First Biab

[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 ***** 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

 

[Tomokka]

I actually have a bottling bucket and a really crappy bottling wand that i got with my set. I added the priming mixture to the bottling bucket and then siphoned the beer on top.

The extra gear didnt really help me though since most of the damage was already done when i siphoned the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. The siphoning to the bottles from the bottling bucket just sealed the deal because i had to keep pumping all the time which caused spillovers and a lot of foam.

When i get home tonight i am going to test the auto siphon with the water thing you suggested. If it doesnt work i will send a complaint to the store i bought it from

 

[phug]

How much height differential did you have between the fermenter And the bottling bucket? How far on did you jam the syphon tubing? I say do a wet run with just water before your next batch.

My last bottling day I had some fruit chunks make it into the bottling wand that mucked things up. I think next time I do a berry cider I'll have an extra on hand sanitized. Cheap insurance.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Tomokka]

How much height differential did you have between the fermenter And the bottling bucket? How far on did you jam the syphon tubing? I say do a wet run with just water before your next batch.

My last bottling day I had some fruit chunks make it into the bottling wand that mucked things up. I think next time I do a berry cider I'll have an extra on hand sanitized. Cheap insurance.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I actually found out what the problem was.

The fermtech auto siphon has this black valve thing that is supposed to go to the bottom of the tube with the black parts in the end. In my siphon the black valve has become loose and i have no idea how its supposed to be put back in place.

 

[phug]

hold the inner portion of the tube so that the gasket is facing the ceiling, place that piece with the spikes facing upward, gingerly place the outer tube over that and slowly slide it until you have almost reached the end. Line up the spikes with the corresponding holes in the end piece of the outertube, and that drive it home?

except that I don't think the inner piece has enough length to reach all the way to the bottom.

 

[Tomokka]

hold the inner portion of the tube so that the gasket is facing the ceiling, place that piece with the spikes facing upward, gingerly place the outer tube over that and slowly slide it until you have almost reached the end. Line up the spikes with the corresponding holes in the end piece of the outertube, and that drive it home?

except that I don't think the inner piece has enough length to reach all the way to the bottom.

Yeah i tried that one, but discovered like you said that the inner tube isnt long enough. Contacted Fermtech and they said i need a longer tube and some double sided tape. I have to say that its a really annoying problem to discover on your bottling day.

The good news is that the new batch went great. Hopefully i can bottle that one successfully this time.

 

[phug]

Maybe a dowel rod from home depot? shouldn't be more than a buck or two.

I would try it without the double sided tape though, or make sure that you sitck and unstick the side attached to the piece you want left behind several times to make sure it's only lightly stuck to the tape, and that the tape is firmly affixed to the rod. you don't want to leave the tape at the bottom of your autosyphon.

also, double sided tape for cheap people like me is known as a loop of tape sticky side out.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Idk, my brewing days began before the auto siphon. IMO a simple racking cane with a cane clip and a piece of tubing works flawlessly once you learn how to use it. I fill the cane and tubing with star San using a dollar store turkey baster, cover the tubing end with my thumb and stick the cane in the beer, runoff the star San into a cup and when the beer flows your in business. Easier to sanitize, no moving parts FTW....jmo


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/