Mini BIAB

[warnie]

Hi, I'm hoping someone here can help me?

I've got a 22.5ltr Pot to do BIAB. The plan is to do a Mini BIAB then move onto maxi. I was going to get a few recipes together then along with a 25kg bag of Marris otter get whatever else I need. I was looking at getting the ingredients from Rob at the Malt Miller or the Worcester Hop Shop. Anyway whilst comparing prices I noticed that the Worcester Hop Shop do ready made ingredients for 23ltr brews including Bathams Bitter and Timothy Taylor for just £9.99, so I gathered this is probably the best way to go whilst I find my feet.

My question is, I was planning on ordering a 4 or 5 brews to make the most of the postage, and would be brewing say once a week or every other week. Now will these ingredients keep this long? and more importantly can I do the 1st brew by splitting the ingredients in half? or would this ruin the balance of the beer?

I would prefer not to have to do a Maxi BIAB to start with as I haven't even done an extract brew yet so only have experience of kits.

Thanks in advance if anyone can help :

 

[RobWalker]

yep. keep open hops in the freezer. worcs used to do me 1/2 size kits on request, they may do the same for you :)

my suggestion is to mash up around 3kg of grain and see what gravity you get and go from there. i easily handle 23L brews on a 29L boiler with around 4kg malt by filling my boiler to the top when mashing and liquoring back to 23L. i've found the australian way to be...well, wrong. I can easily get 23L @ 1.050 without any sparging, so give it a bash.

 

[rpt]

The ingredients will last fine, especially as each set of ingredients should be sealed in their own bags. Make sure you seal any opened hops in a zip lock bag and put it in the freezer. However, I'd suggest it would be easier to get the ingredients separately and weigh them out for each brew, since you aren't planning to use them all. Have you seen the BIABacus? It's a spreadsheet that makes it easy to scale your recipes and can handle maxi BIAB adjustments.

 

[warnie]

yep. keep open hops in the freezer. worcs used to do me 1/2 size kits on request, they may do the same for you :)

my suggestion is to mash up around 3kg of grain and see what gravity you get and go from there. i easily handle 23L brews on a 29L boiler with around 4kg malt by filling my boiler to the top when mashing and liquoring back to 23L. i've found the australian way to be...well, wrong. I can easily get 23L @ 1.050 without any sparging, so give it a bash.

Thanks Rob, so what volume roughly would you think I would get out of my pot without doing maxi-biab?
I ask this as if I could get around 15-16l that would do me.

 

[warnie]

The ingredients will last fine, especially as each set of ingredients should be sealed in their own bags. Make sure you seal any opened hops in a zip lock bag and put it in the freezer. However, I'd suggest it would be easier to get the ingredients separately and weigh them out for each brew, since you aren't planning to use them all. Have you seen the BIABacus? It's a spreadsheet that makes it easy to scale your recipes and can handle maxi BIAB adjustments.

Thanks rpt, I've just downloaded the BIABacus, but it looks scary! so I'm going to study it tonight having just the one beer so I'll take it all in

I think you and Rob are right re buying the ingredients seperately. I want to get the graham wheeler book but thats gonna have to wait as SWMBO is already bulking at what I've spent already. Is there anywhere else I can use for recipe's until then?

 

[RobWalker]

I get about 17L without liquoring back with a 29L boiler filled to the top - that's with grain absorption, boil off and the bit you lose to hops/**** at the bottom etc.

I wouldn't want to go much lower than that. If you want a higher quantity, add more malt when you're mashing, 1.060 @ 17L is easily achievable, probably not much higher though, I'm not sure! Then just add some water afterwards :thumb:

 

[andyd]

Warnie, for recipes, there a plenty on the forum (look top left of this page). Another ready source is

www.hopandgrain.com/homepage.aspx

Hope this helps.