First brew for 30 years!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jambop

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2021
Messages
373
Reaction score
216
Location
S W France
Did my first brew in 30 plus years today. I did brew in a bag and only a single batch sparge. I am hoping to make a British type IPA and using brewers friend did all the calcs amazingly I near enough nailed it although I am going to have to dilute the wort a bit as I want to make about 4.2 - 4.3 % abv for a session beer and the wort after the boil is going to give about 5.4% . I also crunched the numbers for efficiency and that came in at 71 % no idea if this is good or not on a first go I had keyed in for a 75% efficiency when I made up the recipe . I have to hope for a good fermentation now.
I used my homemade wort chiller and it works very well indeed, cooled the wort down in no time.
 
Congrats!

If your efficiency was lower than planned but you got a higher OG than planned, your final wort volume is too low. Add some water before fermentation gets going to get you back to where you need to be, and put the new volumes for boil off and whatnot into your next recipe so that it tracks better.

Keep us posted how it turns out!
 
1 batch in 30 years, I'd say your efficiency is terrible!


some people like to take the time to think about things! ;) (and i hope he doesn't listen to the people that say that consisteny is more import. lol)


i bet it felt great @jambop :mug: and i'd say 71% is on the low side i'm pretty sure most people pull low mid 80's....you'll get it dialed in though....
 
Last edited:
Did my first brew in 30 plus years today. I did brew in a bag and only a single batch sparge. I am hoping to make a British type IPA and using brewers friend did all the calcs amazingly I near enough nailed it although I am going to have to dilute the wort a bit as I want to make about 4.2 - 4.3 % abv for a session beer and the wort after the boil is going to give about 5.4% . I also crunched the numbers for efficiency and that came in at 71 % no idea if this is good or not on a first go I had keyed in for a 75% efficiency when I made up the recipe . I have to hope for a good fermentation now.
I used my homemade wort chiller and it works very well indeed, cooled the wort down in no time.

Congrats to you my friend. Looking forward for more brewing
 
Can I just say I can fully understand why folk get into using one of those all in one gizmo's . I am the wrong end of my sixties now and lifting heavy vats of hot stuff around was actually quite tiring. Also add to that I ended up doing the entire boil on my woodfire kitchen stove and the heat factor was immense :D it was very cold out and I did not want to work outside . I will give it a couple of brews and if I am satisfied with the product I will be getting one I reckon life is too short :thumbsup:

DSCN4225.JPG
 
Congrats! Welcome back to the hobby. With BIAB I found that crushing your grains a lot finer helps with better efficiency.
 
I have a very rudimentary made in China hand grinder and it is not that easy to control how to make those adjustments from too fine to some of the grains going right through. What side would you err on? If not seeing any whole grains at all that setting is easy 😂
 
For me personally, I set my grain mill to the smallest setting possible. Everything gets busted up good and some of it almost to flour. That works good in BIAB, just be sure to stir it up really well so there are no dough balls
 
For me personally, I set my grain mill to the smallest setting possible. Everything gets busted up good and some of it almost to flour.

Interesting I was actually trying to avoid that because I thought it would lead to a lot of sediment in the wort. As it turned out if I had a conical fermentation vessel I would probably have just transferred all the wort to it I got as it was I rejected about 2L because there was a lot of sediment and I thought it would be a problem at the end of the fermentation in my flat bottomed bucket. I learned quite a lot in one brew though and I now know several things that will improve my brewing next time👍
 
Can I just say I can fully understand why folk get into using one of those all in one gizmo's . I am the wrong end of my sixties now and lifting heavy vats of hot stuff around was actually quite tiring. Also add to that I ended up doing the entire boil on my woodfire kitchen stove and the heat factor was immense :D it was very cold out and I did not want to work outside . I will give it a couple of brews and if I am satisfied with the product I will be getting one I reckon life is too short :thumbsup:

View attachment 755725
Real men brew on wood cookstoves, not ***** gas or electric systems (like me).
You da man!
 
With BIAB, you can usually get away with smaller crush because the bag usually filters really well. And stuck mash is somewhat easier to avoid because you can move the side of the bag around.
 
Back
Top