First BIAB today.

Hi guys,

Well what a massive day, my wife has broken her arm so that's kind of thrown this weekend into a bit of a spin to I didn't start brewing until this afternoon and just turned the burner off five minutes ago, it's about 8.30pm, I knew that if it happened any later I'd have to wait until another day.

I learned a lot today, first lesson was those big 1/2" fittings (my tap) need a larger shifter than I have, so I improvised with a set of multigrips and a cloth over the nut.

I hid the gas bottle attachment I need from myself and also hid the plumbers tape (used on the outside thread of the tap, to screw the tap onto the thread).

Just before the boil my wife asked me to run to the shops and pick up dog food and to grab some takeaway, so I briefed her on what was required, left a stopwatch and headed out, when I got back I was just in time to throw in the first hops (according to my wife), and fortunately I set the microwave timer to the next hops addition as when I went back to the watch my wife had accidentally turned the stopwatch off and turned the watch onto Berlin time (handy if you live in Germany but not of too much benefit brewing today).

Nelson Sauvin hops smell amazing, I just kept sniffing the hops today, such a nice aroma. I really like those light fruity styles of beers like Four Pines Kolsch (probably different hops but tastes great from the tap).

I need a better (Quicker) thermometer.

I did rinse the bag with an additional 1.5L of water that wasn't in BIABacus, Pistol might throw something in my direction, I'll have to figure out how that helps/doesn't help efficiency.

I just lifted the bag and dropped into onto a strainer over a pot, this works for a single batch but if I'm going to double batch I really need a better solution, maybe something like QLDKev's double bucket strainer off Youtube?

BIABacus was great to use, the hop addition calculations were awesome as my hops were 1.1AAU less than the recipe hops.

So anyway better go wash up, transfer to my fermenter (no chill, I'm just putting the wort into the fermenter then putting it in my fridge at fermentation temp, I'll pitch tomorrow arvo after work).

Cheers Pistol/Pat and everyone else that's helped me get this first brew boiling..

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PistolPatch wrote:Congrats nicko ,

on hiding stuff from yourself. I think all brewers do that .

Apart from transferring the kettle trub into the fermentor, another reason why you would have found yourself with extra wort in the fermentor is that you also added that extra 1.5 litres in. Your fermentor is very full so it will be an idea to try and reduce the volume as otherwise, it is likely to blow out the op of your fermentor and make a pretty huge mess of your fridge! You could even, if you like, transfer about half to your other fermentor and ferment and then once bottled, see if you can see and/or taste a difference between the 'truby' beer and the 'non-truby' beer.

As for the 1.5 litre 'sparge' you did, that is not necessary in BIAB and the only thing you would have achieved doing this is a slightly diluted wort. A lot of people are sparging in BIAB when they should not be. Any improvements they report are usually due to another factor that they don't realise. Have a listen to the podcast I did with Bob recently. It covers this at about the 32.5 minute mark for probably about 4 minutes. Basically, adding the extra 1.5 litres would have just resulted in you diluting the wort (eg more wort but lower gravity). This is not a biggie though, just on your next brew, forget that 1.5 litres.

If you had any time to record any numbers, keep them for future reference as one main aim in the early brews is to make sure there are no obvious problems. And, the more thermometers the better!!!

Good stuff Nicko .

Thanks Pat,

Good to know mate, there were a few times that I wasn't sure how much to stir etc but I think it generally came out ok.

I recorded pretty much everything, so I'll definitely learn from this and if I snag a great but more watery brew I can easily do it again, unfortunately the grain bill (from another club member as we're waiting for a bulk buy was slightly short on the pale malt). Not a huge difference but I guess it shows one of our scales is better than the other.

I wasn't sure if I should mill the torrified wheat (which was actually wheat flakes), so I did it anyway then googled later and found some people do, some don't, so I won't bother next time as that's five minutes I'll save. Next time I'll lay all the hops out too like Palmer does, I was doing them separately just before each addition.

I'll listen to the podcast this week, thanks.

Okay off to sleep, thanks mate!

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Ok this is embarrassing but I'll share it.

When I bought my fermenters I thought the guy knew his stuff and i never bothered to check, for K&K close enough was really good enough.

So after this batch I thought I'd overfilled my fermenter badly by at least 3-5L. Tonight I weighed my empty second fermenter (I've started weighing everything with my new cool electronic 0g to 5kg scales! Then I realised that I had accidentally put 25.4L of wort into the fermenter, whoops... Finally a stuff up to my advantage!

Ok embarrassing but I hope at least one new BIAB'er learns from my mistake!

Cheers.

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nicko wrote:Hi guys, so I pitched a pack of US05 tonight, I boiled some water and put it into a sterilised cup last night, covered in sterlised cling wrap and let it sit in my brew fridge so the pitching water and fermenter were both 18C.

OG was expected as 1.050 but was actually 1.042, so I think I either didn't shake the fermenter enough; or maybe because I didn't use a hop bag? I probably should have removed the hops as a quick taste tonight after measuring the OG and it's super hoppy, very bitter. I think it will turn into a nice beer, not as alcoholic as planned, but we'll see! It smells fabulous though.

The yeast seemed to like that water temp and it was doing really well after 20 minutes in the cup, so that's a win. I don't have any starter ingredients so it was just a straight water pitch. Should be okay though I think.

Next brew will be a Rice Lager from a guy on Aus Homebrewer, he sent me the recipe which was nice! I'll have a crack in BIABacus and see how I go, he has a staged mash which I think is largely irrelevant with a 90 min BIAB mash and boil, but I'm happy to be told otherwise. I've got tomorrow night at home so I'll look into that further.

Thanks.

In retrospect I didn't shake the fermenter enough, and the beer had been chilling in my fridge for two days before I pitched the yeast, anyway beer is bubbling along very nicely so I'm looking forward to bottling it and trying some!

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PistolPatch wrote:Your crush is fine. On your next brew, just don't do the rinsing.

Do a checklist on your BIABacus and post it here so we can check you aren't 'doubling' anything again .

You can't learn much/analyse anything from a single brew let alone it's numbers. Just follow the plan, collect what numbers you can, post them here and we'll tell you when to start analysing or worrying .


PP

Thanks

My main worry is that I'm going to drink it quicker than I can brew why god why?

Pacific Ale rough clone soon, keen to hear how Dazzbrew went with his version, saw it on the recipe page after I posted my version from an AHB member, you remember, the one with all the mistakes

Just got Clone Brews second edition, low integrity recipes for AG as it's aimed at extract brewers, but still there's some good brews to aim at. The dogfish head 60min IPA is apparently excellent, so I'm super keen to have a crack at that sometime...(but 90, BIAB efficiency, DMS etc). So maybe I'll just try their 90min IPA!

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BobBrews wrote:nicko,

Looks good! Your beer will be a winner. brew again! Get the pipeline rolling!

Thanks Bob,

I plan to! I have a mate's 40th on Saturday night, if I can move on Sunday I'll do a brew...

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Found it, thanks Bob. I learn something new everyday!

http://www.stempski.com/hop_vodka.php

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nicko wrote:I keg hopped tonight, I have about 9 litres in the keg approximately, and had 17 grams of hops left in one packet, so that fits the 1-2g per litre rule I read somewhere so I put the lot in, I didn't weigh down the bag or tie it with dental floss as I think the keg will get knocked over pretty quickly with visitors etc and I've read that quite a few people have skipped the dental floss and it worked fine.

I'm officially ignoring that keg for about a week though to see the difference those hops make to the aroma, should be fun!

Keg hop aroma was fantastic! It died off quickly but so did that keg

So as the dry hopping didn't last long, today I put a hop tea into the second keg which has approximately 15L of beer in it. I added approximately 200ml of hop tea that had been steeping for a minute max, then I added an another approximate 200ml of hop tea (same hops, just refilled the coffee plunger/French press with more boiling water, swirled to combine and added that to the keg too. I have heard that hop tea can introduce harsh initial flavours, hopefully I've avoided some of this by introducing the tea to an already chilled keg (3C), so the hop tea should have cooled quite rapidly.

I will try a beer in a week (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA as if I could last a week, I will try a beer now, then another each day and record my thoughts and let y'all know).

The main things I want to know is how much aroma and taste (maybe) this has added, has this added harsh bitterness or grassy flavours, and if so how long until these flavours mellow, and when will the aroma fade, if at all before the keg evaporates in this harsh Queensland humidity

Hop vodka is definitely on the cards Mr Brews!

cheers

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