First BIAB - English IPA

Hi folks,

A relative newbie to brewing (I've done a few of the Cooper's kits in the past but was a little underwhelmed with the results so haven't brewed for about 2 years).

Then I was bought https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brewing-Britain-quest-perfect-pint/dp/0593076575 for Christmas and it brought back the desire to brew. I highly recommend the book BTW.

So my first dip into AG/BIAB. I wanted to brew smaller quantities so I chose to start with the English IPA grain bill from Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes. First I just halved the volumes then adjusted it to compensate for the BIAB mash efficiency.

Starting liquor volume: 17.5L

Target Batch size: 12.5L

3kg Pale Malt
100g Crystal Malt

35g Challenger 6% @ 60 min
17g Golding 4.7% @ 15 min
17g Golding 4.7% @ 0 min

Safale US-05

Target OG 1060
Target FG 1017
Target ABV 5.7%

So the day went well. My temperatures were a little all over the place but hopefully I can control those more as I get more brews under my belt.



Mashed at 70 but dropped to 65 after an hour, I was aiming for 68 and I did a mash out for ten minutes at 74 (was aiming for 75).




Boiled for 60 minutes





Then chilled




Took hydrometer reading, bang on 1060 and the colour looks good too.



Lessons learnt from by first BIAB:

• 3.1kg of grain is quite heavy once it's been mashing for 1 hour
• Mashed grains smell great!
• When pouring the wort into the fermenter, I used a sieve and a mash bag to filter out the hops. The sieve wasn't big enough so after a while no liquid was getting through. Have since bought a bigger sieve.

Question

I pitched the yeast on Saturday and nothing happened for 24 hours, then I check it on Monday and there was pressure building in the fermenter as the lid is showing signs of pressure. I check it again today and it's about the same, the air lock isn't bubbling at all but there is what looks to be a krausen ring around the top of the beer. So I'm guessing it's fermenting. Can anyone see where I might have gone wrong? Or make suggestions as to why the airlock isn't bubbling? it's currently fermenting at 20c.

Looks like a nice recipe. Don't worry about the airlock, it's no good for determining fermentation because often the FV lid isn't airtight. Leave it for a week then check the gravity, I've no doubt it will have fermented, then leave it for another week before bottling.
Btw good job hitting your target OG and volume, I think I managed about 55% efficiency with my first brew.

Well done, don't worry it will kick off. My first AG brew was only about 58%.
My latest one, yesterday, managed 68% and It's now only just started fermenting.
You will just love the beer in a few weeks time!
Cheers :)

So it's been a week and I took a hydrometer reading yesterday and it came in at 1022, which is higher than I'd like (I'm aiming for 1017). Do you think it's likely to drop anymore in the next week? I'm planning on bottling and mini kegging with suger for carbing, is there a chance that when carbing it'll drop a few more points? Also, I think there might be yeast floating on the top (although it could be grain which got in there by mistake). How likely is it to be yeast which just hasn't got going? I had a wee taste yesterday and it tastes fine.

Stick ya lid back on and leave it alone for anothet week then re test it.
My first foray's into biab were ok but efficiency was poor. Far better results now with dunk sparging:thumb:

Your higher mash temp may have give you some unfermentable sugars, I mashed my first stove top brew at 70 degrees (not reading enough before hand) and couldn't get it below 1.028.

As Chub has said another week definitely won't hurt - and will most likely clean up your wort.

Enjoy when it comes to drink time.

(I'm also an Edin Brewer).

Cheers guys, I'll do as suggested and not worry too much and leave it another week. Thanks for the help! :) :drink:

So bottle/key day today. Checked the gravity and it has dropped to 1020 so not a million miles away from 1017.

It's got a nice colour to it IMO. I'm wondering if the additional sugar in the beer should be a concern in regards to bottle bombs? I primed with a 1 teaspoon of sugar into 500ml bottles and 17g into a mini key.

So I've cracked one open after a week (I just couldn't wait). The colour and aroma are good. It's a little on the sweet side but I guess that's down to the amount of crystal malt I used.

The only issue with it is, it's hardly carbed. I know it's only been a week and the recommendation is 4 but I would have expected more carbonation than I got. It had the tiniest amount of pressure and once poured had very few bubbles and no head. It's been stored in somewhere which was around 6/10C, the recommendation is 12C. If I move the bottles to somewhere slightly warmer, will it activate the yeast or is there only a certain amount of time, once bottled, that the yeast will do anything?

EdinBrewer said:

So I've cracked one open after a week (I just couldn't wait). The colour and aroma are good. It's a little on the sweet side but I guess that's down to the amount of crystal malt I used.

The only issue with it is, it's hardly carbed. I know it's only been a week and the recommendation is 4 but I would have expected more carbonation than I got. It had the tiniest amount of pressure and once poured had very few bubbles and no head. It's been stored in somewhere which was around 6/10C, the recommendation is 12C. If I move the bottles to somewhere slightly warmer, will it activate the yeast or is there only a certain amount of time, once bottled, that the yeast will do anything?

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I personally kept my bottles in around 20 degrees and they carbed up to where I wanted them in about 10 days, try warming them up a little if you want to accelerate it a little :)

Move it somewhere warm, I carbonate next to a radiator in the dining room, it's only on low and I give it two to three weeks before I move it into the garage. It should perk up on its own but you could upend each bottle once or twice to disturb the yeast, don't know if it'll make any difference but it certainly won't harm

Definitely warm them up, same temp as you fermented at


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Thanks for the advice. I cracked another bottle out at the weekend, having moved them to somewhere a little warmer, and it was slightly more carbed. Another week or two and it should be grand.