First BIAB went well

[Thedutchtouch]

Sewed up my own bag a while back, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Brewed an extract blood orange belgian wheat the night before to get back in the swing of things since it has been almost a month, and then went for my first BIAB yesterday I am out of homebrew currently, so was drinking stone ipa during these brews (thanks costco). Brewed the zombie dust clone recipe, used some leftover reflectivex wrapped around my pot a few times and a towel on the lid, held a solid 153-154 the entire hour (a few degrees higher than I wanted but my first reading was 152, then the half hr and hour marks were 153.5 so I think the 152 was me being too impatient and closing it up before getting an accurate reading). I hit 1.054 for my SG (I think this worked out to somewhere between 65-70% efficiency if I did calculations correctly, but to be honest I don't exactly know the volume of wort, I am assuming it was roughly 6.5 gallons since I ended up with 5.5 and started with 7.75 gallons of water?) and 1.065 for my FG. I don't have a mill yet so used the lhbs one and ran everything through twice. Definitely have some changes to make next time around, but I was pleased with the first attempt. I should have probably tried a simpler/cheaper recipe for the first shot, but go big or go home, right? I did not sparge, I squeezed the bag some but had a hard time holding it up over my pot on the stove, some type of rack or more likely moving outside to a propane burner and a rope/pulley system is in the near future. I am having trouble with whirlfloc and too much trub (although this could also be because I am used to extract trub levels) so I will likely increase my batch size by a gallon or so to compensate. Fingers crossed, I'll report back in a few weeks with how it turned out. These two batches were also the first and second use of my homemade immersion chiller, which also worked great, much better than the sink/tub filled with ice water method I used to do. Hopefully I'll have two delicious beers on tap soon.

Changes planned:
1. electronic w/remote probe or floating thermometer to not make the same temp errors
2. Dial in my strike vs per boil vs final volumes, this was a bit of a lucky guess
3. Some way to not have to hold up the bag
4. Suck it up and brew outside on propane, or build a vent, there was too much condensation on the inside of my windows to keep brewing this way
5. Figure out whirlfloc. First try was a whole tab with extract-fluffy trub. This try was a half tab/all grain, still a lot of trub, maybe I just didn't wait for it to settle long enough and ended pouring a decent amount of it into my fermenter. I do plan to try out gelatin while cold crashing this one as well.
6. Yeast starters and a stir plate are my next project, the wyeast smack packs seem to be working Ok but I realize I have a lot to learn when it comes to yeast.
7. Get my own mill, I have no idea what the lhbs is set to, (brew and grow on Kedzie)
8. ????

Suggestions? Opinions? Need any more details to help critique and improve my process?

 

[RM-MN]

1. I made a hole in the lid of my boiling kettle and use one of these thermometers inserted through it. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Taylor-9840-Digital-Instant-Read-LCD-Pocket-Thermometer-/300949117135
2. The exact amount isn't as critical as you might think.
3. Clothes pins
4. Yes, you will condense on the windows when it is cold out. A vent would be nice.
5. I pour all the trub into the fermenter. I usually settles into a pretty compact layer when the ferment is done. Given time your beer will be clear. The key here is "given time". It's hard to be patient.
6. I've made some pretty decent beers with a starter. I've made some pretty decent beers without a starter. There is some controversy on the amount of yeast that is really needed. Take a look at the results of this experiment where the overpitch was about 5 times the recommended and the underpitch was about 1/8 the recommended amount. http://sciencebrewer.com/2012/03/02/pitching-rate-experiment-part-deux-results/
7. I have a Corona style mill and I crank it by hand. I have it tightened until the plates grind when it is empty. It's cheap and works well for BIAB. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000U5NZ4I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
8. Fermentation temperature control was the single best change to my brewing. I simply have one room in my house that I keep cool and it works fine. If I chill the wort to ~60 before I pitch the yeast, set the fermenter in a 62 degree ambient area, the highest temp I have measured in the fermenter is 64 and that keeps the ferment slow so I don't have blowoff issues and gets me good tasting beer.

 

[RM-MN]

1. I made a hole in the lid of my boiling kettle and use one of these thermometers inserted through it. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Taylor-9840-Digital-Instant-Read-LCD-Pocket-Thermometer-/300949117135
2. The exact amount isn't as critical as you might think.
3. Clothes pins
4. Yes, you will condense on the windows when it is cold out. A vent would be nice.
5. I pour all the trub into the fermenter. I usually settles into a pretty compact layer when the ferment is done. Given time your beer will be clear. The key here is "given time". It's hard to be patient.
6. I've made some pretty decent beers with a starter. I've made some pretty decent beers without a starter. There is some controversy on the amount of yeast that is really needed. Take a look at the results of this experiment where the overpitch was about 5 times the recommended and the underpitch was about 1/8 the recommended amount. http://sciencebrewer.com/2012/03/02/pitching-rate-experiment-part-deux-results/
7. I have a Corona style mill and I crank it by hand. I have it tightened until the plates grind when it is empty. It's cheap and works well for BIAB. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000U5NZ4I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
8. Fermentation temperature control was the single best change to my brewing. I simply have one room in my house that I keep cool and it works fine. If I chill the wort to ~60 before I pitch the yeast, set the fermenter in a 62 degree ambient area, the highest temp I have measured in the fermenter is 64 and that keeps the ferment slow so I don't have blowoff issues and gets me good tasting beer.

 

[Thedutchtouch]

thanks for the reply, and the link to the thermometer, my kettle already has a small steam hole so i could just enlarge it a bit, and i'm good to go. i should clarify #3 holding up the bag was in reference to when it is draining- i need a steel grate or some type of pulley system, i sewed in a hem with a drawstring that cinches around the outside of my pot nicely during the mash. my desire to dial in my volumes is more to get a consistent ending volume, i didn't really even know my boil off rate, just took a guess and went for it. I'm still debating about the mill, will likely continue to use the lhbs one for a few more batches, and then regardless of if i use a corona or roller style, i'm going to motorize it. half because its easier, half because it's an excuse to build something. i've been eyeing the wood insulated keggles recently, particularly since i picked up a keg recently and am itching to start cutting/drilling it, though if i go that route i'll likely route out the inside of the wood panels to allow for a layer of reflectivex inside, giving a higher R-value than the wood itself (needs to be routed out so the insulation isn't compressed)

 

[RM-MN]

3. I use a plastic bowl with a collander inside to hold the bag of grains to let them drain. When I have collected a bit of wort in the bowl, I hold the bag in place with a pot lid while I pick the whole thing up to drain that wort into the boiling pot.

9. If you mill your grains fine you won't need to insulate the pot for the mash because the conversion will be done before the temperature changes enough to justify the insulation. If you can get some iodine you can verify that by taking a sample of the wort and dropping one drop of wort and one drop of iodine on a white surface (I use a Corelle plate). If the conversion is not complete the iodine will turn blue/purple/black. If your iodine doesn't change color, grab a sample that includes some grain and test that too.

I've been experimenting with shorter mash times and 30 minutes is plenty. Maybe much more than enough. The last 2 only got a 10 minute mash and I got the right OG but I still have them in fermenters so I don't have the end result yet.

 

[moranjp019]

Grab a replacement round grill rack at HD, cheap simple and effective to hold the bag while it drains.