First BIAB Brew. Hobbins Ascension Ale

[Hobbins]

AG#1. BIAB. American Pale Ale

OVERVIEW

Style: American Pale Ale
Name: Hobbins Ascension Ale
Yeast: White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001
Original Gravity: 1.052
Total IBU’s: 30.8
Efficiency at End of Boil: 81%
Mash Length (mins): 90 (Actually overnight)
Boil Length (mins): 90

VOLUMES/TEMPS

Vessel Volume: 30L
Water Required: 23.1L
Mash Temperature: 65C
Volume at End of Boil: 15.1L
Volume into Fermenter: 12.3L
Brew Length: 11.98L
Total Grain Bill:

GRAINS – COLOURS – PERCENTAGES AND/OR WEIGHT

Grain 1: Pale Ale Malt, Maris Otter – 5 EBC – 76.9% or 2,391g
Grain 2: Munich Malt – 18 EBC – 15.4% or 479g
Grain 3: Cara Amber – 60 EBC – 7.8% or 243g

HOPS

Hop 1: Citra – 15AA% - 11.9g at 60 min
Hop 2: Citra – 15AA% - 15.1g at 20 min
Hop 3: Citra – 15AA% - 17.1g at 5 min

ADJUNCTS/MINERALS/FININGS

Finings: ¼ tablet of Whirfloc at 10 min

So on we go with the first ever brew with grain. This is a variation of a couple of recipes I saw on the BIAB forum. Altered to due to the fact the hops and grains were the ones I could get hold of and I wanted to get a brew on this weekend. I initially made a brew bag for a 25l fermenting bucket that I was going to turn into a boiler.

I then proceeded to make the boiler and used the wrong sized hole saw by mistake and ruined the fermenter #-o

So I then though I'd go a bit bigger and got a 30l fermenter which I proceeded to make into boiler. I'll post some pictures of all it's gubbins in one of the equipment sections, but here it is in it's finished state.

So I'm using the slightly too small bag in the new boiler, I've cut off the top of the old fermenter and lowered this into the 30l one, it wedges in the top quite nicely.

Grains

In they go with help of my son

Doughed in

Because of the strange double rim bucket bag contraption I'm loosing a little heat from the top of the bin so a sleeping bag is helping to keep temps in

I'm going for an overnight mash as it's 21.20 and I've been fitting a bathroom all day and I'm too knackered to stay up. Up early for the boil off. V. excited :lol:

 

[BigYin]

Nice :

I love the 'heath robinson' approach to brewing (that's not meant as a criticism by the way!) - if it's not quite right, bodge it as best you can, within your budget and timescales, and so long as it doesn't leak all over the floor, generally it works out great :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Looking forward to the pics of the rest of the brew :drink:

 

[Vossy1]

Well done on your 1st AG H :party:
Hope the rest of the brew went well H, great pics so far

 

[Baldbrewer]

Good work , would like to see the colour of this one.
Nice socks too!

 

[Jeltz]

Good luck, I too am an overnight masher and BIABer just because it suits my schedule.

Really loving this AG brewing, now that I have a couple under my belt its becoming a lot more straight forward. Just tweaking things to better fit my equipment now.

Have fun and just take it steady, and tick things off as you go along.

 

[tazuk]

mmm cira just love citra i also started doing over night mash welcome to the dark side he he

go and get your self a bottle of oakham citra 0000000000000 yessss

 

[Hobbins]

I've had some of the Oakham Ales Citra, imagine my delight when I saw these hops in my LHBS! Very pleasant pint!

Sorry to say those weren't my socks, they were my sons which has much better socks than I.

Thanks for all the comments. The brew went without a hitch, I'll post the rest of the pictures and a summery if I get time this evening otherwise it'll be tomorrow. Got 14.5L approx in the fermentor at 1.052. Lovely pale colour too.

 

[Hobbins]

... the next morning, I uncovered the boiler at 07.55 it was sitting there at 50C. So then I raised the temps to 78C to mash out and this was completed by 08.12. I left the grains in the boiler for a further fifteen minutes and then raised them out using the bucket rim contraption thingy. Pleased to say the home made net bag worked a treat.

I then decided to sparge the grains with a couple of litres of water at 80C. My thinking behind this was that the overnight mash may have eeeked out a few more sugars so a bit of a sparge wouldn't hurt and I'd get a bit more wort into the boiler.

Then to the boil...

The boiler went on at 08.34 with an estimated 22.5 litres of wort. I hadn't quite got round to calibrating the fermenting bins and used the scales printed on the sides as a guideline. The pre boil gravity was 1.044 and the colour was spot on. The boil started properly at 08.44

Hops were added as indicated in the recipe and a two thirds of a level teaspoon of whirlfloc and the immersion cooler added 10 mins before the end.

As you can see the cooler although looking lovely sticks out the top of the boiling wort by quite a way, there was enough to bring the temps down quickly enough but I will alter when time allows to have two interlinked coils sitting below the surface. Although when I inevitably start using a larger boiler it may may come in very handy :hmm:

So the boil ended at 10.14 and on went the cooler and off went the foam insulation from the outside of the boiler

The estimated volume at the end of the boil was 18L. By 10.32 the cooler had cooled the wort down to 30C and all the proteins? had started to clump up nicely

I then left it to settle for 20 minutes. I made a couple of mistakes here. Firstly, I thought that leaving it to settle for 20 minutes and then running it into the fermenter it would lose about 8C-10C so I could pitch the yeast straight away. It didn't, it lost about 3C and then I had to stand the fermenter in a sink full of cold water to get it down to temp. Secondly when I emptied the boiler I started off by opening the tap a third of the way as I didn't want to pull through a load of the crud. This worked, but I don't think I should have worried as the filter worked very well (stainless steel mesh flexible tap connector thingy) by the end of drawing off the wort even with the tap fully open it was a piddly trickle. I think next time the tap will go fully open from the off and let the filter do it's thing?

Didn't need to use the sieve either

So into the fermenter went 14.5l approx of soon to be beer at 1.052 BANG ON!

With the overnight mash and the sparge I think hitting targets was more luck than judgement but I'm very pleased with brew. The photo is a bit dark, the colour of the wort is slightly lighter than shown.

 

[Hobbins]

Please feel free to post any suggestions, tips, anything as this was my first brew anything constructive is most welcome.

The yeast was pitched and this was the result

keeping at 20C in the kitchen, thinking of fermenting out till stable then into secondary fermentation for a week then priming and bottling the lot and maybe even enter it into the Spring Thing. Nothing like a some constructive criticism from professional beer tasters :

 

[RobWalker]

Wort looks flipping great man. good work!

 

[Hobbins]

Cheers! :

 

[BigYin]

Good work :

Do look into better insulation if you're going to continue doing overnight mashes - the key is to make sure the temperature doesn't dip below 60c as under that temperature it's possible for any infections present (and there might well NOT be any!) to develop.

I use foil backed bubble wrap - sold in the DIY stores as radiator insulation I think - others have had good success with 'tank jacket' sold for domestic hot water tanks :thumb:

 

[Hobbins]

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to properly fit the closed cell foam mat to the boiler soon. Also get another layer on the top. I like the idea of a water tank cover. I'll look into that.

If an infection got in during the overnight mash would it not be killed with the boil the next day?

 

[Jeltz]

Yes it would be killed off during the boil but it might already have created some off flavours which would still be present in the final brew. However if the mashing was done in a reasonably air tight situation I don't see where an infection would come from in the 1st place.

Also I thought that it was 50C that you wanted to keep it above. Here is an interesting article.

 

[Hobbins]

There is a slightly sour smell to the batch at the moment. It's still bubbling away nicely so I'll have a taste when I come to do the gravity check. It may just be the hoppiness which is a bit "green" at the moment.

 

[Asalpaws]

Interesting first brew, love your equipment, your wort chiller is mint!

I BIAB and fancy the idea of overnight mashing. I was always a bit worried about tannin extraction if I did this with a BIAB mash. Will be interested to hear how this turns out.

Thanks for the good link Jeltz, does anyone get this brewing mag?

 

[Hobbins]

First taste from the sight glass near the end of fermentation is good! I'll keep you updated on progress. The wort cooler looks ace, functionally it sticks out the top of the boiling wort so it's not brilliant but it works, a bit of tweaking when I have some time will sort it.

 

[Hobbins]

Just bottled this lovely creation. It's been sat in demijohns dry hopping with Citra for a week and I've now got 21 bottles of lovely APA to savour.

Had a glass (that was left over) and it tastes really nice, just like the Oakham Ales Citra but flat as it's not been bottled and a bit "green".

I know it's my first AG brew but I've entered it into the Spring Thing just to get some feedback from qualified boozers, sorry I mean judges