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Post #2 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
It's 40 degrees F out right now and trying to keep mash temp in the range is difficult without heat, so I've got the burner on low which is working well. I have my old mlt made from a cooler as the lid of my kettle :P Usin a 7 1/2 gallon aluminum turkey fryer pot.

I just read that I need to keep stirring if applying heat, I do have the bag off the bottom though with this metal vegetable strainer deal I found in the pantry that my wife doesn't care about, so I squuezed and folded it a little so it lifts the bag off the bottom of the pot by a few inches, and has holes in it for the juices to flow through. With this do I STILL need to stir during the entire mash time?

Post #4 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
PistolPatch wrote:Howdy Niko...

I love seeing "live" posts :).

Read this thread now!

Keep us posted ;) ,
PP
I'd read that thread but I'm too busy relaxing lol. Actually I'm wearing a wireless baby monitor and after stirring the mash and killing the flame I came inside to find out the monitor wasn't on the right setting, lol poor 5 month old and wife who got up. Baby's eating his bottle now and the wife is back in bed. Going to watch Boardwalk Empire that was on last night..cool show!
Last edited by Nikobrew on 18 Oct 2010, 20:47, edited 5 times in total.

Post #5 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
Oh and as for mash times I'll just do the full 90 I don't have a good way of getting a read during the mash as anything I read will be the wort right next to the grain as this kettle doesn't have a valve on it to draw from. Whateva, its all good :P

Post #7 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
So the boil just started I've got about 4 gal and only 12 plato :( That's like 54% efficiency :( The grain bag is draining over a colander now in another pot, and I'm heating up some water to pour through it. Yes I know this is technically sparging, I'm not married to any method I just want to see if the wort coming out of that bag still is 1.040ish or lower.

Post #11 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
sigurdur wrote:Well, according to some rough calculations, 100% efficiency is:
( 7 * 33 ) / 4 = 57.75 ==> OG of 1.058
You got OG of 1.048 which means:
48 / 58 = 82.7% efficiency

http://hbd.org/uchima/tech/efficiency.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I assume you get 33 points per lb per gallon from munich.

Congrats with the good efficiency! :)
Wow.. I'm used to 65% in my mlt. I don't know what calculations were used but I'm using brewmate which is on http://www.brewmate.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; a friend of mine worked on the program and it's free and seems pretty darn good! According to that with 7lb at 4gal its 72%, either way good stuff and I'll try to calculate volume as best as I can when I'm done. I'm doing no chill in a cornie keg and have lines drawn on the outside of the kettle, no dowel with markings for this one (I have one that is for a converted keg and didn't make new markings to adjust, so just lining up my sight from the outside of the kettle to where it looks like it lands on the inside. My boiloff rate is much less than before though so I may end up with more volume at a lower gravity.. may keep boiling though depending on how these kids are doing.

As a side note, do a lot of folks calculate their efficiency before adding sugars? I think adding 1lb candi syrup at the end and seeing the increase there would skew the efficiency % since that will be completely efficient, or very close to it. I'll take readings before and after I put the syrup in which will be at flameout
Last edited by Nikobrew on 18 Oct 2010, 23:35, edited 5 times in total.

Post #13 made 15 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
Based on your posts, it seems like you're happily surprised by the ease of BIAB. I've never done "traditional" 3V brewing so I don't have anything to compare to. I just know that my first BIAB was a freakin' breeze, almost to the point where I'm looking for more advanced techniques (step mashing, etc.) to liven up the process. Anyway, what's your opinion on BIAB vs. 3V now that you have a brew day under your belt?

Post #14 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
Timewise it was about the same. Next time I also won't use as many pieces of equipment (dishes lol) as I got a colander out to try to drain some extra wort out of the bag of grain, got a tiiiny amount hardly worth the time.

All in all it was great. I don't foresee using BIAB for larger volumes than I did today, I maxed out my kettle and it turned out I didn't have to add any water back. I THOUGHT I had put in about 4 gallons to start but it must've been a little more because when I was ready to start the boil I had about 4 gal in the pot, not a huge loss in absorption anyway.

Efficiency - I will get a gravity reading one more time before I pitch the yeast tomorrow and I will post the results, but reading the gravity during the mash was a bit of a pain as it depended on where I drew the sample for the refract. I think my refract is showing about 1/3 plato higher than it should so I need recalibrate it (I took this into account for readings), though once I was done with the boil and stirred it up really well it showed I was at 74% efficiency according to Brewmate as opposed to the 65% I normally get

All in all I plan on doing BIAB every time I do a beer with approx 7lb of grain. This was about 3 1/3 gal post boil (dumped it all into primary)

Post #17 made 15 years ago
by shibolet
Niko, did you ferment in the cornie?
i really recommend re hydrating the dry yeast.
let us know how the bee turns out.
BTW, the link to the recipe seems to be broken, can you re post it?
Cube:
fermenter: Sourdough Spelt Ale, Classic Lambic, Oud Brune, Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel
Kegs: Bob's Black IPA, Blanc Blond, Soda...
to be brewed:

Post #18 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
shibolet wrote:Niko, did you ferment in the cornie?
i really recommend re hydrating the dry yeast.
let us know how the bee turns out.
BTW, the link to the recipe seems to be broken, can you re post it?
I did not rehydrate, fermenting in the cornie, and I think there's something wrong with the recipe site now but I can copy and paste it from the program later today.
Last edited by Nikobrew on 24 Oct 2010, 20:32, edited 5 times in total.

Post #19 made 15 years ago
by Two If By Sea
With S-05 I straight pitch too. The only yeast I rehydrate now is Nottingham since their horrendous manufacturing issues lately. I just want to make sure the packet is good and you can tell by the rehydrate process if it is. I think this is another one of those panic attack topics where your beer is "ruined" because it took 8 hours to start instead of 4 hours. If everything else goes right in your beer, you'll produce great beer without rehydrating as many times as you could make great beer with rehydrating. But that's just IMXHO (in my experience and humble opinion).
Blog: http://littlehouseonthesandpit.wordpress.com/
Facebook BIAB Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7 ... 978&ref=nf

Post #20 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
Nikobrew wrote:
shibolet wrote:Niko, did you ferment in the cornie?
i really recommend re hydrating the dry yeast.
let us know how the bee turns out.
BTW, the link to the recipe seems to be broken, can you re post it?
I did not rehydrate, fermenting in the cornie, and I think there's something wrong with the recipe site now but I can copy and paste it from the program later today.
Word. I was pretty stoked when I saw mr malty's pitching rate calculator and put in 1.070 for my small volume and it said to use .8 packs of dry yeast. Since I have no airlock I just peek inside my cornie and as long as there's activity after about 24 hours I'm happy. One thing about fermenting there is I don't get to see any cool activities, but I trust it. I sanitized some foil and put it over the top and just set the lid on top of that. Now when I peek inside I figure there's a layer of co2 over it so I shouldn't be TOO concerned, I just know in general I don't want to be excessive with exposing it to air..then again there's that thread about open ferment..soo..anyhow, going to boil a quarter cup of water to dissolve a half cup of table sugar and pour it in today :) First I'm going to scoop some yeast up as a guy in my club has been doing and says it works great. I've got a good sized syringe so I can measure out how much I need for my next brew using the mr malty calculator :)
Last edited by Nikobrew on 24 Oct 2010, 23:57, edited 5 times in total.

Post #21 made 15 years ago
by shibolet
Niko,
I would bother trying to harvest and then repitch dry yeast. it's so cheap, why bother and risk the contamination?
Cube:
fermenter: Sourdough Spelt Ale, Classic Lambic, Oud Brune, Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel
Kegs: Bob's Black IPA, Blanc Blond, Soda...
to be brewed:

Post #22 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
sigurdur wrote:Well, according to some rough calculations, 100% efficiency is:
( 7 * 33 ) / 4 = 57.75 ==> OG of 1.058
You got OG of 1.048 which means:
48 / 58 = 82.7% efficiency

http://hbd.org/uchima/tech/efficiency.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I assume you get 33 points per lb per gallon from munich.

Congrats with the good efficiency! :)
Where did you get the number 33 from? I'm trying to find a good resource that lists this, is that the expected gravity per lb per gallon of grain? Thanks
Last edited by Nikobrew on 01 Nov 2010, 02:56, edited 5 times in total.

Post #24 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
sigurdur wrote:I find it best to use the numbers supplied by the malt manufacturer to get accurate numbers for my efficiency (I put them all in my brewing program).
That's what I was trying to do but for some reason I can't find the numbers for weyermann munich :( Did you find that anywhere? Even on weyemermann's site..one other place to look is the info sheets I got from a supplier who I've bought their grain from in bulk. Handy to have cheap grain that way :)
Last edited by Nikobrew on 01 Nov 2010, 04:07, edited 5 times in total.

Post #25 made 15 years ago
by Nikobrew
sigurdur wrote:Well, if you use BeerSmith, you can download some bsm files which contain the general numbers for Weyermann.
http://www.beersmith.com/support.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (right side on the page)

Usually the numbers vary between seasons tho, and the best place to get the actual numbers is from the guy who purchased the large quantity order.
I'm that guy lol I think it's in a pdf I have.
Last edited by Nikobrew on 01 Nov 2010, 06:46, edited 5 times in total.
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