Hi, I'm trying my hand at BITB (Boil in the bag) beer brewing after using kits for many years. Having a few issues.

[user 348318]

The first was very cloudy but a reasonable taste, (Abbot's ale). the second seemed to stop fermenting after only 2 days, and after bottling, the beer is very flat and tasteless. What is going wrong. I'm following the recipe to the letter and chilling with a copper coil.

 

[Broken Crow]

Welcome to the Fun!
Since we only mash and don't actually do the boil in a bag, we usually call it BIAB (Brew In A Bag/Basket). Help us help you:
Tell us your process and the gear you used....we need a lot more detail including temperatures and times and gravity.
Glad you could join us.

 

[Beekeeper]

^ Yes, what @Broken Crow said ^.
Tell us a little more about this new process BITB (Boil in the Bag), because it sounds very different from BIAB (Brew in a bag) where the grains in the bag would not be present at boil temperatures..

 

[user 348318]

Welcome to the Fun!
Since we only mash and don't actually do the boil in a bag, we usually call it BIAB (Brew In A Bag/Basket). Help us help you:
Tell us your process and the gear you used....we need a lot more detail including temperatures and times and gravity.
Glad you could join us.

Sorry my mistake BIAB, just been using boil in the bag rice. Strike temp 70c, Mash 60 mins @ 65c, Mash out 10 mins 76c, 60 min boil. I have a Peco electric mashing bin and a copper cooling coil I bottled after 14 days at sg 1.005. I've bought some irish moss tablets for my next attempt. I suspect when I added the yeast the temperature was 25c at the time, not sure if this would have such an effect.
Many thanks for your comments.
Andy

 

[IslandLizard]

Sorry my mistake BIAB, just been using boil in the bag rice.

Are you mashing (boil-in-the-bag type) rice?
Do you have any other ingredients in that mash?

If not, you'd need to include (barley) malt or another diastatic malt (wheat malt, rye malt, etc.) in your rice mash which provides enzymes that can convert the starches from the rice (and any other grain) into fermentable sugars.
Rice alone cannot convert itself.

[Added]
But... be sure your boil-in-the-bag rice is of the quick boil rice variety. This means, that rice was pre-steamed in the factory before it was packaged, and thus mostly pre-gelatinized. This is essential, so the mash enzymes (from the barley malt you've added) can convert the rice along with converting itself.

 

[user 348318]

Are you mashing (boil-in-the-bag type) rice?
Do you have any other ingredients in that mash?

If not, you'd need to include (barley) malt or another diastatic malt (wheat malt, rye malt, etc.) in your rice mash which provides enzymes that can convert the starches from the rice (and any other grain) into fermentable sugars.
Rice alone cannot convert itself.

[Added]
But... be sure your boil-in-the-bag rice is of the quick boil rice variety. This means, that rice was pre-steamed in the factory before it was packaged, and thus mostly pre-gelatinized. This is essential, so the mash enzymes (from the barley malt you've added) can convert the rice along with converting itself.

Oh dear I do appear to have caused some confusion....... When I mentioned boil in the bag I was referring to the tea I was cooking, hence me calling "Brew In the bag" Boil in the bag.. as I was cooking rice in a bag.
The all grain kit contains Pale, Amber, crystal malt. ( no rice )
Looking on youtube one suggestion is to stir the mash every 15 minutes etc. Not come across this suggestion before.

 

[mac_1103]

Oh dear I do appear to have caused some confusion.......

Speaking of confusion... it really isn't clear from your posts what exactly you're trying to brew and how exactly you're trying to brew it. People will be better able to offer advice if you give a lot more detail about the recipe and process than what you have so far.

 

[IslandLizard]

Speaking of confusion... it really isn't clear from your posts what exactly you're trying to brew and how exactly you're trying to brew it. People will be better able to offer advice if you give a lot more detail about the recipe and process than what you have so far.

+10

 

[marc1]

To add to the responses here, people are friendly and very willing to help, but we need much more information. Please provide enough details of what you did so that someone else could reasonable duplicate it. That will give us a better idea of where something may have gone wrong.
How experienced are you with brewing? What have you brewed - all grain, partial mash, extract with steeping grain, extract only?
Where did the recipe come from?
How was everything cleaned and sanitized?
What grains? How much? Were they crushed? Where were they crushed and how fine was the crush? How old was the grain?
How much water? What kind of water (tap, distilled, etc?) Any minerals added or other water treatments?
What kind of bag and how was it used? BIAB bags should ideally completely line the pot.
How was the mash conducted? I don't know what a Peco is; does it heat from the bottom, or recirculate, or are you adding extra hot water for the mash out step? Are you stirring while heating? Is the temp uniform throughout the mash?
Any sparging? How? and how much water?
Hop additions? Type, AA%, amounts used, how long were they boiled? Estimated IBUs?
Pre-boil volume and gravity? Boil length?
Post-boil volume and gravity? Any water added after the boil? Did you stir before measuring the gravity? How do you measure the OG?
How did you transfer to fermenter? Added everything or left some hops and break behind in the kettle?
Yeast strain added? How much yeast? You said it was ~25C when it was added...
What kind of fermenter? What kind of airlock? How was it sealed? Any advanced procedures (eg, oxygen mitigation?)
Fermentation temperature? Is it actively controlled or just sitting in a room?
How did you measure the final gravity? How did you take gravity samples?
How do you bottle? How much and what kind of priming sugar did you use?
How did you condition the bottles? Time, temp for conditioning; how long did you chill the test bottle before opening?

 

[Mack]

@andybeerbelly I have only done BIAB since beginning, and though I do NOT consider myself an expert, I've had good/great luck with all of my roughly 200 gallons of beer thus far. Without knowing the amounts of your pale, amber, & crystal malts, we won't be able to give you any range of gravities, but some simple web searches can get you a pretty good idea of your target numbers.

All of this info is for 5 gallon batches:

I typically mash in at 67c (153), which brings my mash temps down to 65c ( 149). I've found I get great "fermentability" out of this temp, and the brewfather app seems to suggest it as well. I've experimented with "mash out" rests, but in my own LIMITED experience, could never tell the difference in the finished product, so my routine now is to finish the mash and crank the heat to max after the hour is complete. I do no sparging or lautering. Those additional steps defeat the purpose for doing BIAB, in my opinion.

I pull my bag of grains (whatever your method is) and sit them in a colander resting over the kettle allowing them to drain as the wort heats. I squeeze the grain like it owes me money to remove as much wort/sugars/etc from the grain and once I feel it's decently drained I sit the bag and colander to the side and continue heating towards boiling.

There are tons of numbers you could be checking here, and once you get your process right, I suspect you will want to - but again, my "sloppy" methods work to produce beer, not great beer, but not terrible beer. Once you figured out this part, then you can begin to delve into the scientific aspects of brewing. I'll probably get flamed for saying this, but it isn't super important to me.

Boil your wort for an hour, adding your hops at desired intervals.

Chill using your copper coil as cool as you can get it. My water gets down to 22c (72), so that's when I transfer it to my fermenting vessel. I pull a sample during the transfer to use for gravity testing (sometimes) or use a refractometer to get your original gravity. Add your yeast, cover your fermenting vessel with an appropriate airtight lid with airlock, and place in a temperature controlled room. My fermenting is all done in kegs under pressure, and that is a different process not applicable to the BIAB method.

If your room temp is right, you should expect fermentation to begin in 12-48 hours using the usual ale yeast. If you have no method of drawing a sample, I fully recommend you wait 2 weeks for fermentation to end if you are bottling your beer.

You mentioned bottled beer was flat and tasteless - did you add sugar to your fermented beer before bottling? Did you use carb pellets? If you simply added your beer to the bottle, there may possibly be enough active yeast and sugars available to carbonate, but I would imagine it would take months to get to the desired level. Are you letting your bottles condition for a minimum of 2 weeks before chilling and sampling?

I 100% agree that brewing beer has a lot of details that should be addressed, but I also know from experience that someone can make a very decent drinkable beer with minimal effort as long as the basic steps are adhered to. When it comes to bottling, I highly doubt the BIAB method had anything to do with your flat beer.