First Biab

[Tomokka]

I havent done many brews but I have read a lot about homebrewing in different forums and sites and I have come to the conclusion that nothing is certain in this hobby . Many of the things i've read from Palmer or BYO site that are presented as iron rules of homebrewing seem to be quite controversial in practise.

 

[RM-MN]

I havent done many brews but I have read a lot about homebrewing in different forums and sites and I have come to the conclusion that nothing is certain in this hobby . Many of the things i've read from Palmer or BYO site that are presented as iron rules of homebrewing seem to be quite controversial in practise.

Some of us want to push the limits and are willing to sacrifice a batch of beer to find out just what the limits are. I've been around for quite a while and have noticed that even having a PhD at the end of your name doesn't mean you know everything and maybe not everything even in the field of study where you received your PhD.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I have found that sometimes PHD's make rules for things they feel may happen that actually never do.

One PhD Geotechnical engineer I deal with couldn't find his way out of a box. I have found it easier to just have him come to the office, as he can't seem to find the bridge on his own.



Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

 

[Tomokka]

So i got my grains and my hops yesterday, but the site i ordered from ran out of the yeast i wanted, so they are going to sent a replacement for friday.

I am trying to brew Edworts haus pale ale, but its not going to be an exact copy since i couldnt get all the ingredients the recipe required.

So my ingredients are:

4 kg (8,8 lb) of Pale ale EBC 5
1 kg (2,2 lb) of Vienna
300 grams ( 0,66 lb) of CAREHELL

For hops i couldnt get cascade so I instead went with Amarillo (7,9%) and the yeast is most like going to be US-05 unless the the site i ordered from gets a new shipment of Danstar nottingham by today.

What i would like is a little help in adjusting this recipe and ingredients to my equipment.

Like i said earlier i have a 27 liter pot that uses a thermostat to keep the mashing temp stable. I am going to put a metal collander in the bottom so that the bag doesnt get burned while the heat is on.

I am going to mash the grains in 67 degress celcius (about 152-153 fahrenheit). What i am wondering is how many liiters of water do i mash the grains in? According to http://pricelessbrewing.github.io/Metric if i want the batch size to be 18 liters I would require 22,07 liters of water to mash the grains. I was also thinking of using 6 liters of water to sparge the grain with. According to the calculator this would put my pre boil volume at 24,34 liters which seems quite a lot in a 27 liter pot. I havent experienced a boil over but i guess with these volumes it would be pretty close.

You can also see that i have a bit more grains than the original recipe requires since this is my first biab and i am worried that the efficiency might not be as high as i hope. Does this extra grain effect the mashing process somehow?

And finally my hops. According to the recipe Hops are added at 60 mins (30 grams) , 30 mins (15 grams), 15 mins (7,5 grams) and 5 mins (7,5 grams).

Since i dont have a chiller i am going the no-chill route and leave the wort in the kettle and siphon it to the fermenter when it gets cool enough. I was thinking of using the no-chill hop schedule i have found on this site which would mean a hop schedule of 40 mins, 10 minutes, FHW 30 minutes and dry hopping. I was wondering how is FHW actually done? Is it done while i still have 30 minutes of mash to go or have i understood it wrong? Also i have hop pellets and since i dont know if the original recipe was done with pellets i was wondering should i adjust the ammounts?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[RM-MN]

Since you have to make all the substitutions you are no longer brewing Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale, but a new recipe. That isn't all bad, in fact, I do it often and enjoy the beer I make. I like the flavor I get from Cascade hops but I also like Amarillo. Either yeast you mentioned will make similar beers being a clean fermenting yeast. Do try to keep the temperature of the fermenter down during the first 3 to 5 days. The yeasts you mentioned will give you off flavors if fermented too warm. Try to keep the fermenter in the near 15.5C. Too low and the yeast will go dormant, too high and you get weird flavors. You can use a temperature controlled refrigerator or put the fermenter in a tub of water and add ice to that to maintain the temperature.

As you boil your wort you lose water to steam. Since the calculator calls for 23L in a 27L pot you are right to worry but you don't have to put it all in at once. Save out your sparge wort and let the pot boil for perhaps 30 minutes before you add it. That should keep you from having a boil over and it will still give the late addition time to boil off DMS.

Of more concern is the no-chill. You get bittering from hops by boiling them and to maximize this they need nearly an hour long boil. That long boil drives off the aromatic oils so to preserve these, we put some of the hops in later so they aren't boiled as long. Unfortunately, when you don't chill, the wort stays hot for a long time and the hops you added later lose the aromatics and add to bitterness. It's a difficult balance to get the flavor and aroma from hops when you don't chill.

If you have a large tub that can hold water, put water in it so that it will be near the level of your wort in the boil pot when the pot is set in it. That large amount of cool water will bring the temperature of the wort down fairly quickly. You might have to exchange the water in the tub as it gets too warm, either by dumping some of it out or by continuously running a hose into it and letting the hotter water spill out. You can also increase the temperature drop by adding ice to the water in the tub.

 

[Tomokka]

Since you have to make all the substitutions you are no longer brewing Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale, but a new recipe. That isn't all bad, in fact, I do it often and enjoy the beer I make. I like the flavor I get from Cascade hops but I also like Amarillo. Either yeast you mentioned will make similar beers being a clean fermenting yeast. Do try to keep the temperature of the fermenter down during the first 3 to 5 days. The yeasts you mentioned will give you off flavors if fermented too warm. Try to keep the fermenter in the near 15.5C. Too low and the yeast will go dormant, too high and you get weird flavors. You can use a temperature controlled refrigerator or put the fermenter in a tub of water and add ice to that to maintain the temperature.

As you boil your wort you lose water to steam. Since the calculator calls for 23L in a 27L pot you are right to worry but you don't have to put it all in at once. Save out your sparge wort and let the pot boil for perhaps 30 minutes before you add it. That should keep you from having a boil over and it will still give the late addition time to boil off DMS.

Of more concern is the no-chill. You get bittering from hops by boiling them and to maximize this they need nearly an hour long boil. That long boil drives off the aromatic oils so to preserve these, we put some of the hops in later so they aren't boiled as long. Unfortunately, when you don't chill, the wort stays hot for a long time and the hops you added later lose the aromatics and add to bitterness. It's a difficult balance to get the flavor and aroma from hops when you don't chill.

If you have a large tub that can hold water, put water in it so that it will be near the level of your wort in the boil pot when the pot is set in it. That large amount of cool water will bring the temperature of the wort down fairly quickly. You might have to exchange the water in the tub as it gets too warm, either by dumping some of it out or by continuously running a hose into it and letting the hotter water spill out. You can also increase the temperature drop by adding ice to the water in the tub.

Thanks for yor answer.

Unfortunately i wont be hitting that fermentation temperature since i dont have a fridge that could fit my fermenter. The only place i have room is the basement which has a temperature between 18-22 celcius.

The problem with trying to cool the wort is that the kettle i use has all the electric components in the bottom so its impossible to cool the wort in cold water while its still in the kettle. I would have to get the hot wort out into the fermenter somehow and then put that fermenter inside another fermenter that is filled with water and ice.

 

[TexasWine]

It's a difficult balance to get the flavor and aroma from hops when you don't chill.

Not sure I totally agree with this. After a bad experience trying to chill my first extract batch, I haven't chilled since . And I've never had a problem getting the flavor and aroma I was shooting for.

I'm still pretty new to brewing so I don't know any special tricks nor do I make any adjustments to my hop schedules due to no chilling. I just dump it right into the fermenter and a few weeks later I have really tasty beer (and aromatic ) beer.

Not trying to be combative, but no chill really has simplified my process tremendously and I haven't seen any ill effects.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for yor answer.

Unfortunately i wont be hitting that fermentation temperature since i dont have a fridge that could fit my fermenter. The only place i have room is the basement which has a temperature between 18-22 celcius.

The problem with trying to cool the wort is that the kettle i use has all the electric components in the bottom so its impossible to cool the wort in cold water while its still in the kettle. I would have to get the hot wort out into the fermenter somehow and then put that fermenter inside another fermenter that is filled with water and ice.

OK, we'll roll with that. With no-chill, start your boil with the plan to boil for 60 minutes. Don't add your first hop until the wort has boiled for 15 minutes, making that a 45 minute hop addition. Keep delaying the additional hops for that same 15 minutes and add your final hop after the wort has cooled to near 80C.

I've only tried first wort hopping once with BIAB. That was the only time I was unable to control my heat to avoid a boil over. After cleaning my stove top once, I decided not to try that again. YMMV

I bring the wort to a boil and watch so that it doesn't boil over because when it first comes to a boil there will be a huge amount of foam (hot break) which will subside within a couple minutes of the start of the boil. That's when I usually add my first hops.

 

[madscientist451]

I usually brew late in the day then set my brew kettle on the back porch and the cool night air chills it just fine by morning. I then siphon off the wort from the trub that has settled out. Some just dump it all in trub and all, don't know which is better.
I don't know if your electric kettle will scorch your brew bag, but I found the bag in a kettle method to be messy and a hassle to keep the temp close to where I wanted it. I got a round cooler and now do a modified BIAB by just putting the bag in a cooler, mash , then do two batch sparges.

 

[Tomokka]

Ok hopefully today i can get my first AG brew on the way. I wanted to still list the steps here so the people with more knowledge than me can point out if something is wrong.

1. I was thinking of mashing 5,3 kilos of grain in 20 liters of water in my 27 liter kettle.
Is it too much water for that much grain?

2. After mashing, using about 6 liters of sparge water to rinse the sugars in my fermenter. If the kettle is too full after the mash i will boil some water off before adding the sparge wort

3. Letting the wort cool in the kettle / fermenter.
I forgot to mention that my kettle has a prefitted tap on it, so I could basically poor the hot wort in my air tight fermenter for exemple when it hits 80 degrees celcius. I guess the benefit would be less chance of an infection with the downside being the possiblity of hot side aeration. Which option would you guys pick?

Thanks again for you help

 

[Tomokka]

My first AG batch is now done and its cooling in the fermenter for atleast untill tomorrow morning when its time to pich the yeast.

It was a good learning experience and i was suprised especially by how much time it takes compared to extract brewing. Have to say that i enjoyed myself even though the end result isnt quite what i was hoping.

The biggest dissapointment for me was that i didnt collect as much wort as I orignally thought. I put only 13 liters in the fermenter which also has a lot of trub in it, so I will probably only bottle like 10 liters. My guess is that there are two reasons why i ended up with so little wort:

1. I had way too much grain for the ammount of water in the kettle. I mashed 10,5 lb in 5 gallons of water. Especially in the beginning the mash was so thick that it was really hard to even mix it since it just stuck together. Made the temperature control a bitch also, and i cant say for sure in what temperature i ended up mashing the grain since there was probably a lot of heat variance espeically between the bottom and the top of the kettle.

2. Bad sparging. I was orignally going to sparge with 6 liters of water, but ended up using only like 2,5 liters. The reason was that i thought that i already had like 20 liters of wort in the kettle, so thought i didnt need to sparge anymore which turned out to be a mistake.

For next time i think i will increase water in the mash, which will hopefully give me more wort and make the measurement of the temperature easier. I wil also take sparging a bit more serious

Havent measured the gravity of the wort yet, but my guess is that its going to be really high. Probably around 1.060 which is ok since i like my beer a bit stronger

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Sounds pretty good for a first biab. Didn't do anything too terrible. If you're having issues doughing in, I would suggest using a whisk and pouring slowly to minimize dough balls. A helper is useful here.

Measure your boil off rate carefully, then do it again and compare. Make sure the before and after are the same temperature or it'll be off as much as 4%.

Use my calculator in my sig next time. Enter your boil off rate, and don't change the absorption rates till you get a better idea of your method. Typically trub loss is .5 gallons.

Wish you luck, let us know how it ends up next time.

 

[Tomokka]

Sounds pretty good for a first biab. Didn't do anything too terrible. If you're having issues doughing in, I would suggest using a whisk and pouring slowly to minimize dough balls. A helper is useful here.

Measure your boil off rate carefully, then do it again and compare. Make sure the before and after are the same temperature or it'll be off as much as 4%.

Use my calculator in my sig next time. Enter your boil off rate, and don't change the absorption rates till you get a better idea of your method. Typically trub loss is .5 gallons.

Wish you luck, let us know how it ends up next time.

Yeah now that you mentioned it I kind of forgot to measure the boil of rate, so that one was another fail . I thought i had super much wort in the kettle after mashing that i guess I just got too excited and sloppy at the same time. Will definately keep that in mind for the next batch

 

[Tomokka]

Now the wort is fermenting in the basement and got the gravity reading: 1,076 . So I guess i will have quite a strong beer here. My guess is that the wort wont have much of a hop profile with that kind of alcohol content. Hopefully it will be something like a belgian beer or something like that .

I will probably have a crack at the same recipe in the coming weeks and thinking what to do differently.

Like I said i wasnt happy with my mash temperature. The temperature could differ 5 celcius between different points in the kettle and my worry is that i might have extracted a lot of tannis. I think that the problem was that the wort was way too thick for too long. Do you guys think this is because there was just too much grain or should i just mix the grain in better.

Also i got way too little wort out. I was hoping to get 20 liters in the fermenter instead of the 12-13 liters that i got. I used 19 liters to mash and only like 3 liters to lauter. Should i maybe push the numbers up so that i have like 22 liters in the mash and 6 for lautering?

 

[TexasWine]

I think that the problem was that the wort was way too thick for too long. Do you guys think this is because there was just too much grain or should i just mix the grain in better.

Also i got way too little wort out. I was hoping to get 20 liters in the fermenter instead of the 12-13 liters that i got. I used 19 liters to mash and only like 3 liters to lauter. Should i maybe push the numbers up so that i have like 22 liters in the mash and 6 for lautering?

Mash thickness wasn't to blame for the temperature variances. A lack of proper insulation around your kettle would be a more likely candidate.

And your water to grain ratio, which was about 1.9 quarts/lb, was just fine. I am always between 1.5 and 2.0 because I do partial volume mashes just like you.

I think you came up short on volume into the fermenter because of the minimal sparge you did. Consequently your preboil volume was low. Was your gravity in the fermenter higher than predicted?

EDIT: remember you will always have some variances in temp across the kettle. The goal is to minimize them with good insulation, or some people choose to use recirculation.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Mash thickness wasn't to blame for the temperature variances. A lack of proper insulation around your kettle would be a more likely candidate.

And your water to grain ratio, which was about 1.9 quarts/lb, was just fine. I am always between 1.5 and 2.0 because I do partial volume mashes just like you.

I think you came up short on volume into the fermenter because of the minimal sparge you did. Consequently your preboil volume was low. Was your gravity in the fermenter higher than predicted?

EDIT: remember you will always have some variances in temp across the kettle. The goal is to minimize them with good insulation, or some people choose to use recirculation.

Agreed. Be sure to dough in slowly if you have some issues minimizing dough balls. Use a whisk during dough in, then switch to a more sturdy metal spoon to stir the mash, as a whisk can make it difficult.

My last brew day (which had a lot of issues, but none involving doughin in or mashing) I kept the lid off, and the stovetop electric burner on setting 1-2 and stirred thoroughly every 5 minutes. I got a new high of 78% efficiency, and that's with the largest grain bill yet. I contribute this mostly to stirring during the mash.

 

[Tomokka]

The thing about temperature control in my setup is that the kettle comes with a thermostat that is quite good at keeping steady temperature when there is only water in the kettle. During the mash the kettle seemed to not fire the element on when my thermapen told that the temperature was too low. I think one of the reasons why the temperature difference was so great was that i had quite a big stainless steel collander in the bottom of the kettle which prevented me from stirring the water properly. So the thermostat measured the temperature in the bottom of the kettle which was probably quite high and switched it off, while I measured the top part and thought the temperature was too low and switched the element on manualy. So the end result probablly was that the temperature was good on the top layer, but in the bottom the temperature was probably over 160 degrees.

For the next batch i will order a cake cooling rack that i will place in the bottom of the kettle so that i can properly stir the wort so that the temperature is as even as possible. Might have to think of somekind of cheap insulation solution also.

 

[Tomokka]

Hey all!

Now that the wort has been fermenting for 5 days i realized that what i havent thought about at all is the ammount of yeast for the high gravity of my wort. Unless i completely messed up the gravity reading, my worts OG was 1.075 before pitching the yeast. I pitched one pack of US-05 11,5 g yeast after rehydrating it. I am worried that one pack wont be enough to ferment this ammount of wort and have been thinking should i get another pack of the yeast and pitch that one in? I own one pack of US-04 yeast and was wondering could i mix and match 04 and 05 yeast strains?

 

[RM-MN]

Hey all!

Now that the wort has been fermenting for 5 days i realized that what i havent thought about at all is the ammount of yeast for the high gravity of my wort. Unless i completely messed up the gravity reading, my worts OG was 1.075 before pitching the yeast. I pitched one pack of US-05 11,5 g yeast after rehydrating it. I am worried that one pack wont be enough to ferment this ammount of wort and have been thinking should i get another pack of the yeast and pitch that one in? I own one pack of US-04 yeast and was wondering could i mix and match 04 and 05 yeast strains?

At 5 days in I'd just leave it alone. Yeast do multiply and you should have enough to finish this one. Unless you added a huge starter you would likely accomplish nothing but spend money on more yeast. Take a look at this experiment on pitch rates and notice that the underpitch was about 1/8th the recommended amount. http://sciencebrewer.com/2012/03/02/pitching-rate-experiment-part-deux-results/

 

[Tomokka]

At 5 days in I'd just leave it alone. Yeast do multiply and you should have enough to finish this one. Unless you added a huge starter you would likely accomplish nothing but spend money on more yeast. Take a look at this experiment on pitch rates and notice that the underpitch was about 1/8th the recommended amount. http://sciencebrewer.com/2012/03/02/pitching-rate-experiment-part-deux-results/

Ok your message reassured me . Will probably get a gravity reading in a week from now and see how well the yeast worked for me.

I was wondering if my worts high gravity could be the result of mashing in too high temperature so that i extreacted some crap that cant even be fermented?

 

[RM-MN]

Ok your message reassured me . Will probably get a gravity reading in a week from now and see how well the yeast worked for me.

I was wondering if my worts high gravity could be the result of mashing in too high temperature so that i extreacted some crap that cant even be fermented?

You were probably planning on 70% efficiency and got 80 or more. I've done that when I started BIAB, followed a recipe and went way over the expected OG. Mine fermented out like it was supposed to anyway.

 

[Tomokka]

Just took the gravity of my wort and it has lowered to 1.013 or 1.014. I was thinking that i could botttle the beer during the weekend or should i still give it more time? It came down from 1.076.

Also i tasted the wort and it was actuallly really good compared to the crap ones i used to make with extracts. It tasted nicely bitter and was wondering should i still dry hop as my adaption of the recipe says or should I just bottle the way it is? I guess my question is does the hop aroma and bitterness change after bottling so it doesnt have the same balance as the wort i just tasted?

 

[RM-MN]

Just took the gravity of my wort and it has lowered to 1.013 or 1.014. I was thinking that i could botttle the beer during the weekend or should i still give it more time? It came down from 1.076.

Also i tasted the wort and it was actuallly really good compared to the crap ones i used to make with extracts. It tasted nicely bitter and was wondering should i still dry hop as my adaption of the recipe says or should I just bottle the way it is? I guess my question is does the hop aroma and bitterness change after bottling so it doesnt have the same balance as the wort i just tasted?

I'm not sure that I would want to be in a hurry to bottle yet. Perhaps put the dry hops in this weekend and bottle next weekend. Dry hopping won't change the bitterness as that comes from boiling the hops. It will give a nice aroma though. Some people say that 3 or 4 days is enough for dry hopping, others want a week. Some report a vegetal smell if you dry hop for more than 7 days but I didn't get any of that when I dry hopped for 2 weeks.

 

[Tomokka]

I was planning on bottling the beer today, but noticed that there is some white stuff on top of the wort.

I dry hopped with loose pellets on friday and I am hoping it has to do with the hops and not an infection.

I was thinking of bottling so that i put a hop bag on my siphon to filter the crap out. Should i instead wait and hop that the white crap falls to the bottom?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Bottle it now
IMO once you start opening the fermenter, it's time for the beer to move along.
Prolonged mucking about is not good, jmo.

If you have the ability to chill, cold crash it, that might help drop the beer clear.
But going back to rule 1, bottle it now.


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

 

[Tomokka]

Cool thanks for the info . Need to start preparing girlfriend for a bottling day

 

[RM-MN]

Cool thanks for the info . Need to start preparing girlfriend for a bottling day

Um...I think we need details on how you prepare a girlfriend for bottling day.

 

[phug]

I prepare the wife for bottling day by telling her on Thursday that I'm hoping to find time to bottle on the weekend, before she starts making plans for how to use the time.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Tomokka]

Girlfriends are prepared by giving them a heads up since if you dont there is always some stuff that comes in the way and you end up sitting alone on the bathroom floor holding the siphon .

Anyways the bottling day went really badly even with my girlfriends help.

First off the auto siphon didnt seem to work. Basically i had to pump it all the time for anything to come out of the hose. This had the nice effect of compeletely aerating the beer so that when i tried to siphon it to the bottles they were 40 % foam inside and had to refill them constatly.

Plus somehow i managed to completely disturb the gunk in the bottom of the fermenter so that the last 2-4 liters i had to leave behind in the fermentor because it didnt seem worth siphoning something that had the same color as the yeast in the bottom.

This then lead to my biggest worry which are bottle bombs. I originally thought i had 12 liters of beer so i used 60 grams of priming sugar (5g/1liter). Now i probably bottled anywhere from 6-9 liters. This puts the ammount of sugar quite high.

Even though the bottling day was complete ass, at least i learned to check my equipment before i actually have to use them . Will probably start working on my next batch this weekend and hopefully it will be more smooth.

 

[RM-MN]

It sounds like you had a problem with the seal on the autosiphon. That happens but to avoid it the next time, put a little water inside the tube above the piston as it will help to seal it up. The fact that you had to keep pumping is probably what stirred up the trub. I usually get some of the trub into the bottling bucket but within just a few minutes it settles back out and it gets left in the bottom of the bucket.

It also sounds like you were trying to fill the bottles directly from the fermenter. As you have found out, that is a clown show. Nest time, siphon to a separate bucket that has your priming solution in it so it mixes there, then fill from the spigot on that bucket with a bottling wand. The wand has a valve in it so that when you press it to the bottom of the bottle, it starts filling and when the bottle is full you lift it out, stopping the flow of beer and leaving you with the proper amount of head space.

Bottling bucket: http://www.ritebrew.com/product-p/863202.htm

Bottling wand: http://www.ritebrew.com/product-p/863213.htm