My First AG BIAB recipe

[tobiasbeecher]

Morning all,

I have everything I need to make an east coast pale ale, this will be my first dive into all grain brewing. For now, it will be BIAB, I will brew the lot on my hob in 1 pot. So far, I have done many kits, but nothing tastes quite like what I want to make.

I will list everything I intend to do, please could I get some feedback?

I tested my hob this evening. Power number 5 gives EXACTLY 149*F, so I will use that. With that said, here is the ingredient list:

1500g total (I am making 1 UK gallon, 4.5L for this initial test)
80% golden promise malt 1200g
12% flaked oats 180g
4% caramalt 60g
4% light crystal rye malt 60g

I will heat the water up to 149*F (maybe slightly more, as when I add the grain the temperature will drop. Question 1: How much higher should I go for 1 gallon?)

I will mash at 149*F for 75 minutes. I read that as the temperature is slightly lower than ideal, it will take slightly longer to give the desired outcome.

Then, remove the bag of grains, strain and then boil, for 60 minutes. During this boil, I will add hops at unknown times. Question 2: What times should I add what quantity of hops? I have the following pellets:

Citra, Simcoe, Azacca, El Dorado, Mosaic, Galaxy

I am thinking add a huge 50g of Citra at the start of boil, then at 60 minutes (end of boil) add 25g citra, 25g simcoe.

Then... once it has cooled to a fermentable temperature, say 65*F, I will add the yeast and 1 tsp of nutrient. White Labs 7 yeast.

During active fermentation (after 3 days) I will dry hop for the first time, 25g Mosaic. Then after a couple of days, 25g Galaxy.

Does anyone have any feedback for this? For BIAB, should I consider crash cooling in the sink with ice, at all? If so, at what time do I do that?

Thanks,

 

[Chrispy92]

Morning all,

I have everything I need to make an east coast pale ale, this will be my first dive into all grain brewing. For now, it will be BIAB, I will brew the lot on my hob in 1 pot. So far, I have done many kits, but nothing tastes quite like what I want to make.

I will list everything I intend to do, please could I get some feedback?

I tested my hob this evening. Power number 5 gives EXACTLY 149*F, so I will use that. With that said, here is the ingredient list:

1500g total (I am making 1 UK gallon, 4.5L for this initial test)
80% golden promise malt 1200g
12% flaked oats 180g
4% caramalt 60g
4% light crystal rye malt 60g

I will heat the water up to 149*F (maybe slightly more, as when I add the grain the temperature will drop. Question 1: How much higher should I go for 1 gallon?)

I will mash at 149*F for 75 minutes. I read that as the temperature is slightly lower than ideal, it will take slightly longer to give the desired outcome.

Then, remove the bag of grains, strain and then boil, for 60 minutes. During this boil, I will add hops at unknown times. Question 2: What times should I add what quantity of hops? I have the following pellets:

Citra, Simcoe, Azacca, El Dorado, Mosaic, Galaxy

I am thinking add a huge 50g of Citra at the start of boil, then at 60 minutes (end of boil) add 25g citra, 25g simcoe.

Then... once it has cooled to a fermentable temperature, say 65*F, I will add the yeast and 1 tsp of nutrient. White Labs 7 yeast.

During active fermentation (after 3 days) I will dry hop for the first time, 25g Mosaic. Then after a couple of days, 25g Galaxy.

Does anyone have any feedback for this? For BIAB, should I consider crash cooling in the sink with ice, at all? If so, at what time do I do that?

Thanks,

I am by no means the most experienced in this area and have only just started doing BIAB all grain myself. But I have learned a LOT from reading over this forum and have had help from many more experienced than I.

Firstly, google a simple BIAB calculator, with this you can plug in your grain weight, hop weight, estimated batch size (1gallon), grain temperature etc which will throw out a good estimate on the numbers you will need. These numbers will include the total amount of water you'll need taking into account boil off and grain absorbtion, as well as giving you a "strike temp" which is the temperature the water will need to be before adding the grains which will lower it down to your intended 149f mash temp.

From my experience it took me two BIAB sessions, writing down all of my volumes and process to dial in my system. For you this will be the same, by the third batch you will know exactly how much boil off you can expect from your particular kettle.

In terms of your hop additions, I would not add the citra at the beginning. Any hop additions early (60mins) are for bittering and almost all the flavor will be lost. 50 grams at the start in a small beer will give you heaps of bitterness! Ideally use a hop with a bigger alpha acid so you can use less (unless you want a big bitterness?). Anything under 20mins will start adding flavor and aroma to your brew. I tend to keep it relatively simple and do additions at 60, 20, 10, 5 and flameout. I would save that citra and dump a good amount of it with something such as the simcoe/galaxy/mosaic near the end. Also save some for a nice dry-hop!

Those hops will work really well together, I have read a lot of people frothing on citra combos with other fruity hops... I'm sure they can chime in with their experiences. I have used mosaic and galaxy as late additions and they are BIG fruit bombs....lots of passionfruit.

I recently did a 1gallon double IPA and only started with 8grams at 60mins, but had 60grams added throughout the last 20mins and at flameout all of which brought the bitterness well over 130IBU, so you can achieve bitterness from late additions too, given the AA of the hops and amount used.

I also would avoid dry-hopping while fermentation is still strong, from what ive read the release of the CO2 will drive off the aroma you are trying to achieve. I would just wait a week, check gravity then dry hop for 4-7 days with both additions.

Plug your recipe into brewersfriend.com if you haven't already and you can play with it from there. When I first started I was looking online at commercial beers I enjoyed to look at what hops/malts they used as well as their IBU to play around with making clones.


Goodluck!!!

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Great reply, thanks for that. I calculated all of the above quantities (except hop quantities) based off other recipes I found, dividing by 5. One thing I am still unsure on, is how much extra water I need due to losses. Boil losses, grain absorption, etc. I read, roughly 2 gallons of water, for a 1 gallon brew, during initial mash?

I don't suppose you have posted up your recipes and method for the 1 gallon bathes you have done? Those will make for good reading i'm sure.

For now, my first entry into BIAB, I am sticking with a gallon until I nail the process.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I will list everything I intend to do, please could I get some feedback?

1500g total (I am making 1 UK gallon, 4.5L for this initial test)
80% golden promise malt 1200g
12% flaked oats 180g
4% caramalt 60g
4% light crystal rye malt 60g

That's a LOT of grain for a 4.5L batch of pale ale. At 75% efficiency, that's about an OG of 1.075 (quite a big beer....more like double IPA territory). I'd suggest using 1Kg of grain in total.

Then, remove the bag of grains, strain and then boil, for 60 minutes.

Are you planning to sparge/rinse the grains, or do a no-sparge mash?

During this boil, I will add hops at unknown times. Question 2: What times should I add what quantity of hops? I have the following pellets:

Citra, Simcoe, Azacca, El Dorado, Mosaic, Galaxy

I am thinking add a huge 50g of Citra at the start of boil, then at 60 minutes (end of boil) add 25g citra, 25g simcoe.

NO, NO, NO. Firstly, when times are quoted, they refer to how much time remains in the boil, so 60mins is normally the start of the boil (60mins to go). Secondly, Citra is not ideal for bittering - use it late. Thirdly, that's WAY too much hop - 50g of citra will give you something like 400IBUs. With the hops that you've listed, I'd suggest using all late hopping (none of them are clean bittering hops). For a pale ale, you are generally looking at additions around 1g/L, maybe up to 2g/L for a hoppier pale ale. So for your batch, you'd be looking at 5gram to 10gram additions (1/6th to 1/3 of an ounce). Maybe try any two hops in combination (simcoe with galaxy could be nice), with 5g of one hop at 20mins, 5g of the other at 10mins, 5g of both at flame out (10g total), then 5g of citra as a dry hop

 

[Chrispy92]

simplebiabcalculator.com

Plug your info into this, it will give you a good estimate on initial quantities and you wont have to stress too much on the small points. If you end up with a little more or less wort your first go it's no big deal at all. Just make sure you write down EVERYTHING you do. Scribble a time line in a notebook, ie:
6pm- kettle heating up
6.15 - water at stike temp, grains dough in
6.18 - water at 149f eureka! kettle closed and insulated
6.40 - kettle opened and stirred grains, temp at 148f
etc etc.
I have found using towels twisted lengthwise and wrapped around the kettle a good way of insulating.

Once you have all your data down you can go back and use other calculators online to estimate your efficiency, boil off etc.

Also a vital piece of equipment is a wooden spoon with some sort of markings on it, so you can stand it up against the edge of the pot and have some idea of the volume of wort in the kettle at the beginning and end of boil. I squeeze the crap out of my bag too, to maximise the amount of wort. You can sparge hot water over the bag to try and increase the volume if for some reason the grain absorbs WAY more than you expected, but most people dont otherwise bother with small batch BIAB.

I dont have my notes written for my one gallon BIAB but if youre super interested I could take a pic and post up here...

 

[Chrispy92]

Heres my recipe for my Double IPA SMaSH if this helps with quantites and times, however keep in mind this is a BIG alcohol/ hop beer....

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.8 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 9 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.053
Efficiency: 77% (brew house)


STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.083
Final Gravity: 1.019
ABV (standard): 8.43%
IBU (tinseth): 129.8
SRM (morey): 5.77

FERMENTABLES:
1.500 kg - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (83.1%)
0.300 kg - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (16.9%)

HOPS:
8 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 45.45
13 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 20 min, IBU: 44.73
10 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 20.6
10 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 11.33
16 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 2 min, IBU: 7.69
12 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Boil for 0 min
30 g - southern cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.4, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Temp: 65 C, Time: 60 min, Amount: 7 L

 

[Gnomebrewer]

One thing I am still unsure on, is how much extra water I need due to losses. Boil losses, grain absorption, etc. I read, roughly 2 gallons of water, for a 1 gallon brew, during initial mash?

2 gallons sounds a bit high, but it will depend on the vigour of your boil. Grain absorption will be about 1L per Kg of grain. Boiloff with a low, rolling boil should be about 20% of your volume per hour (it may be a bit higher with the small batch volume, but you can always add water back in towards the end of the boil if you're under on volume). So maybe start with about 7L: lose 1L to grain (6L left), 0.2x6=1.2L to the boil (4.8L left) and about 0.3L of trub (4.5L into your fermenter).

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Really good info, thanks. From what I have read here, I must have arrived at my grain weight, based on a US gallon, compared to a UK gallon. That would attribute the 20% difference.

And hop quantities, really just 5g here and there? Seems like too little, but I will take your advice, thanks.

Lastly, I did miss-read when to add. I will adjust my recipe later on and post it up with what you have all said.

Thanks, this could have gone horribly wrong. And I thought I was already well prepared!

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Oh, 1 more thing regarding hop additions. What is the done procedure?

Say during the boil I add my first 5g, into a small bag. Say after 20 minutes I add another 5g, into the same bag as before? No need to remove the first hops already added?

Lastly... after boil is complete and I cool.... Do I remove all the hops I added, during the boil? Then after a period, dry hop and start a fresh bag of hops that way?

Thanks

 

[Chrispy92]

Keep adding them to the same bag as you go. Keep them all in there for the whole duration then remove when youre ready to cool. I dont bag mine but rather use a large strainer over my fermentation vessel which i pour the wort through. It catches the majority of the hops, if any slip through they settle out in the fermenter anyway.

Fresh bag for dry hop, just make sure its well sterilized as it will be going straight into your beer!

 

[wilserbrewer]

I wouldn't rely on power level 5 to magically maintain mash temp. A mash will behave differently than a water test.

149 is the lower end, I would mash a few degrees higher your first time out to allow a little cushion on the low end.

Sort of like aiming for the middle of the target on your first shot, then dual n when you have some experience. lol. There was a poster a few days ago who fell short of his 149 goal and mashed in the mid low 140's

Too low IMO.

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Well, I plan to initially over-heat to 155 F (which is power level 6, for 4 minutes, once power level 5 has reached). That way, I add room temperature grains, it lowers a bit, but is still above 149.

I have a thermometer, if it at all dips below the magical 149, I can turn the heat on for a couple of minutes.

Perhaps I should start at 160F? then keep it on heat 5, then it shouldn't ever drop below 149 over the 75 mins?

It is a small body of water, fairly easy to keep at a good temperature (from the water experiments I conducted last night).

 

[Chrispy92]

if you insulate well, you shouldnt have to worry too much about temperature over the 60mins.

 

[tobiasbeecher]

I still leave the heat ON though, right?

 

[wilserbrewer]

I still leave the heat ON though, right?

If you need to, yes.

But as I tried to tell you before, your experience with water will be different than a mash.

A mash will heat up slower and retain heat longer, and may tend to overheat as its slow to respond then zooms up.

Some find placing the kettle in a warm oven a good trick to maintain a steady temp....

Stir well prior to checking temps as you may have hot at the bottom that needs to be distributed to get an a cutest temp.

You'll be fine. Cheers

 

[Chrispy92]

I still leave the heat ON though, right?

I havent left the heat on ever. A few times I have had my temperature drop a few degrees and I have learnt the best way to deal with this is to to turn the heat on and stir the crap out of the grains while its on, for two reasons: 1, to prevent the bag and or grains on the bottom from scorching and 2, to ensure you get good circulation and the thermometer reads a correct temp with the heat distributed throughout the kettle. With such a small volume of water you will find the temperature will jump backup very quickly within a few minutes.

Again this all comes down to fine tuning your system!
The only way to figure it out is to jump in and get started, let us know how it goes!

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Will do, just waiting for the yeast nutrient to arrive now. Thought I had some but I don't so now I am delayed.

 

[tobiasbeecher]

OK, so, I did it! I used the whole quantity of grain as per first post, mashed at around 155*F (I stirred so that I could be sure of no hotspots) for 75 minutes. Then I did the boil with the following hopa dditions:

10g mosaic @ 60
10g galaxy @ 20
12.5g azacca @ 10
12.5g azacca @ 0
25g el dorado @ 0

Crash cooled, within 30 minutes of an ice bath it was at 20*C. I made a starter with my liquid yeast (white labs 007). This really took off overnight, I then pitched it the following day.

Unfortunately, my 1 gallon bucket does not seal around the lid, so the airlock has no activity. But I can clearly see the krausen so I know its all good.

So far... it smells absolutely amazing. 10 times better than any kit I have brewed.

I plan to further dry hop tomorrow (2 days in, then 5 days in, then maybe 10 days in).

I expect it to be fully done in 2 weeks, I will immediately bottle, leave 2 weeks and crack open early (lots of dry hopping so its a drink sooner rather than later beer).

First time making a starter, really pleased I did. The yeast easily doubled in quantity!

Thanks for all of the comments, I will keep this updated with how it progresses.

 

[Chrispy92]

Sounds good! I bet it will come out delicious.

Did you take gravity readings??

 

[tobiasbeecher]

Yeah, forgot to mention that. I started with 6.3l water, ended up with around 4 litres. Added water to make up to 5l and came out at something like 4.99%. So... efficiency is very low, but I got the desired outcome!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Yeah, forgot to mention that. I started with 6.3l water, ended up with around 4 litres. Added water to make up to 5l and came out at something like 4.99%. So... efficiency is very low, but I got the desired outcome!

Don't read the potential alcohol scale off the hyrdometer, go by the gravity reading (a typical pale ale OG will be 1.045 to 1.060 or so) or brix. If the reading was 5% potential alcohol, your OG was actually about 1.038 (very low efficiency and low gravity for a pale ale) and will give you about 4%ABV. With the amount of hops you used (very bitter) it might be worth adding some DME to boost the gravity and ABV to give a more balanced beer.

 

[Chrispy92]

Don't sweat the gravity for the first beer. But this is the reason I asked about SG readings, if you had taken one before you topped up to 5L you would have seen the gravity was Lower than expected and maybe only wanted to top off to 4.5L. But what's done is done, let it ride and see if you like the final product.

I was also going to comment about dry hop layering (different times) in small batches. I've read the benefits of layering are lost in small volume beers (that's referencing 5 gallon as "small") and only adds significant complexity in large commercial scaled brews.

That said I have wanted to experiment with this, and probably will in the near future. So you'll have to let me know how it goes.

Also on that note adding dry hops risks increasing the amount of dissolved oxygen. The early dry hop won't make a difference and the yeast being relatively active will chew it up. But just be aware that adding multiple dry hops after fermentation has finished greatly increases the risk of introducing oxygen. I can imagine the rate of this happening would be amplified in a one gallon batch.

Just food for thought.... Update with results!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Don't sweat the gravity for the first beer.

Be aware that if you don't worry about the gravity, you'll have about a 4%ABV beer at about 160IBU's. That's like Mega Double IPA hop territory with a cream ale malt backbone. I.e. Undrinkable for the majority of the population.

 

[Chrispy92]

Be aware that if you don't worry about the gravity, you'll have about a 4%ABV beer at about 160IBU's. That's like Mega Double IPA hop territory with a cream ale malt backbone. I.e. Undrinkable for the majority of the population.

My bad I completely overlooked the amount of hops added....

 

[Sadu]

I just noticed this thread and thought I'd chip in since I brew 5 litre all-grain batches regularly.

First up, I have found the best way to maintain a stable mash temperature is to set the oven to just under your mash temp and put the whole pot in the oven. You can't do this with big batches but it's a really really great way of maintaining stable mash temps on small batches. Mine never fluctuate by more than 1 degree now. If your pot has plastic handles it might be a problem.

Also with small batches you can mash in a slow-cooker/crock-pot, with the slow cooker connected to a basic temp controller so it automatically comes on when the heat is needed. This works real good but you do need a large sized slow-cooker.

Oh, another trick. With small batches you don't have to mash in the bag. Just throw the grains and water in the pot and stir together. This means you don't have to worry about the bag getting scorched and I'm sure it gives better contact between grains and water. After the mash, you pour the grain into another pot or bowl using the bag as a sieve. I use the same large bag that I use for 5/10 gallon batches.

I'm glad you adjusted those bittering hops. 50g of bittering hops is a crazy amount in a 1 gallon batch. A respectable IPA should have about 50g total (with most of that being flameout/dryhop).

Good luck - it's a great way to brew. I just bottled a batch in 15 mins including cleanup.

 

[tobiasbeecher]

So, 2 days in, the smell is nice and sweet, malty, with some light hop background. Far less hoppy than it was straight after the boil.

I can't comment on the bitterness, I haven't and wont try any until bottling.

Regarding hop additions, I assume is it typical for late hop additions and people don't have issues with oxygenating? Are there any techniques I can use?