New BIAB Brewer

[chay17]

Hi all,

I am aiming to follow a recipe from a book I have outlining a 'Honey Porter' and have already purchased and received the 4.2kg of grains I need to make a 23 litre batch. However, i am now regretting the large first attempt and want to half the grains but they have come pre-milled and vacuum sealed in a bag. Would it be terribly stupid to half all the grains? Would I badly lose the integrity of the measurements if I did this?

Thanks

Note: I also haven't purchased a boiler yet, and now think I would much prefer to get a 16.5l pot for smaller batches due to budget

 

[Kent88]

Personally, I wouldn't try halving something that came all mixed together.

I'm a nitpicky kind of person. I would feel like the chances that I'm getting half (or even close enough) of each kind of grain in the grist in my mash tun would be small.

But can it make beer if you just make sure that everything is sufficiently mixed up? If the base recipe was good, then yes. Will it be drinkable? Probably. Will it match up with what the recipe developer intended? Maybe...

We might be able to give you a better idea if you give us the full recipe.

 

[chay17]

Thanks for the reply man,

I've just gotten a 16.5L pot for the boil and am going to try and work something out with what I have. Here is the full recipe (I'll try list everything):

EXPECTED OG - 1048 EXPECTED FG - 1009 ESTIMATED ABV - 5.2% BITTERNESS RATING - 19.8 IBU COLOUR RATING 50.3 EBC

FOR THE MASH

Liquor 10.5L Mash 1HR Temperature 65C

Grain Bill:
Pale malt - 3kg
Light crystal Malt - 500g
Vienna malt - 400g
Carafa special III - 200g
Chocolate malt - 100g

FOR THE BOIL

Liquor 27L Boil Time 70MINS

Hops:
Fuggle 4.5% - 23g (add start of boil)
Challenger 7% - 15g (add final 10 mins of boil)
Hallertau 6.9% - 15g (add at turn off)

Other:
Protofloc - 1tsp (last 15mins of boil)
Honey - 500g (last 5mins of boil)

TO FERMENT

Fermentation 18C Conditioning 5 weeks at 12C

Yeast:
US Safale-05

So now my goal is to attempt to brew this by weighing out a portion of the pre milled 4.2kg of grain to get an amount that will be useable in my 16.5L kettle. I would love to bottle at least 9.5L but now I'm just not sure how to divvy up the measurements.

 

[Washington_Brewologist]

Here's a tip from someone who had to learn the hard way. If you're serious about getting into brewing beer buy yourself a bigger kettle. I went from 5 gallons to 8 gallons and finally decided that 10 was just right for the 5 or six-gallon batches I want to brew. If you're really concerned about scaling down this recipe (Which sounds good by the way) get a copy of beersmith!

Brew on my friend!

 

[RM-MN]

Hi all,

I am aiming to follow a recipe from a book I have outlining a 'Honey Porter' and have already purchased and received the 4.2kg of grains I need to make a 23 litre batch. However, i am now regretting the large first attempt and want to half the grains but they have come pre-milled and vacuum sealed in a bag. Would it be terribly stupid to half all the grains? Would I badly lose the integrity of the measurements if I did this?

Thanks

Note: I also haven't purchased a boiler yet, and now think I would much prefer to get a 16.5l pot for smaller batches due to budget

It's pretty likely that the grains were milled sequentially rather than mixed so you probably do not have a homogeneous mix in the bag. You might do OK if you mix the grains yourself (perhaps in a bigger container) but there is no guarantee that you will get the exact results.

If you plan to continue brewing for some time, spend the money now to get the proper equipment (bigger kettle, good burner) and then amortize the cost over the years you plan to brew. Don't "cheap out" now or you will pay twice.

 

[chickypad]

There's nothing wrong with doing small batches. In the last few yrs I've downsized to exclusively 9-10L batches (final packaged volume). If you think you might be upsizing in the future I agree with trying to buy just once, but if you're unsure you should be able to get a relatively inexpensive 19L pot which is what I use. I wouldn't recommend smaller than that, as it is I usually need to sparge to get 9.5-10 L finished (with boil off and trub losses I need to start with about 14-15 L boil, that would be too close for comfort in a 16.5 L pot). You probably want a 22.5 L pot if you want to do full volume mash and get 9+ liters finished. With the 19L pot I just brew on the gas stovetop, no extra burner needed.

I think if you just mix your grains really well like in a large bucket where you can really stir it will be close enough. Certainly enough to make good beer, you've got plenty of base malt in there that I wouldn't worry about the percentages being slightly off.

 

[chay17]

Here's a tip from someone who had to learn the hard way. If you're serious about getting into brewing beer buy yourself a bigger kettle. I went from 5 gallons to 8 gallons and finally decided that 10 was just right for the 5 or six-gallon batches I want to brew. If you're really concerned about scaling down this recipe (Which sounds good by the way) get a copy of beersmith!

Brew on my friend!

I have got a copy of BeerSmith, now I just need to work out how to scale the recipe down!

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

May I offer a suggestion? www.biabrewer.info