1st Attempt at BIAB

[stevey]

Hi all, I'm writing this up pretty late as I've just finished my 1st mash and sparge, and I'd like to get this down while its fresh in my mind, so that other kit brewers can see how easy BIAB is, and maybe have a go themselves.

So, inspired by clibit's how to, I went to my lhbs to get some grain. I really like hoppy IPA's atm so with minimal research I bought 3kg of maris otter and 1kg of crystal 60. (I had no idea there were lots of different crystal malts, so I went middle for diddle :???: ) and a 100g pack of chinook hops (leaf).

I also bought a pack of S-05 yeast and a straining bag (cos I'm far too lazy to make one and swmbo wouldn't let me have a net curtain)

Carrying on the theme of doing things **** about face, I then downloaded brewmate and sort of made up my recipe out of the stuff that I'd bought.

 

[stevey]

If you can't read that, its basically all the grain I bought and some of the hops. I planned to make 17 litres cos I didn't really buy enough grain, then changed my mind and decided to puff it up to 23 litres with some brewing sugar.

I can't really remember how I came up with the timings of the hop additions, but as you can see I ad libbed that as well, just because I thought that from the start of the boil to 5 mins from the end of it just seemed too long.

I heated my strike water up to 72 C and tied my bag to the pot (I already had a 19 litre pot, but no lid as I cut a hole in it for something else :wink:) and tipped my grain in.

The temperature after addding the grain was 67 C. So I didn't use the kettle of boiling water or the jug of cold water I had ready to raise or lower the temperature.

I stirred it a bit, then wrapped it up in a sleeping bag to do its thing for 2 hours, giving it a stir half way through.

 

[stevey]

After the 2 hours, I removed the bag, placing it on a large sieve on top of a bucket I bought from wilko for £1, ready for sparging.
I put the wort on to boil and at the same time started heating water in the largest saucepan in the house (about 3 litres).

For those worried about a heat source, you probably can't see in the pics, but I used a camping stove to boil my wort (the ones that use the little aerosols of butane) which cost about £10 in halfords and the gas was about £1 a can from B+M. It got to a rolling boil in about 40 mins (from 60 odd deg). We have an induction electric hob which takes an ice age to boil anything more than a couple of pints of milk.

The pic shows the amount I was left with after removing the grain bag. After sparging, (I put my 3 litres of boiling water in the bucket, and dipped the grain bag into it and also I boiled a couple of kettles and poured that over the top. After strangling the bag when it had cooled a bit I had around 20 litres of wort, which of course didn't fit in my 19l pot and as I was a little worried about a boil over< I topped up to about 18 litres and saved the rest for later.

I discovered that it will boil away quite happily with less than an inch of space in the pot, so I'll top it right up next time.

 

[stevey]

The boil. - Not half as scarey as I'd imagined. Hops added as per recipe, plus my revisions. A teaspoon full of irish moss (which is not moss at all, apparently its seaweed!) was added 15 mins from the end to help clear the beer. I added 500g of brewing sugar (dextrose) just before the end of the boil, just to bump my sg up cos I wanted 23 litres.

 

[clibit]

I'm loving reading your AG experience, it warms the cockles of my heart. :thumb:

 

[stevey]

I haven't got a chiller and we're on a water meter so I thought I'd go the no chill route and bought a couple of cans off ebay for £8 (free delivery). I poured my wort into the bucket through the sieve and then, using a funnel, poured it into the can. I diluted the wort with the boiling water and ended up with approx 23 litres at 1046. I wanted 1050, but that was close enough for my 1st attempt.

 

[clibit]

Excellent! :

 

[stevey]

Hopefully it will have cooled enough to pitch the yeast tomorrow.
I'm sure I will get beer, whether its drinkable or not remains to be seen, as the recipe was just sort of cobbled together with the desire to get 23 litres.

Next time I will definitely work to a proper recipe (someone elses).

It was definitely easier than I thought it would be thanks to all the fantastic knowledge on this forum. It does take quite a while but most of the time, your sitting around waiting for it to do its thing, but somehow its much more exciting and satisfying than doing a kit.

For anyone thinking of having a go, I'd definitely recommend it, I didn't even have to buy any extra equipment apart from the bag and the bucket.

I'll update in around a month as to whether I get a drinkable product, but I'll probably get another on the go in the meantime.

Hope I haven't bored too many of you :-):drink::thumb:

 

[stevey]

Thanks clibit, you were my inspiration :thumb:

 

[rodabod]

I think you are on to a winner there. Recipe sounds good. For leaf hops, I'd give the dry-hop 5 days as they take a while to soak in and have a tendency to float around the top.

The US-05 will batter though that, especially the dextrose obviously, so you should have a good final ABV.

 

[MyQul]

I'm loving reading your AG experience, it warms the cockles of my heart. :thumb:

I thought Darth Clibit had a counter flow chiller, not a heart

 

[Smileyr8]

I'm loving reading your AG experience, it warms the cockles of my heart. :thumb:

Congrats Stevey,

Keep us informed on how you get along. I keep looking at having a go myself, I have a couple of 18 ltr stock pots and my worry of having to use both or using just the one and it making a proper mess (I was planning on doing this on the electric cooker top). I ideally need to end up with 20 ltr as my brews end up in Cornies. I was also planning on using the no chill method, well when I say no chill the plan was to chill it down to pitch temperatures in the brew fridge that I am in the middle of assembling.

I was also planning using the BIAB method and a overnight mash but am thinking/wondering if I could forget the bag and just filter through the net curtain to my second stock pot.

I also like IPA's so occasionally may need to get ABV's up to maybe the 6% mark.

Any thoughts anyone.

 

[Tony1951]

.

<Next time I will definitely work to a proper recipe (someone elses).>

<For anyone thinking of having a go, I'd definitely recommend it, I didn't even have to buy any extra equipment apart from the bag and the bucket.>

<Hope I haven't bored too many of you :-):drink::thumb:>

Great to hear about your experiences and not boring at all.

I can't read the times for the hop additions on your photo up top so I'm not sure how you adapted that, or your thinking in making the changes. Maybe it was about adapting the recipe to the 'no chill' method.

Anyway - I expect that like me, you'll not go back to the cans once having done it this way. I gave away three Cooper's kits to a friend's lad yesterday. He's just starting out so he can use them.

I was also planning on using the no chill method, well when I say no chill the plan was to chill it down to pitch temperatures in the brew fridge that I am in the middle of assembling.

With an 18 litre pot, you might be able to cool in the sink. I know you have two of them to cool, but it might work one at a time. Also those cheap plastic boxes for storage might work with a hose pipe outside if your pots won't fit in the sink. Just stand the pots in the box of water and flow more cold in from a hose pipe like chilling in a large sink.... Just another possibility for cooling. Then, if you fancy carrying a big pot of boiling wort upstairs, there's the bath..... Not sure how safe that is.... A trip on the stairs could be a disaster, and I'm not thinking about the carpet.

 

[GlentoranMark]

Difference is like night and day, you'll never go back.

Clibits thread is amazing. What I done for my 2nd ever AG was make 2 mashes from my beer. First (main) wort was mashed and while it was boiling, I mashed a 2nd, weaker brew from the same grains and added some table sugar to beef it up. My 2nd brew ended up at 3.5% but actually tasted better than my main beer.

I cooled in the sink but tried a no chill method last week and it seems fine.

Great read Stevey, hope yours is a success.

 

[clibit]

Steven, there are options for using your two 18 litre pots. Before going through it probably makes sense to test out how much water you can get boiling in one pot on your cooker.

 

[Tony1951]

Steven, there are options for using your two 18 litre pots. Before going through it probably makes sense to test out how much water you can get boiling in one pot on your cooker.

Good point. It took me an age to get about ten litres boiling. I'm not sure it would ever have boiled 18L, or whether I would have lived long enough to wait for it to get up there.

 

[MyQul]

Good point. It took me an age to get about ten litres boiling. I'm not sure it would ever have boiled 18L, or whether I would have lived long enough to wait for it to get up there.

Whereas on my cooker hob it takes about 40mins for me to get about 18L boiling

 

[stevey]

After giving the wort 2 days to cool, I poured it into the FV from a height to ensure good aeration. Somehow I ended up with over 25 litres, which only left about a half inch of headspace in the FV.
I then pitched the US-05 (wort temp was 22c). By this morning I hadn't seen any activity whatsoever, only the thinnest krausen I'd ever seen (which given the headspace, was probably a good thing in hindsight).
I know my lid isn't 100% airtight but I expected to see some airlock acvtivity.
Thinking the yeast had failed, I decided to take a sample for the hydrometer this morning (Wednesday). It was down to 1012! After only 3 days!
Is US-05 always this fast? It could become my favourite yeast, having overtaken a youngs american IPA thats been fermenting for 10 days

 

[Spapro]

I've used US05 a few times and it never has created much of a krausen for me. I suspect all is well and your lid just isn't airtight - I don;t use an airlock now, its just summat else to clean. I would leave well alone for a few days then take a hydro reading to check its moving in the right direction.

 

[Cwrw666]

Sounds like you're having a good experience. I've done 8 AGs so far after starting AG earlier this year. A couple of indifferent East Kent Goldings single hop pale ales, 3 truly excellent brown ales, a dry Irish stout I've just barrelled but can tell it's going to be nice, an AG kit - homebrew company Olgas Oregon Stout which ended up very nice indeed - and one I thought was a failure, an attempt at oatmeal stout that came out kind of brown and lacking in stoutiness, but I'm on the last few bottles and they're now tasting really quite good. Either I've got used to the taste or it's improved with time considerably. Deffinitely never going back to kits.
Next one is going to be a Fraoch - Scottish heather beer - which I must get on soon as the heather hereabouts is well in bloom.