My 1st AG 10L BIAB, not complete disaster!

Hi all

Just finished my first AG biab brew day!

Went mostly to plan, as unlike most things in my life I actually made a plan. Didn't wrorry too much about timings, just doing stuff in the right order. There were a few hiccups documented at the end.

Recipe (10L):
2kg Maris otter
100g caramalt
10g centennial @60
5g centennial @15
5g cascade @ 15
Bit of Irish moss @ 15
5g centennial @ FO
5g Cascade @ FO

6g SA-05 yeast

That was the plan anyway, ended up splitting it into two pots as my 12L wasn't ever going to boil.


Here's the report. Can't get phptos to work annoyingly, will only upload one (looks like I used iPad upside down to take them too!). Mods any idea why that is?

Like my flowery pot? Belongs to mother in law.

Prep:
Weighed it all out, labelled hop additions so I wouldnt forget what was what later.

Mash: easy enough. 6L water. I didn't bother treating water at all.Faffed about with kettle to get water to 75ish.

Left for an hour under a duvet, it didn't lose any heat!

Drained into an fv. Fortunately an old pizza cooking tray (with loads of holes in) fitted the fv perfectly so I was able to plop the bag on that and squeeze all the wort out.

Sorta sparge:
Then did a bit of a dunk sparge as per clibits AG how to, 80c. Drained into same fv with pizza tray set up.

Boil:
First cock up. Put two pans on cooker to heat up so I didn't lose heat to the cold pan metal. Forgot the one had had the wort in, burnt the residual wort onto the bottom of pan. Big black stain on pot. Mother in law will not be happy, need to get metal scourer before returning pan.

Anyway, scrubbed most of it off, hopefully won't taste it in brew.

Because I had two pans on the go, they boiled at different times, so I had to plan out the timing for hops for each pan separately.

Anyway, got all that done, not sure I got a good hot break, so loads of gunge still in pans.

Cooling:
Cooled pans in the bath, returned to new sterilised fv. Ended up with about 7L so topped up to 10L with cold water.

Take OG and pitch:
Gravity was 1052, if I get 75% attenuation I should get. 5.2% beer. taking gravity was a faff too as I hadnt factored in the fact that the wort wasn't deep enough for hydrometer and I don't have a sample jar. Anyway tipped it up til hydro was bobbing and got reading.

Gave it a good stir to aerate, a bit of yeast nutrient and the sa-05 went in.

Now waiting for lift off!

V satisfying morning, surprisingly easy. A lot of trub already in fv, hope I don't lose too much beer to it.

Will report back in due course!

Someone will probably remind me of something Critical I forgot to do, but hey, you live and learn.

Big ups to Clibit for the inspiration and of course everyone else who I've learned from on here...I'll raise a glass a bit later to the first of many AG brews!

Over and out.

Nice one! Hope it turned out ok. I tasted my first 10L ag yesterday, think it's still a bit green but drinkable....

Good post ps love the pot!!!!:lol:

Flower power. Should have done a Flowers ipa clone!

Nice one dude! Mega how it sticks in the pot when you turn it upside down!! I know what you mean about the 12 litre pot. Is it the Wilko one?

Dave

@crewe, no, it's just the biggest pot my in laws had! Wouldn't have opted for the floral design if choosing myself. It's not really big enough. I'll probably do one more AG brew like this with it, Then upgrade to some decent kit when my shed arrives in April. Going to get a 30L with tap and hop filt already built in, gas burner etc.

That sounds great! Looks like all went well, it's downhill all the way now! Trub is a natural hazard of BIAB but settles down after fermentation, just siphon with care.

Yeah, if I lose a lot to the trubblesome trub I might just up the brewlength on my next batch to compensate. Surprised I got the efficiency I did too. I was only going to do 1.9kgs MO, then though, what's the point in that, and chucked the lot in plus the 100 caramalt. Never mind, I fancy this one having a bit of potency to it. Also going to dry hop with the cascade.

What weight for the dry hop? 5g 10g?

Go with 5 and see how you find it.

Snap.

I did my first 10 litre BIAB today to. Except (and as above you always have to think on your feet) mine was an in and out of the bag. Basically the bag was too small for the grain. So I spent the whole of the mash hour thinking I need to get them out. So when the time was up I did and then used a colander to strain it.

I know what you mean about the bargain stock pot. Took about an hour to heat up 6 litres of water. It was actually OK for the 12 litre boil. Checking afterwards I noticed that the bottom of the pan is slightly concave. So when it is full it presses down and makes a good contact with the hob. Is there a way to push the bottom out ?

Going to get a bigger bag.

Looks good to me. Am well interested in doing a small-ish AG using a 15L Wilko pot and a slightly smaller FV.

The steady improvement in quality from:

• Basic kit
• Basic kit plus DME
• 2 Can kit
• 2 can kit plus hop addition
• Kit plus steeped grain plus hop addition
• Kit plus Mini mash and hop boil

Has convinced me that AG (or PAG) is the way forward.
10L brews seem quite practical, and might be done with little further annoyance to SWMBO.

Slid, trust me, there was much further annoyance to SWMBO.

10L stunk the house out as much as any other volume, and the whole process took about 4.5 hours. Plus there was the malty mash aroma too.

Oh and I forgot to clean the cooker afterwards. And made a joke that my grain bag was her underwear. The kids thought that was hilarious mind, totally worth it.

Took me a few hours too but I'll be able to do it quicker next time. Particularly now I know that it heats quicker when the pot is full as it pushes the bottom of the pot down to make better contact with the hob. So I'll heat up the water for the mash and the sparge at the same time and put the sparge water into a 8 litre pan and then heat it up a bit before the sparge.

No activity in the airlock this morning :-(. Thinking back I didn't stir in the starter yeast (which had a nice foam), just whacked it in and put the lid on. I did wonder if it had just sat on the top. An inspection this morning shows it has a crust with some big soapy bubbles so I'm assuming something is happening. Either not enough to register on the bubbler or it's not airtight, might shove some vaseline around the grommet. I'm tempted to replace the lid with cling film so I can watch it. When you use cling film do you just unwrap it and stick it on ? It must be clean already mustn't it ? How would you sanitise it ?

Not done the cling film option so can't help, soz. presumably you just chance it from the sanitising front?

Mine's blubbing away merrily now. I read on a U.S. microbrewery blog (bear-flavored.com, worth a read though the guy is obsessed with sour beers) that oxygen kills hop aroma so I'm just going to leave this til I've had a few days of no airlock activity then dry hop, and resist peeking completely.

I've also realised that I'm going to need to get a sample jar...as mentioned in op the beers too shallow for hydrometer, and I don't want to keep tipping up the fv to get a reading...hadn't thought of that. Will put in an order now!

Never done cling film myself, think I would just whack it on.

All is ok. In the absence of a bubbling airlock I listened to the FV, nice fizzing sound going on :-)

The FV is one of those 10 litre white food containers with the yellow lids from fleabay that someone posted on another thread, 8 quid for five. I sorted another out with an airlock and did some tests. They don't appear to be airtight as there is a gap between the top of the container and the top of the recess of the lid but it looks like they could be adapted. I'm going to try getting some food grade filler, make a bed of filler in the groove of of the lid and let it set. The top of the edge of the container should then seal ok. I'll post an update.

Must say I do like the idea of cling film as I'd love to see what is going on.

Completely airtight isn't necessary, I reckon. Neither is an airlock. Either use just the lid or use cling film if you want to watch what's going on!

How well does clingfilm stick to a plastic FV?

I have this mental image of Katie Boyle picking up Twostage's FV, top covered in clingfilm and waving it around inverted above her head, saying something like - "see-it's amazing!" as 23 kg of fermenting liquid are held up by an almost frictionless contact betwixt clingfilm and fermenter.

Only one result me thinks.

I reckon you're right! I think the Aussie glad wrappers fasten it in with a rubber seal taken from inside the lid of their fermenters. Do Coopers FVs have these?

clibit said:

I reckon you're right! I think the Aussie glad wrappers fasten it in with a rubber seal taken from inside the lid of their fermenters. Do Coopers FVs have these?

Click to expand...

Like a big laggy band ?

Maybe a length of net curtain springy cable would do the job.

The Katie price thing could become the FV challenge :p