it at the end of the mash if it fits, or sparging in another vessel. If using a pulley hoist you can also gently pour the witheld water slowly over the bag as it is honging over the kettle, a sort of fly sparge of sorts.

 

[hotsawce]

I should have splurged on a 7.5 gallon kettle....

I'll hold back 2 quarts and sparge as needed from another pot to get the final brew volume. Might as well get used to it as I'll likely have to do it with brews that use more grain.

 

[BufferNuggets]

I should have splurged on a 7.5 gallon kettle....

I'll hold back 2 quarts and sparge as needed from another pot to get the final brew volume. Might as well get used to it as I'll likely have to do it with brews that use more grain.

I use a ~5 g kettle and do BIAB as well. I use a second pot to sparge in. It really is not anymore complicated and works great to increase fVOL as well as efficiency. As long as you have the counter space to work with that is...if your in tight quarters it may just be a lot of equipment to have set out. I will say adding the batch sparge in really works wonders with higher grain bills as well as making your brew all that bigger. Just be SUPER careful with boil-overs as you have very little head-space. Or get a boil guard to help keep the foam down.

 

[RM-MN]

I use a ~5 g kettle and do BIAB as well. I use a second pot to sparge in. It really is not anymore complicated and works great to increase fVOL as well as efficiency. As long as you have the counter space to work with that is...if your in tight quarters it may just be a lot of equipment to have set out. I will say adding the batch sparge in really works wonders with higher grain bills as well as making your brew all that bigger. Just be SUPER careful with boil-overs as you have very little head-space. Or get a boil guard to help keep the foam down.

If you withhold the sparge wort until after the main wort with its smaller volume has started to boil you can then add the sparge wort and it won't be as likely to boil over. I've recently begun stirring the foam down with a wire whisk and can keep the wort from boiling over with less than an inch of space above the wort. I have to watch it closely as it approaches boil.

 

[BufferNuggets]

I normally try and not to withhold very much wort when starting the initial boil but sometimes it is necessary. If i do end up withholding some I try to add it in as soon as the boil off will let me or I end up just boiling it in a smaller pot next to the the main kettle if I have a lot of extra. Absolute worst case, I will save it in a sterile container to use as yeast starter.

Remember, we boil for a reason and if you add in unboiled sparge into the wort later it can effect the wort negatively.

 

[requiem960]

My first few brews I did everything wrong. Brewed a lager and parked it in a 70% room without temp control. It came out nice and was quite drinkable. On that beer, I barely had any ice to chill, so it sat in the kettle for multi hours before transferring to the fermentation bucket. Then I started doing ice baths and adding a lot of ice in the kettle. Never had much oxygen issues. But, I do second the don't put scolding hot liquid into plastic you don't want that in your beer.

 

[requiem960]

Finally, I anticipate I will want to move quickly into force carbonation in 2.5 gallon kegs after the first few brews. Can anyone recommend the easiest and most cost effective system for making this happen? From the keg, I'll likely want to go into bottles (for the sake of eliminating sediment) so I can share my brews.

My goal is to start simple and efficiently and move forward from there, and any recommendations would be sincerely appreciated!

Omg, a lot is going through my mind on this! I'd probably buy a cheap mini fridge from Walmart or Craigslist. Put a tap through the door, and grab a 2.5 pound co2 tank, and a reasonably priced co2 regulator all from Amazon. You could do a nice little cube setup for a few hundred bucks. May even want to start with a picnic tap to save on the upfront cost, and add the tap later.

And just saying, 100 feet of beer line is relatively inexpensive. I've never cleaned my lines since kegging. I replace them every other barrel, or every barrel if it takes a few months to polish off a keg.

But, a 2.5 gallon tap set up would be pretty sweet! The only negative, I can purchase a 5 gallon keg cheaper than a 2.5 gallon keg. You could always go bigger, build a future proof kegerator out of a chest freezer. Buy a five gallon corny keg, and replace the air with co2 when doing 2.5 gallon batches. Or add a little extra grain and hops to the beer and add extra water when transferring to the primary and bump to 3, 3.5, or 4 gallon batches, that way you'd be using less co2 when force carbonating a five gallon keg with extra headspace.

Man, now I want a mini-fridge set up for upstairs! I've always kicked around the idea of buying two 2.5 gallon kegs to keep one and share one. I may really look into that idea!