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1. Topics

   1. Dealing with evaporation indoors

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Intermediate Brewing

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      So we got a small place rented out all for brewing! Yay. :champ: It's a small wooden building with concrete floor, an old sauna. I've just started thinking that if we boil two large brews there back-to-back in one day, and evaporate something like 20+ liters of water into the ceiling, won't that cause problems...? So what are our options? I was thinking if we would put up a plastic tarp above the kettle, with one corner lower than the others, would the condensating water drip nicely down from...

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      An urn is one of those large electric coffee pots, right? Urn is not a common term over here in the United States, and not for that...
      
      Okay sounds good. I would still be cautious about brewing inside unless you have a good system to get rid of the steam / moisture. JMHO.
      6 Replies
      17426 Views
      Scott
      9 years ago
   2. Mashing thick, adding water before boil?

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Intermediate Brewing

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      I've been trying to find a way to up the volumes of our batches. I've even been thinking about going conventional , with a separate mash-tun. We just made a maximum batch of 1.052 wort today, it was just there up to the brim of the kettle, and our VFO was about 40 liters, so we could have ended up with maybe 35 liters VIF or so. I would like to get a 50 liters VIF, and it just dawned on me that could we make a really thick mash and add water after before boil? Would that work? Or does the...

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      So I'm basically having a quite a poor efficiency, wasting malts so to speak? No, your efficiency is fine. What you have forgotten is that this is a very big beer with an OG of 1.071. The BIABacus, unlike all other brewing software, lowers your kettle efficiency for high gravity beers and raises it for low gravity beers. (Change the gravity in Section B and watch what happens in Section P.) Actually I've been building a cooler mash tun (embarrassed to admit it!) just because of this problem,...
      11 Replies
      14284 Views
      PistolPatch
      11 years ago
   3. 2 micron airstone/ aerating wort

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Fermentation (Wort to Still Beer)

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      So I got this 2 micron steel airstone, but I started thinking is it enough of a filter by itself? Bacteria can be down to 0.5 microns in size. My plan was to drive room air through it with an aquarium pump, but now I'm not sure. They also sell those 0.5 micron stones, but what are they for? Somewhere I read that o.5 microns is for pure oxygen, and 2 microns for normal air? Why is this so?

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      I aerate with pure oxygen, not sure if it's better than regular air but after sitting in a NC cube for several weeks I like to give the wort the best possible chance of becoming beer.
      
      ---Todd
      7 Replies
      9564 Views
      thughes
      11 years ago
   4. Recipes from Terry Foster's "Brewing Porters and Stouts"

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Creating Your Own Recipes

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      So I got this book a while ago,and would live to try out some of the recipes,but I'm not at all sure how to convert them to BIABicus. He gives this info on the recipes:
      -they are for a finished volume of 5 gal
      - grain yields are based on 65% efficiency
      - mash times 90 min.
      - boil volume 5.5 - 6 gal
      
      Hmmm. So is there anything here to work with?

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      I'm short on time atm onke, so can you possibly type everything you know or posted above into a BIABacus file and post it here? Anything you don't know, please blank out*.
      
      *I'm assuming you probably already have a lot of the above in a file ;).
      7 Replies
      12342 Views
      PistolPatch
      11 years ago
   5. irish red/advice PLEASE.

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brew Day Stories and/or Pics

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      Brewed Ruabeoir from BCS today. Everything went smoothly until I decided to start improvising. The original plan was to go no-chill,but As there's a lot of snow here,I thought that we'll chill the wort in no time by digging the kettle into the snow bank. I rehydrated the US-05. After boil there was about 40 liters left in the kettle and we carried it outside,waited for 15 mins and took a temp reading which was something like 82C! We eere in a bit of hurry by this time,and I thought it'll never...

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      Mine came out quite dark as well... I'll probably adjust the recipe next time
      10 Replies
      13432 Views
      safebrew222
      11 years ago
   6. Request: a nice'n'grainy double bock

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in BIAB Recipes

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      Any nice tried and tested recipe's in this style? I like Paulaner's Salvator a lot, only downside to it is the high alcohol, but I guess you can't have it all all the time?

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      Actually,after having a few pints of Salvator a couple of days ago,and with the memory of that surprisingly bad hangover still clear in my mind,I'll probably settle for an ordinary bock.... 1.086... ouch
      4 Replies
      8145 Views
      onkeltuka
      11 years ago
   7. Scaling up

      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Intermediate Brewing

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      Haven't brewed for a while because of Finnish winter, but now we might get a small space rented out for brewing, so it's time to start planning. There's been a lot of interested people asking about our beer, and this is really beginning to look like a club soon, maybe 6-7 persons willing to invest into equipment and materials... the problem off course then being that we need more beer.
      
      Currently we have this 72-liter kettle which we heat with a 11.5 kW gas-burner. I think the biggest batch of...

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      Really good questions all of them... we'll have to have a serious discussion about all of them with our club .
      5 Replies
      7520 Views
      onkeltuka
      11 years ago
   8. Adjusting my water

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      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brewing Water

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      I've gotten quite a good water analysis from a friendly chemist at my local water plant. My water is very soft, and I would like to amend it with a touch of gypsum (calsiumsulfate), to bring up those two ions. I just wanted to check my thought pattern here: I will calculate the addition to the final amount of liquid left in the kettle, yes?
      
      I have been learning to use and it's quite handy once you understand what's what.

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      Getting back to this water stuff. One thing I can't get my mind around is this: when calculating mineral additions in BW, I calculate the mineral amounts based on the TWN, but once I'm done boiling I might have only 60% liquid of that left, so won't I end up with hugely concentrated amount of minerals in that smaller volume of wort?
      
      Found this response today from the Martin, figured it would be a great addition to this thread.
      
      onclick= window.open(this.href);return false; ... ost6581444...
      29 Replies
      42555 Views
      Rick
      11 years ago
   9. How to add sugars to BIABicus?

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      by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Creating Your Own Recipes

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      I have a recipe that has sugar as 10% of the fermentables. How do I add that to the BIABicus? The spreadsheet tells me to go to section Y, but what to do there?

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      I had a couple of sips,but with all the yeast mixed up and all it wasn't too great.
      26 Replies
      26916 Views
      onkeltuka
      11 years ago
   10. Two latest brews

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brew Day Stories and/or Pics

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       I bottled today the barley wine, that was 1.113 OG and today 18 days later FG was 1.018, which translates to about 12.5% ABV. I'll wait for six months at least before opening the first one. It came out quite light colored, a dark orange, and there were some tones of raisins and toffee starting to emerge already. It was fizzing and gushing a bit when I siphoned it, so I hope I didn't bottle soon-to-be small glass bombs...
       
       Last weekend I brewed a cream ale, Weed,feed and mow from Brewing Classic...

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       Nosco, that is Correct, for everyone who Uses LDK and does not use PPG.
       10 Replies
       11349 Views
       joshua
       11 years ago
   11. Better Bottles

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Fermentation (Wort to Still Beer)

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       I hope this belongs here.
       
       I've been looking at those BB's for a while, they seem like the ideal option between glass carboys and plastic buckets. They come with all kinds of options for taps and airlocks and what not. My question is should I buy just the standard bottles or are the taps etc. worth the extra money?
       
       EDIT: actually it dawned on me when I went and read a post about no-chilling cubes and plastic resin stamps, that I have available these 18.9 litre clear plastic bottle that are...

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       I have been using BB's for about 5 years,
       and while I virtually never brew now,
       I can say they are great,
       but the northern brewer monster mouth ones look bloody excellent.
       also dont dump hot wort into a better bottle, as it will create a short and painful piece of performance art.
       9 Replies
       12180 Views
       sinkas
       11 years ago
   12. Number three: the rye-out APA

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brew Day Stories and/or Pics

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       OK, our first own original recipe. I tried to take more measurements today. We calibrated the kettle with a steel ruler.
       
       The mash went really smoothly, the temps stayed within a degree of 66 for the whole 90 mins. We mashed-out at 78 for ten minutes. I took the first gravity reading after that, was 1.048 (expected was .046). After that the FWH-hops, 36 grams of 12.5% Citra. I took another reading at flame-out, this time stirring well before scooping the sample. It said 1.062 (expected 1.060)....

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       Thanks Mally! The onkeltuka nickname goes way back to teenage years, when I had a really wild hair style. It doesn't really translate well... Finnish is a weird language, I have often times hoped to be able to hear how it sounds to a foreigner. It keeps surprising even me sometimes, it just dawned to me a couple of weeks ago that our word for world , maailma is literally earth-air ...
       
       I've been trying to learn Russian as well this summer, that's a difficult too. But it's always easier to...
       10 Replies
       11987 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   13. Measuring mash temperature

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in From Mash to Lauter (Water to Sweet Liquor)

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       I've done four brews now, and it's coming clearer with each one that taking temps is a very complicated issue.
       
       So, you have a large kettle with a bag full of grains in it, the whole mass is heated from the bottom up, but in between there's that large layer of grain. So when you want to mash at 66, where do you measure that from?
       
       In all my brews the temps have gone down a few degrees more after adding the grains, than what the BIABicus calculates. After that I turn the flame on again to bring...

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       Short on time but this might help as well. So, you have a large kettle with a bag full of grains in it, the whole mass is heated from the bottom up, but in between there's that large layer of grain. So when you want to mash at 66, where do you measure that from? RULE: You must always agitate/stir the mash before taking its temperature otherwise you are just measuring a pocket (as Contrarian mentioned.) In all my brews the temps have gone down a few degrees more after adding the grains, than...
       4 Replies
       15164 Views
       PistolPatch
       11 years ago
   14. Sodium percarbonate

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Cleaning and Sanitisation

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       I bought a box of sodium percarbonate. Could I use it to soak my siphon and hoses? What would be a proper concentration?

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       hmm.. mine says purity >30%. Maybe I'll use 50g/liter? I've been using it today to clean old labels off of bottles. Some labels come off so that you are left with a sticky layer of glue; percarbonate takes care of that quite nicely.
       3 Replies
       12170 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   15. Chilling and whirlpooling

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Chilling

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       I've now brewed three times, and one thing's that has started to puzzle me is how to combine a whirlpool and a coil chiller? Using a coil chiller in an unmoving liquid results in the cold part settling down, the hot part rising up, and the whole process of chilling getting quite slow and inefficient. Mostly due to us brewing outside I've been hesitant to keep the kettle without the lid to stir the wort while chilling. So a whirlpool of some kind would sound very good, maybe with a pump? But how...

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       A plumber friend promised to source me some copper tubing, so I hope I'll have a new one soon,so I'll just keep this small one in case I end up doing some stove-top mini-biabs or the like in the future.
       8 Replies
       17744 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   16. Saving files in BIABicus

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Your Feedback

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       When trying to save a file on BIABicus (I run it on LibreOffice), I get a re-type password - prompt? I have to run a long list of unclicking the ask a for password or something like that, before I can save the file? Is there a fix to this?
       
       Thanks!

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       I personally use MS Office and have no problems as long as I right click to save and name the file.
       5 Replies
       15350 Views
       jhough
       11 years ago
   17. Making an APA from scratch

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       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Creating Your Own Recipes

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       Me and my brewing pals were thinking that it would be nice to try a very basic recipe from scratch . I tried to calculate a malt bill based on the DGB. I calculated everything based on a 30 liter volume, but that said, I'm not sure if that's to fermentor or volume of ambient wort ? Anyways, 30 liters is what I would like to get to fermentor. Could I enter it like this to BIABicus and let it scale it for me?
       
       I aim for an OG of 1.060. Grains based on my calculations supposing (an imaginary)...

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       Thanks PP. I didn't see this before we brewed today, though, so I went on with just the FWH- addition and the next ones were at 5 mins left and then a flame-out hop stand.
       
       EDIT: A very good article. I notice that I may have my beer styles mixed-up; I've always thought of an APA as that beefed up English IPA, but seems that I was wrong? What I'm meaning with an APA is an American IPA, I guess.
       28 Replies
       26689 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   18. When to take "into boil"-gravity?

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in From Mash to Lauter (Water to Sweet Liquor)

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       The title says it all; at what point should I draw that sample?

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       Or you can rattle PP's chain and just use a refractometer!! :angry:
       
       :P
       
       Another thing to remember is that 'Gravity into Boil (GIB)' should always be coupled with a 'Volume into Boil (VIB)' measurement as what we really want to get from these two numbers is a pre-check on our kettle efficiency. VIB and GIB are hard numbers to measure so we can't give them too much weight. All they can do is act as a pre-check, our first kettle efficiency reading.
       
       Anyone who has tried to take a Volume into...
       5 Replies
       14683 Views
       PistolPatch
       11 years ago
   19. There went my BIAB virginity

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       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brew Day Stories and/or Pics

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       Uh. It was a long but fun day. I've spent the last month or so preparing for this first brew, and I think that it went quite nicely.
       
       The recipe was All Amarillo APA, with Amarillo substituted to Cascade.
       
       We began by adding 14 grams gypsum, 8 grams Epsom salt, 2 grams sodium chloride and 2 grams of chalk, so we ended up what Bru'nwater spreadsheet defines as Pale Ale water profile. It was quite a lot of powders so I got a bit hesitant, but the water tasted nice so I just went ahead and...

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       Going back to post #3 you said:
       hmmm. Itś 16 hrs later and no bubbles.
       
       Besides the prior comments.. wort temp and pitch rate play a big part here. But something you can consider is that one of the byproducts of fermentation is CO2.. which is what you are looking for with the bubbles. In the early stages of fermentation, that CO2 is being absorbed into the beer and it's not until it is somewhat close to a saturation point at your fermentation temperature that it will start being released to...
       31 Replies
       30184 Views
       HbgBill
       11 years ago
   20. Number two

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Brew Day Stories and/or Pics

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       It was time for the Schwarzbier today. Or Black Ale, actually, I guess. We had our new two-ring 11,4 kW burner, and everything went quite smoothly. Only at strike-in the temps fell all the way to 61, but we got over that quickly.
       
       I tweaked the recipe so that we would end up with 27 liters into the fermenter, but probably because of the more vigorous boil we ended up losing so much liquid to evaporation, that we got just a little under 26 liters. I measured the OG at flame-out, and it was...

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       Yep, it's bottled. Got a FG of 1.012, that's 4.3% ABV, and 72% apparent attenuation; I understand US-05 should give a bit more? Anyways, it tasted really nice, malty and strong, but without any porterish or stoutish heaviness. Hoppiness was also surprisingly forward, although not too much by any means. We got fifty 0.5 liter bottles, although we aimed for 27 liters bottled, but that was probably because of the excessive evaporation during boiling.
       11 Replies
       11580 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   21. Anyone on Untappd?

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in General Chit-Chat, Nonsense & Rambles

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       Untappd is like the Facebook of beer, a fun free app for your phone. You log in the beers you've drank, can add a photo, give stars and add comments. You also get badges for achievements, like 10 different beers in a row , and the like. It's fun. If you are there, give your nick here and I'll add you as a friend. (And I 'll also change to English in my updates).

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       Cool!
       3 Replies
       5668 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   22. Conversion help+ stupid questions

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Creating Your Own Recipes

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       I've been trying to gather how to use BIABicus for coverting a recipe, but I'm still baffled? What is the calculator meant for, and is there a way to import the files here in a cleaner format, like many have done, as a simple list or so? Also, if I start just writing up the particulars froma recipe I want to use, will the BIABicus work just like that ?
       
       I would like to try as my second brew the Old Nut CAse Brown ALe from the book Radical Brewing . I would just like to scale it up so that I...

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       Oh, my dog's nuts were removed years ago, so he won't do any good in this recipe. ;)
       2 Replies
       4622 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago
   23. Adjusting for pellets in a bag?

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in Hopping

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       So I'm gonna brew the All Amarillo APA with Cascade pellets. I tried to calculate new amounts in grams considering the slightly different AA's, and I think I got that about right, but does the BIABicus have pellets or flowers as default, as should I adjust for that? And what about using a hop bag, is there adjusting there too?
       
       Thanks!

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       Sort on time onk but here is a pic... 2014-08-06_21-13-12.jpg Hopefully that shows how pellets are the default and how to vary from that.
       
       Your topic title also mentions, ...in a bag. There is no adjustment for that. I know you might have read that somewhere else but ignore that advice. Any hop bag or 'sock' that is properly designed (such as your BIAB bag) will not limit your hop utilisation.
       4 Replies
       13443 Views
       PistolPatch
       11 years ago
   24. Buying malts for my first batch ("All Amarillo APA")

       by onkeltuka, 11 years ago in BIABrewer.info and BIAB for New Members

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       Hi again
       
       I'm convinced that I'll want to do a BIAB as my very first brew, and the AAA - recipe seems perfect. I would just need a bit of help with choosing (ordering) the right malts. I'm from Finland, and we have a local malt factory Viking Malt , it would be cheapest to use their products.
       
       The recipe calls for:
       -5kg's of JW Traditional Ale EBC 6.2. Would Pale Ale EBC 5, or Vienna EBC 7 be appropriate?
       -1kg of Munich 1 EBC 17.7. That's exactly what Viking Malt lists as well.
       -500g CaraAmber...

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       oh, and my supplier was all out of Amarillo, so this'll be the All Cascade APA . Hope it won't matter too much. The AA- rating was almost the same.
       9 Replies
       9407 Views
       onkeltuka
       11 years ago

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