BIAB Stout - Advice please.

[Kyle_T]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

After what I am hoping to be a successful move I will be seriously considering switching to AG brewing using the BIAB method, I have been toying around with recipes but still dont really know what I'm doing, I modified one of the Graham Wheeler ones and I'm hoping one of you lovely people will be able to point me in the right direction.

I used the recipe thingy on here:
recipeview.php?recipe_id=1798

I haven't worked out how to copy the whole table yet, If that is possible here?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Kyle.

 

[fbsf]

Hi - and congrats for moving to the "dark side" :)

I would drop the black malt back a bit - you've got a colour of 70SRM - that is very dark - most stouts would be up to around 40-50 (or around 80-100EBC) and it might be a bit too much.

Dropping it down to 250g would still give you an SRM of 44ish, but you wouldn't get as many burnt flavours.
Of course, if that's what you are looking for, go ahead! :

 

[Kyle_T]

Thanks for the congrats,

I dropped the Black Malt to 225g to give a SRM of 50 on the dot. I also upped the Marris Otter to 4.54kg to keep it at 6%.

I don't think I'll bottle the first one just in case but I've seen a 32L pot I can afford and use at the new place.

I feel a big hole in my pocket already :P

 

[artyb]

i did a biab snpa,
from a kit from the maltmiller ,
there is no need to change anything,
as at the end of the day biab gives the same results as a 3v set up,

 

[pittsy]

Hope your day goes well , here is some free easy software http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe# it's in American units just click on metric and adjust brewing volume to 23L . If you add style of brew at the top and add your grains etc it will give you an idea of what your brewing (look at the slide bar at the side) Beersmith is a great brewing software but has to be paid for while hopville is free. :)

 

[bunkerbrewer]

I'll drop in a recommendation for BrewMate too. It's free and has a "BIAB brewday mode" which helps you estimate your starting volumes.

With BIAB, the amount of water you start with is quite important :) You won't get it right first time, but keep records of volume and gravity all each stage so you can fine-tune the grain absorption, boil-off rates and boiler losses.

Good luck with AG#1 :)

 

[fbsf]

I don't think I'll bottle the first one just in case but I've seen a 32L pot I can afford and use at the new place.

Be a little wary of "budget" stainless pots - I bought a set of 4 off of ebay (a 19L, 14L, 11L and 8L IIRC) for about £35, and although they do what they say on the box, they are extremely thin steel.

This has the downside of radiating a lot of heat back out from the boil, meaning I was having trouble getting the 14L pan to keep a rolling boil on a 4kW wok burner ring.

In the end I gave up on the budget shiny and went for a 33L FV-based electric boiler. It's been perfect since day 1 and comes with a hop stopper, tap and lead.

 

[calumscott]

This might be of interest to you Kyle?

 

[Kyle_T]

Thanks Calum, very good read, just looking at those sums has given me a migrane. Me and maths dont get along.

 

[calumscott]

Then download the spreadysheet! It's got a built-in mathsalator... just plug in stuff like the size of your pot and it does it for you. :thumb:

 

[Kyle_T]

I certainly will, just need to find a suitable boiler, can't decide between the two I'm looking at.

 

[bunkerbrewer]

I certainly will, just need to find a suitable boiler, can't decide between the two I'm looking at.

The bigger one :)

Or, start a thread asking about the pros & cons of each, you might get a more informed answer than that :)

 

[Kyle_T]

I've narrowed it down to a 32 litre stainless steel pot with a tap and strainer or one of those electrim 33 litre boilers. I should be in the new house within a fortnight so I shall put a thread up then.

 

[calumscott]

If you are going for 23l brews you'll need to go bigger... You need at least 40l for a full length BIAB.

 

[bunkerbrewer]

Exactly right, I do 23L BIAB brews in a 40L boiler and with a biggish grain bill the mash is pretty close to the top. I'm usually starting with about 32L water before adding the grain.

 

[fbsf]

Could you not put a smaller amount of mash water in, then batch sparge in an FV to get up to volume? You could then get away with a 33L boiler.

I know it's not strictly single-vessle BIAB, but it's what I do and it seems to work ok...

 

[Kyle_T]

Don't get too complex now, this is all new for me lol

 

[calumscott]

Could you not put a smaller amount of mash water in, then batch sparge in an FV to get up to volume? You could then get away with a 33L boiler.

I know it's not strictly single-vessle BIAB, but it's what I do and it seems to work ok...

You could, but I would argue that by getting a big enough boiler to do "standard" brews @ 5 gallons, you then have the ability to use that technique for "big" beers @ 5 gallons... :thumb:

 

[Kyle_T]

Had a look at The Malt Miller and found his 50 Litre boiler, sadly it is out of stock at the moment but dropped him an email about it and put in a good word for here.

 

[calumscott]

Chances are it's only "out of stock" because he hasn't got any ready built.

He's usually got a good stock of blank pots and will build it to your spec. :thumb: