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First time BiaB- two mini batches in one day

Post #1 made 10 years ago
by Inconceivable
Hello to all

Below I'll paste my brew notes for each batch I did today; my first day of ever doing BiaB. My approach was to do two small (MiniBiab) batches to get used to it and "try before I buy" the recipes; i.e. only do 4L (1 gallon) batches so if they taste crap I don't have to throw out as much.

It all took longer than expected, my oven and electric stove top definitely add to the duration and stress of a brew day.

All in all a good day; I think I'll have one decent beer and most likely one abject failure. I've learned a lot about working with my kit and know there's much more to learn.

Pictures of the brew day:

Keeping the kettle up to temp on a frustrating electric stove top
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Draining the bag on a clean oven rack on top of the kettle
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Getting the last 10c degrees out of the wort so I can pitch with sanitised frozen spring water bottles directly in the wort
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Last edited by Inconceivable on 29 Aug 2015, 22:11, edited 2 times in total.
    • SVA Brewer With Over 20 Brews From Australia

Post #2 made 10 years ago
by Inconceivable
First BiaB I did was based on a reasonably good recipe: Yoopers Oatmeal Stout

In summary I forgot to add 9% of the grain bill (my LHBS told me to add the flaked oats myself; which was fine, I just forgot) and my VIF was way, way off so presumably I'll have a watery beer. Missed the OG by 14 points too. Generally feeling fairly pessimistic about this one.

Detailed notes of the session below.
**************

11.75L strike water at 70c
Fitted bag; not snuggly fitted to lower edges of kettle but good enough I think, bulldog clips on top of kettle edge
09:16 mash in
Clumsy pouring left 200g grains on bench; swept up 97% of them and chucked them in
Stirred in grain, no clumps, temp 69c. Smells nice; liquid murky brown/grey
Fit on kettle lid best I could with all the clips on top and put kettle into switched off oven at approx 70c
8 mins in, agitate mash; temp 68c
32 mins in agitate and temp 68c
10 mins to go oven to 100c
3 mins to go oven to 250c plus stove burner on
Out oven and on stove; stir and mash at 66c
Sleeping bag on kettle, lid on, heat cranked up- aiming for Mash out 78c
Pulled mash out around 77c due impatience. Drained mash on wire rack whilst the kettle remained still on the heat
Sleeping bag on kettle to hurry boil
Squeezed mash hard in strainer above saucepan
Stir in extra from saucepan; kettle at 90c; stir and nurse to boil
10:44 kettle boiling well; foam on top and sides; looks like a hot break to me.
23g Willamette hop addition made and start the clock
11:20 realised whilst doing other things I'd forgotten to add 9% of the grain bill (the flaked rolled oats)- cursed myself bitterly.
11:45 kettle off and into sink with some icy water
11:53 wort 49c, change out water; add more frozen milk bottles to really chill exterior water
12:12 wort 26c; chucked in sanitised frozen spring water bottles into wort to get the last bit done.
12:24 wort 18c whoops! Fish out ice bottles with sanitised strainer; accidentally fish out some trub too
Wort 98mm deep (approx 8.2L)
Kettle onto stove for a few mins to get wort back to 20c
Aerated by pouring kettle to sanitised fermenter then back 3 times. Much foam and some splash damage to kitchen, final VIF approx 7.8L
Pitch approx 10g S04; stir in for 10 secs
Crap forgot hydrometer reading!
Fermenter tap to pour wort into hydrometer, reads 1038; I presume 14 point loss largely due to the missing grain bill and excess water
Wort tastes like a very bitter stout
Crap forgot to take hydro temp! Tap out a small portion; its 20c
Seal fermenter and shelve it in the garage
    • SVA Brewer With Over 20 Brews From Australia

Post #3 made 10 years ago
by Inconceivable
My second BiaB today was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone attempt

Key points include:
* me avoiding the Perle Hop since my LHBS convinced me it'd taste fine without and I don't find that a compelling hop I'm likely to want for other things.
* The recipe I based this on had stupidly low integrity; my end Biabacus was cobbled together with ideas from all over the place
* OG seems high but since this recipe was such a joke who really knows what it should be :-)

Detailed log below:
*********

Biabacus called for 9L SWN; but based on my last Biab having way too much VIF I used some voodoo maths to decide instead to 7.5L SWN. Targetting 4L VIF
20:03 Mashin @70c - target 68c. Kettle lid on and in oven at approx 80C
Mash very blond, limited odor
5 mins in agitate mash, temp holding 68c
18 mins in agitate mash, temp holding 66c
Took mash out to stove top; raise temp to 70C over 6 mins, lid back on and back in oven
40 mins into mash- agitate mash, temp down to 65c- took mash out of oven and onto stove top (oven just not doing it for me even at 100c); turn on electric hob and wrap kettle in sleeping bag
Mash kept around 68-70c until mash time done then crank heat and mash out to 78c - took about 5 mins
Pulled bag after mash out- squeezed out a lot through wire rack then moved mash to strainer and spare saucepan- Kettle left on with wort to bring to boil. Squeezed out 100ml+ into saucepan then added. took measurement at 77mm = approx 6.5L VIB
Brought strong boil; furious boil hot break lots of foam and crud on saucepan sides.
4g Magnum hop (13.7%) addition 60 min timer started
45 mins into boil added 5g Cascade (7%) and one quarter Whirlfloc tablet
Boil over almost due to kettle lid gap too narrow much gunk on kettle walls and top; scraped some back in
22:25 end of boil, made 5g Cascade hop addition then pulled kettle from burner and into ice sink
22:37 wort at 32c; added frozen sanitised bottles into wort to get last 10c degrees. Fumbled fishing bottles out of wort once temp down to 22c; may have contaminated wort with my hands (which were washed/ clean)
22:50 Measure with ruler 47mm (just a hint under 4L) in kettle after cooled to 22c
Aerated wort by pouring from kettle from height to 15L fermenter and back 3x times; didn't notice bloody tap was open on fermenter so lost 200ml+ wort
Approx 3.8L VIF
Took Hydrometer reading at 1.058 (!) higher than expected at 20C. Wort tasted both sweet and bitter- feels promising
Pitched approx 6g S05 and stirred vigorously for 30 secs
Sealed up fermenter and placed in garage
Clean down and typing notes by 23:17
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Post #4 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Wow Inconceivable, that is very ambitious for a first brew day, good on you. Very detailed brew logs too, this will serve you well as you progress, especially with such small batch sizes, and a couple laughs to boot. Sounds like everything went extraordinarily well for your first time around. I look forward to hearing how these turn out!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Canada

Post #5 made 10 years ago
by Inconceivable
goulaigan wrote:Wow Inconceivable, that is very ambitious for a first brew day, good on you. Very detailed brew logs too, this will serve you well as you progress, especially with such small batch sizes, and a couple laughs to boot. Sounds like everything went extraordinarily well for your first time around. I look forward to hearing how these turn out!
Everything pretty much went badly from here on, but it's all a learning experience. At least my 'dud' batches were small.

Read on to get the next installment of the brew logs


SNPA Log

30/7 10am temp 16c 10pm 17c
31/7 7am temp 17c, 6pm temp 18c- visible airlock activity every 20 secs a gentle bubble
1/9 7am temp at 17c no airlock activity, 10pm 16c
2/9 17c 8am, 6pm 17c and no airlock activity
3/9 7am and 10: 17c no airlock
4/9 8am 17c
6/8 9pm 18c
7/9 7am 17c
8/9 6pm 17c
9/9 8pm 18c. Dry hopped 5g of Cascade 7% pellets direct into fermenter
13/9 18c. Hydrometer reads 1016. Light gold beer color; very murky with visible sediment. Smells very hoppy. Tastes of bitter flowers; not feeling too positive.
Tap on this fermenter seems blocked
14/9 9pm 20c (unseasonably warm day). Removed copper heat belt. Tilted fermenter back and removed bad tap; put in sanitized bung. Took tap apart; cleaned and sanitized.
19/9 Hydrometer 1015 at 18c. Didn't get much smell; solid bitterness not much flavor
Disastrous bottling session. Due to low volume of liquid in fermenter wort barely reached tap. Had to tilt fermenter to get wort which mixed trub into wort. Bottling wand kept jamming. Much splashing and sediment filled wort. Few bottles of badly messed up wort bottled. Bottle primed with measuring tool and dextrose per bottle ok.
3/10 Tried first bottle (little green and early admittedly) tastes strongly of apple cider (maybe hint of plum /pear) total disaster. Morale pretty low as I had the same taste (but less pronounced) on my first Extract batch too; What am I doing wrong?!
5/10 Soul searching and research makes me think this batch is screwed due to fermentation temp being too high and fluctuating, also the bottling debacle probably led to much oxygenation


Stout Brew log

30/7 10am temp 16c, 10pm 17c
31/7 7am temp 17c, 6pm temp 17c; no visible airlock activity; think this 30L fermenter has a dud seal
1/9 7am temp at 16c no airlock activity, 10pm 16c
2/9 8am 16c, 6pm 17c and no airlock activity
3/9 7am and 10: 17c no airlock
4/9 8am 17c
6/9 9pm 17c
7/9 7am 17c
8/9 6pm 17c
9/9 8pm 17c
13/9 2pm 17c. Hydrometer reading 1018
Murky brown color. Smells boozy; tastes malty with a hint of coffee and a subtle hint of bitterness
14/9 9pm 20c (unseasonably warm day) added 70g DME direct to wort (no dissolving in boiling water (whoops)) to attempt to raise gravity 14 points and stirred yeast cake to reinvigorate. Removed copper heat belt
21:30 Hydrometer reading 1021
26/9 Hydrometer reading 1018; tasted sweet but burnt coffee; interesting. Very dark brown. 17c
Racked with auto-siphon to bottling bucket 7.7L became 7.1L once off trub and into bucket. First successful use of siphon after tightening hose better onto racking cane with hose clamp. Not too much in the way of bubbling or splashing but could probably do better by having a shorter and less steep drop in siphon hose to bottling bucket
Bottled with 40g Dextrose in 60ml near boiling water aiming for about 2.2 Co2 ratio
Thru 6/10 ongoing bottle conditioning at 21c; will leave it conditioning for quite a while
Last edited by Inconceivable on 06 Oct 2015, 17:41, edited 1 time in total.
    • SVA Brewer With Over 20 Brews From Australia
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