Hengoedbrewer
Regular.
I had my first go at BIAB on Sunday 9th June. It was the first time I have brewed in best part of 2 yrs so I was a bit nervous anyway, plus it being an entirely new process, and I had spent a fair bit getting the ingredients /mash bag / new pot together, and didn’t want to mess it up!
As it was a first attempt I went for a 10 litre simple single hop (Citra) with 2kg Maris Otter and 250g light Crystal Malt, using a portable induction heater to brew on rather than our brand new main induction hob. It all went relatively well, I think. The induction hob heated the strike water-6.5 L of bottled Aldi water- to 70c in a few minutes. From there I mashed in half the MO and all the light Crystal malt, and stirred for about 10 minutes, adding the remaining MO afterward with another 10 min stir. The Temp fell to 63.2c, I think due to a long time stirring, so I added about a litre of hot from the kettle, then wrapped the pot in a towel. The mash temp when I checked it an hour later was 62, so perhaps a little low to mash- this means I might get a thinner end beer as I understand it?? but seeing a video on Youtube which indicated that mash temp is not always super critical; and as it was a first go; I tried not to worry too much.
Once 60 mins was up, I drained the bag for a few minutes and then batch sparged, both in a spare FV. Sparge was a further 6.5L of bottled water at room temp (easier for me as I only have one induction suitable pot for now, and another video told me that using cold water actually makes very little difference when sparging). I squeezed the bag like hell and by the end managed to get about 13L in total from the initial drain and batch sparge. I didn’t tie the bag tight enough during sparge and so some of the grains ended up loose in the fermenter, which I will note next time. I also neglected to take a pre boil OG which I will again remember to do next time.
The induction hob got the wort to a good strong boil easily enough and maintained it. I added 15g of Citra at 60 mins to bitter, then a further 20g at 5 mins, then a final 10g once wort had dropped to 80c. From here came the worst part- it took absolutely AGES for the wort to get down to borderline yeast pitching temp, probably about 2 hours. I used about 3/4 of a pack of Safale US05 sprinkled over. I don’t have a chiller and was using just the sink of cold water method. Next time I will begin to cool immediately rather than waiting for it to drop to 80c on it’s own and THEN cooling, to try and speed things up. I eventually pitched yeast at about 7pm when wort was at 20.2c, making it a very long first BIAB brew day overall (about 6.5 hours). Before pitching I strained the wort using a sterilised sieve into a second sterilised FV. The OG was 1.054, which was higher than I was expecting as I had guessed at only about 65% efficiency, but I did as I say squeeze the bag thoroughly a few times! I ended up with about 10.5L of wort in total following the boil. Sample was darker than I was expecting, and didn’t smell all that hoppy. I didn’t taste at this stage. I popped the FV in a water bath, and connected up an inkbird set to heat if temp dropped below 20c, with the probe taped to the side of the bucket and insulated with bubble wrap over the top. The water bath was popped it into the porch, which is the coolest room in the house, with no radiator, and a black rubbish bag over the top to keep the sun off it. We went away for a week on the following day until the 17th, when I came back I had a quick look the CO2 had pushed the lid up- there didn’t seem to be any krausen which has worried me slightly but apparently it depends on yeast, ferment temp, etc, so have left it alone.
It has now been fermenting for 9 days as I type. Will check gravity on Sunday (meaning 14 days in FV), and then dry hop with a further 15 or 20g of citra for 3-5 days once I know fermentation has finished. I will then bottle with about 70g of table sugar in a priming solution, leave for 2 weeks in my garage to condition, then sample.
Overall- no boil overs or disasters I don’t think, looking forward to tasting…I hope it ends up okay as it was a long day; which hopefully I can reduce next time. I plan on doing a BIAB stout next, incorporating some of the lessons learned this time, with the aim of a quicker brew day, as not sure how many days I will have the luxury of no toddler running round my legs for that long!
Cheers!
As it was a first attempt I went for a 10 litre simple single hop (Citra) with 2kg Maris Otter and 250g light Crystal Malt, using a portable induction heater to brew on rather than our brand new main induction hob. It all went relatively well, I think. The induction hob heated the strike water-6.5 L of bottled Aldi water- to 70c in a few minutes. From there I mashed in half the MO and all the light Crystal malt, and stirred for about 10 minutes, adding the remaining MO afterward with another 10 min stir. The Temp fell to 63.2c, I think due to a long time stirring, so I added about a litre of hot from the kettle, then wrapped the pot in a towel. The mash temp when I checked it an hour later was 62, so perhaps a little low to mash- this means I might get a thinner end beer as I understand it?? but seeing a video on Youtube which indicated that mash temp is not always super critical; and as it was a first go; I tried not to worry too much.
Once 60 mins was up, I drained the bag for a few minutes and then batch sparged, both in a spare FV. Sparge was a further 6.5L of bottled water at room temp (easier for me as I only have one induction suitable pot for now, and another video told me that using cold water actually makes very little difference when sparging). I squeezed the bag like hell and by the end managed to get about 13L in total from the initial drain and batch sparge. I didn’t tie the bag tight enough during sparge and so some of the grains ended up loose in the fermenter, which I will note next time. I also neglected to take a pre boil OG which I will again remember to do next time.
The induction hob got the wort to a good strong boil easily enough and maintained it. I added 15g of Citra at 60 mins to bitter, then a further 20g at 5 mins, then a final 10g once wort had dropped to 80c. From here came the worst part- it took absolutely AGES for the wort to get down to borderline yeast pitching temp, probably about 2 hours. I used about 3/4 of a pack of Safale US05 sprinkled over. I don’t have a chiller and was using just the sink of cold water method. Next time I will begin to cool immediately rather than waiting for it to drop to 80c on it’s own and THEN cooling, to try and speed things up. I eventually pitched yeast at about 7pm when wort was at 20.2c, making it a very long first BIAB brew day overall (about 6.5 hours). Before pitching I strained the wort using a sterilised sieve into a second sterilised FV. The OG was 1.054, which was higher than I was expecting as I had guessed at only about 65% efficiency, but I did as I say squeeze the bag thoroughly a few times! I ended up with about 10.5L of wort in total following the boil. Sample was darker than I was expecting, and didn’t smell all that hoppy. I didn’t taste at this stage. I popped the FV in a water bath, and connected up an inkbird set to heat if temp dropped below 20c, with the probe taped to the side of the bucket and insulated with bubble wrap over the top. The water bath was popped it into the porch, which is the coolest room in the house, with no radiator, and a black rubbish bag over the top to keep the sun off it. We went away for a week on the following day until the 17th, when I came back I had a quick look the CO2 had pushed the lid up- there didn’t seem to be any krausen which has worried me slightly but apparently it depends on yeast, ferment temp, etc, so have left it alone.
It has now been fermenting for 9 days as I type. Will check gravity on Sunday (meaning 14 days in FV), and then dry hop with a further 15 or 20g of citra for 3-5 days once I know fermentation has finished. I will then bottle with about 70g of table sugar in a priming solution, leave for 2 weeks in my garage to condition, then sample.
Overall- no boil overs or disasters I don’t think, looking forward to tasting…I hope it ends up okay as it was a long day; which hopefully I can reduce next time. I plan on doing a BIAB stout next, incorporating some of the lessons learned this time, with the aim of a quicker brew day, as not sure how many days I will have the luxury of no toddler running round my legs for that long!
Cheers!
