Hardcore IPA Clone - Maxi-BIAB

So, set up the first brew on Friday past. Recipe below, followed by process and (in brackets) how many beers my buddy and I had had at each stage:

8.0 kg Maris Otter pale malt
20 AAU Simcoe hop pellets (90 mins)(48 g at 12% alpha acids)
20 AAU Warrior hop pellets (90 mins)(37 g at 15% alpha acids)
13 AAU Chinook hop pellets (0 mins)(28 g at 13% alpha acids)
2.0 oz. (56 g) Amarillo hop pellets (dry hop)
Safale US-05 yeast (1.5 qt./~1.5 L yeast starter)

Using a borrowed guide on Maxi-BIAB i used a 19L stockpot to heat 10.5L of water. Eventually managed to fit 7kg of grain and mashed at about 66C. Mash was meant to be 65C, so we'll see how this turns out... at the minute it smells amazing at 3 days fermentation. (We'd both had a Beavertown Skull King DIPA here)

Attempted to scale back all the hop additions too to match the lessened amount of grain.

After mash removed grains, dunk-sparged the bag in water at 75C in a plastic fermenter and added the sparged wort to the 19L pot. Brought it up to the 19L mark. (Both had a Buxton Two Ton DIPA and a William's Bros Double Joker DIPA)

Boiled this off for 90 minutes (as recommended) and added the scaled amounts of Simcoe and Warrior (divided the amounts by 8, multiplied by 7). (Proceeded to the normal beer and drank some Kirin and Peroni). End of boil took a gravity reading (didn't wear gloves: that was silly) and it leveled out at 1.020. I think that perhaps we read the hydrometer wrong, but we were a little bit tired and emotional at this point.

Headed to the bath to cool is down once the boil was done. Completely forgot to add the Chinook at knockout. Realised about 10-15 minutes later that it needed done, so lobbed them in whilst i was stirring it to cool it down.

Brought the mix down to 30C and then went to rack off into the fermenter.

The siphon was not the best, and stopped and started frequently and frustratingly. In the end it was taking far too bloody long so we ended up tipping the mixture (carefully, trying not to aerate) into the fermenter.

Time will tell whether this was a wise decision. What happened next (Laphroaig, neat) was definitely an unwise decision.

Pitched the yeast approximately five minutes later and allowed it to sit.

This was a helluva lot of fun and we're already planning our next project: an Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail clone. Any advice on scaling this recipe to fit a 19L stockpot with a BIAB approach would be appreciated...

8kg grain should get you around 1.100 OG, 10% ABV! If you made 19 litres.

That's based on 75% efficiency.

You need to read the hydrometer when the temp is down to 20C, or adjust the reading for the temp you took the reading at. And you should read it below 40C even if you do that.

I am impressed you managed to squeeze 7kg into a 19 litre pot..!

I was nervous about doing the 3.2 in my 15 litre.. Mind you it was hardly a flapjack with the finer mill but I didn't think I could get more in that..

I thought trying to get a hydrometer reading in boiling water sounded stupid! Jesus, my hands nearly got burned off!

If i take a gravity reading on Wednesday (when i intend to rack to the secondary) will this be ok?

ezraburke said:

I thought trying to get a hydrometer reading in boiling water sounded stupid! Jesus, my hands nearly got burned off!

If i take a gravity reading on Wednesday (when i intend to rack to the secondary) will this be ok?

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Well you wont get a starting gravity now as you have started it.

I don't think you're going to know what you had accurately now

ezraburke said:

I thought trying to get a hydrometer reading in boiling water sounded stupid! Jesus, my hands nearly got burned off!

If i take a gravity reading on Wednesday (when i intend to rack to the secondary) will this be ok?

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Ezra's Cohort/ secondary brewer here. He's actually left off about 3 beers from the list we drank. To say we were on our way by the mid point would be putting it lightly. Glad it may still work out.

Cheers for getting back so quickly. Great site.

Something else I noticed when you said you transferred to the FV you tried not to aerate,.. You actually WANT to aerate prior to pitching.

Did you pitch the yeast at 30ºc? what are you fermenting at now?

MyQul does the Maxi BIAB method and I am sure he says he struggled (although not a problem for him ) to get strong brews with a 19 or 20l pot.. I am wondering whether that mash was a bit too thick ? You won't know this because of you never got an accurate reading..

Fermenting at about 22C, 25 is optimal for the yeast apparently. Trying to keep the temp up!

Will take a FG reading anyway, see how ridiculous it is... :)

25ºc optimum for US05? That cannot be right.. maximum perhaps but I would keep well away from that

I have a brew with US05 now going at about 19ºc

Try keep it to 20 if you can.

You need to do some reading. :thumb:

And check your plans by asking on here of course.

Covrich said:

25ºc optimum for US05? That cannot be right.. maximum perhaps but I would keep well away from that

I have a brew with US05 now going at about 19ºc

Try keep it to 20 if you can.

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Now, bear in mind we were quite well on... the packet said 25C. I wonder if that was the upper limit now... :whistle:

clibit said:

You need to do some reading. :thumb:

And check your plans by asking on here of course.

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Methinks, the creation of the brew took second place to the consumption of some fine already finished products.:drink:

clibit said:

You need to do some reading. :thumb:

And check your plans by asking on here of course.

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I did my homework with Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing but planning and consumption (over-consumption at that!) kind of waylaid it. Still, awesome fun.

Yeah I think the next one will involve a little less :drunk:. I think it went much better than expected (so far) for a first attempt.

We'll for sure post on here for advice with the next brew.

Thanks for the advice so far guys.

Well you both jumped in at the deep end so well I guess respect for that.. and had a bit of fun by the sounds of it.. I do think there is a few things you might want to look at for your next brew, not saying this one is ruined by the way and hopefully it will still turn out okay.

I think primarily you made two errors I think the mash was way to thick 7KG in 10.5 litres of water and whilst I don't know how accurate this is but using online conversions can give you but 1020 converted from boiling down to 20 gives you about 1060 whereas you was probably looking at 1080+.. I make it about 50% efficiency - if that is the case (like I say I dont know how accurate you can covert boiling gravity to 20ºc) then you will end up with an ABV more in the 5% range as opposed to 8%

The other thing is the pitch temp if you pitched at 30 and left it to cool down I hope it cooled down quickly because if it started fermenting in the high 20s which it might go off quickly , it will give off some funky flavours.. My first ever brew I brewed at 25 unbeknown to this and... it gave off a funky flavour.

Good luck with it anyway hope it turns out well.

ezraburke said:

Now, bear in mind we were quite well on... the packet said 25C. I wonder if that was the upper limit now... :whistle:

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I think 20C is about ideal for US05.

You want 2.5 litres of mash water per kg. Unless you do BIAB, in which case it's more like 6 litres per kg. Actually just all the required water in with the mash. Which usually works out around 6L/kg.

Thanks Covrich. Deep end is best... Sink or swim!

Yeah and it's so much fun, we'll keep going until we get it right.

:

Ok, 7 days after pitching the airlock is fairly quiet. Aroma coming out of the airlock is delicious, so took a gravity reading. Hydrometer pretty much drops to bottom of the test vial, and we tasted the beer. As per the schedule it's a bitter beer and because we probably fudged the mash a little there isn't great amount of sweetness in the malt. My issue is that the beer smells of simcoe hops but doesn't taste of them - any thing we could do here? Intending to bottle next Friday.