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APA Recipe Advice

Post #1 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Hey all,

I'm gearing up to start my 2nd BIAB attempt in the next week or so and would love some advice on the recipe.
And also volumes and stuff, as my 1st attempt was a bit off :interesting:.

Going for an APA based on the one Rigger has posted on the G&G site.
Will heat water to around 70c to keep the mash at around 65% for the 90min.
Hoping to end up with around 10L.

Volumes from The Calculator as follows.
Brew Length 10.00 lts
Fermenter Trub* 0.80 lts
Volume into Fermenter 10.80 lts
Kettle Trub & Buffer* 1.80 lts
End of Boil Efficiency* 79.00 %
End of Boil Gravity (OG) 1.054 Deg.
End of Boil Volume 12.60 lts
Boil Length 90 min
Diameter of Kettle 32.00 cms
Evaporation Per Hour* 2.50 lts/hr
Evaporation for this Brew 3.75 lts
Expected Start of Boil Gravity 1.042 Deg.
Start of Boil Volume 16.35 lts
Grain Bill Required 2805 grams
Grain Absorption* 1.76 lts
Water Required is... 18.11 lts
Approximate Mash Volume 19.96 lts

Grain Bill
2200g simpsons golden promise
500g joe white/maltcraft light munich
150g simpons crystal pale
50g joe white/maltcraft malted wheat

Hop Bill
20g Northern Brewer (8.2%) 60min
20g Cascade (6.8%) 20min
10g Cascade (6.8%) 5min

Yeast
Wyeast Activator 125 ml American Ale 1056.

I have some Amarillo hops left over that I could potentially put in at 20min instead of the Cascade :think:
Struggled to keep the boil going last time on the electric stove so am going to try the SS bowl in the pot trick to try to speed up the boil.

Let me know what you guys think....cheers!!
Jake.

Post #2 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
I think the first thing we need to look at jake is the vigour of your boil as this was a real problem on your last brew. Once we solve this, the rest will be easy.

I know you're probably keen to just get in and brew again but...

1. Have you found a stainless steel bowl to float on your wort during the boil as yet?
2. If you have, have you done a test run to see what your evaporation rate might be?

Getting your boil vigour right is really important as it does a lot of things. Because your heat source is really struggling the 'floating bowl' trick is the first thing that needs to be addressed.

Even if it meant waiting another week, I would still solve the above two questions before brewing again.

:salute:
PP
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Post #3 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Hey PP,

Thanks for the advice.
I have a 200mm SS mixing bowl to stick into my 320mm diameter pot.
I've assured my girlfriend that it should survive the process :lol: .
It's pretty shallow (70mm) so hopefully it won't affect my capacity too much.

Will do a trial tonight and post the results.

Cheers,
Jake.

Post #5 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
OK, so I finally got around to my calibration night...busy time of year!!
This is a bit off topic for this thread, but here's the findings...

Started with 20L at 66C to see how long it would take me to go from strike temp to boil.
Took almost exactly 1 hour with the lid on the pot (and the bowl in).
Filled the bowl with 0.5L boiling water from the electric jug to sink it a bit.
When I took off the lid, the boil pretty much stopped to hardly a ripple :sad: .
So I took out 5L to give my little stove a chance.
Also moved the pot accross 2 elements to try to add more heat.

Got it boiling again, but couldn't maintain without the lid :nup: .
So ended up with the bowl in and lid partially on (50mm gap from edge of pot to edge of lid).
Then started measurements.
Steam was escaping well, and the condensation on the lid dripped into the bowl as it tended to stay close to the exposed opening.

Start of boil = 15L
End of boil (60mins) = 13L

So looks like I'm losing about 2L per hour rather than the 2.5L estimated in The Calculator.
Will start with 17.36L rather than the original 18.11 :thumbs: .

Hows that sounds??
And any comments on the recipe?

Cheers,
Jake.

Post #6 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Well done jake :peace:. (I liked your idea of filling the bowl with water to sink it even more - clever stuff!)

The poor heat source is a PITA and is worrying me. That's way too long a time to reach mash temps etc, let alone too much trouble to maintain a proper boil.

You really don't want to be 'fighting' your brew. So...

There are two ways to go that I can see.

1. Do tiny batches - I can't see much satisfaction in this but it might be an option.
2. Change your heat source - Three-ring burners are cheap. Do you have a barbecue gas bottle? This would be a start and I actually have a 3 ring burner I use on one of my 70 litre pots so it wouldn't be a waste of money. (They are about thirty US doillars.)

Another alternative is to jump straight in and buy the eqipment that will get you brewing full-volume brews that give you 5 gallons or 19 litres of beer in the bottles or kegs.

Which way do you think you should go?
PP
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Post #8 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
I am so glad to see you have decided this jake :clap:.

Struggling with a poor heat source is no fun :angry:. With a three-ring burner, you'll probably only need to use the first two rings with a 25 litre pot.

Let me know when you have bought it and I'll let you know how to 'season' your burner.

Re your Recipe Numbers

I should have said before jake but your first post here is excellent! Thanks for the detail - it makes things very easy.

Here's some thoughts...

1. Can you post the original recipe or your "The Calculator" version? THis will help me double-check your numbers if you like.

2. Because you are doing smaller batches, you could probably lower the "Kettle Trub and Buffer" figure if you wanted to. It's not really important, it just means you might end up with more beer than you want. If your fermentor can handle more than 10.8 L then ignore this advice.

3. Change your efficiency figure to 81%. Once again, not important at all (2% is nothing) but thanks to some work that stux has been doing, this will be a better figure to use.

4. Just use the dry yeast version of 1056. The dry version is an excellent yeast and the one I use on most of my brews. There is no need to buy the more expensive liquid version.

5. Amarillo is a hop I really like. You could go a 50/50 split between Cascade and Amarillo on not only the 20 minute addition but the 5 minute one as well without being disappointed.

Anyway, that's enough form me for now. Go and buy your burner :lol:.

:peace:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 23 Dec 2011, 20:56, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #9 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Just picked up my burner today and filled my gas bottle :thumbs: .
Was planning on "seasoning" with a bit of cooking oil spray and chucking it into the oven for 90mins at 180C.
How's that sound??

Original recipe...

Grains...
4500 gm British Ale
1000 gm Light Munich
300 gm Crystal (Lightest colour available)
100 gm Wheat

Hops...
50 to 55 IBU's using Willamette for Bittering, Cascade for flavour, aroma and dry hopping.

I've got some Northern Brewer (8.2%),Cascade (6.8%) and Amarillo (8.6%) that I was going to use.
And I wanted to keep the IBU's down to about 45.

Post #10 made 14 years ago
by housecat
jakethesnake559 wrote:Just picked up my burner today and filled my gas bottle :thumbs: .
Was planning on "seasoning" with a bit of cooking oil spray and chucking it into the oven for 90mins at 180C.
How's that sound??
Why do you want to season your burner?
I have only heard of cookware, ie woks and cast iron fry pans that need to be seasoned. Have I missed something?

HC
Last edited by housecat on 26 Dec 2011, 14:30, edited 3 times in total.
Part of the NoAd brewers

My mum says I'm cool.

Post #12 made 14 years ago
by Yeasty
I think what PP means by "season" is to fine tune your burner so it operates correctly. They rarely work perfectly when brand new. When I got mine I cleaned out all of the gas jets with a drill bit as some of them get paint and crud in them during manufacture. I then set it up and lit it, you may get a perfect flame from each jet (crisp and blue) but you will probably have something slightly yellow or all yellow flames and lots of soot/smoke. What you then need to do is alter the air intake shutter which is usually a silver metal piece secured by a screw which will slide back and forth altering the amount of air entering the burner. Do that and your ready to go..
Why is everyone talking about "Cheese"
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Post #13 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
[Thanks Yeasty for the above. I saw the question yesterday but had no time to answer it :salute:]

Hi ya jake,

Great to hear you have bought your burner :champ:. Yeasty's advice above is perfect. Let the burner run for about 20 minutes as this will burn off any paint. (Some paint turns into carbon 'wisps' which can end up landing in your wort :o). Take the opportunity also to get a good idea of the height of your flame as you may have to repeat drilling the holes out again later if this drops.

Your Recipe

It looks like you want to do a different recipe than in the original post. We'll need lots more info so...

Can you link where the recipe comes from?

:peace:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 27 Dec 2011, 06:41, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #14 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Ha, thanks Yeasty and PP, you just saved me from stinking out the place and pissing off the missus :salute: .
Have seasoned cast iron camping gear that way in the past.
Will follow your instructions as above, seems to be burning pretty well straight up.

Recipe link http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/BeerOTM ... AmPale.htm

Have done riggers pilsner in the past (pre-biab) and it was a cracker!!
Last edited by jakethesnake559 on 27 Dec 2011, 10:48, edited 3 times in total.

Post #16 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
[EDIT: Jake, have just finished writing the below. I wish every new all-grain brewer read BIABrewer.info. Every day, I get totally shocked at the information that new all-grain brewers have to deal with. I don't swear on BIABrewer.info but if I did, there would be a stream of profanities punctuating the below.

I'll do a post straight after this that will be more positive.]

Thanks jake for the link. It tells me two things...

1. You did everything right.

2. Unfortunately, the original link has a lot of critical information omissions. The beginning of the link reads really well but the recipe part is, to tell you the truth, atrocious. (It was so bad, I read it three times just to make sure I hadn't missed something obvious :smoke:.)

Here's why...

1. No Volumes: The main volume we want to know in a recipe is the EOBV (End of Boil Volume). The recipe instructions here, actually have no volumes of any kind. It doesn't get much worse than this... Hold on, sorry, it looks like it does get worse...

2. No OG: If we were at least given an OG, we could have had some sort of guess at the EOBV but there is nothing :shock:. If he wanted the article to be just a general guide then he should have just used weights. (The rest is the same...)

3. No Hop Addition Times - Enough info there for me to take a guess but really :roll:

4. No Hop Weights - Even the worst recipes I have seen nearly always give hop weights. WTF?

5. No Hop AA Percentages - Hops AA percentages vary enough on a single variety as it is. If he'sd given 4 above and 6 below any consideration we might have had some vague hope of working out what he means but not really as we don't even have a volume figure or OG to work from. It's really quite ridiculous now...

6. IBU's - The guy says, "aim for 50 to 55 IBU's." IBU's is a totally meaningless term for
home brewers. (I won't go into this here as it is an advanced topic.) But, even if it was a useful term, the author's failure in all the points above would make it useless anyway.

What I Will Do...

I really don't know what to say now. That link epitomises the worst of the brewer's internet in my opinion. I know the proprietors of that site do a great job and are greatly trusted. So, how can they let such bad info be published on their site???

The link is so nicely laid out. How much extra work can it be to actually get it right?

I am so shocked by this, I will actually ring them tomorrow to discuss it.

What I Think You and Other New All-Grainers Should Do...

I think I better do a new post on this ;).
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 27 Dec 2011, 19:58, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #17 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
What I Think You and Other New All-Grainers Should Do...

I think all new all-grainers (BIAB and traditonal) should do exactly as you have done jake...

1. Check all advice here: Don't trust external advice unless you check it here. There are a lot of experienced brewers here who actually know what they are talking about. As a general rule, they know what areas they personally lack in, what areas no one knows anything about and what areas you should worry about.

2. Check all recipes here: Only use recipes approved by BIABrewer.info or that have been posted and checked in the Use this thread to convert recipes to suit your equipment... thread. Guys like Yeasty and myself keep an eye on that thread.

3. Buy "Brewing Classic Styles": It's the only recipe book I have found that you can 'honestly' convert a recipe from.

Now, back to you...

What do you want from your APA? Do you want something you can trust and that is yummy for most palates? A simple recipe?

I think this would be the way to go but let me know if there is some particular 'snap' you want to add to your APA.

Excuse the two essays but unfortunately it seems to take 'ten writes' to right a single wrong in the brewing world. (Probably more like a hundred :roll:).

:lol:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 27 Dec 2011, 20:21, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #18 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Hey PP...wow, sounds like I hit the jackpot for vague recipes!!

I've done a fair bit of reading lately after moving from extract to BIAB.
On the positive side, the ambiguity of this recipe probably forced me to look into stuff that I may not have otherwise at this stage of my brewing career :peace: .

I wanted to brew a nice malty APA with Cascade hops for flavour and aroma.
I also like the Amarillo, so when you mentioned adding them together, got my mouth watering :drink: !!
And to keep it non-homebrewer friendly, was thinking of keeping the bitterness down a bit.
Already have NB, Cascade and Amarillo in my fridge.

I liked the sound of the grain bill (and actually already purchased it so I could put it on between Christmas and New Years)....hmmmm, that could have been a mistake :idiot: .
Don't have much time off and brewing at night was a PITA last time.

Not sure what to do now, should I just brew it?

Post #19 made 14 years ago
by thughes
Jake, here's my recipe for a nice cascade APA. I'm sure the guys here can help you get it into the calculator:

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Pre Boil Vol: 8.27 gal @ 1.045
Post Boil Vol: 7.02 gal @ 1.055
Estimated FG: 1.012
Boil Time: 60 min
Final Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Mash Efficiency 77% (this is the Beersmith number)
Color: 8.9 SRM
IBU: 32.8 (quite low for a pale ale, not bitter at all. Everyone seems to enjoy this one)

(The numbers above take into account my rig with a 1.25 gallon/hr boil-off rate, .07 gallon/pound absorption rate, and 1.5 gallon total equipment loss) I've included the grain bill percentage numbers so you can figure it for any system.

12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US 85.7 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 3.6 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L 3.6 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt 3.6 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt 3.6 %

1 oz Cascade (5.4% aau) first wort hop (toss them in after you pull the bag and begin raising temp to boiling)

5 oz Cascade (5.4% aau) cube hop (or at flame-out if you are not a "no-chill" brewer)

yeast: Safale US-05 (I used PacMan because I have a bunch of it)

Mash at 152F for 75 minutes, raise to 170F for mashout

This came out very tasty! After @ 3 weeks in the bottle it has developed a wonderful hop aroma, a slightly malty/caramel middle, and a nice flowery/citrus finish.

The finished product:
Image

---Todd
Last edited by thughes on 28 Dec 2011, 07:19, edited 3 times in total.
WWBBD?
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Post #20 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
jakethesnake559 wrote:Hey PP...wow, sounds like I hit the jackpot for vague recipes!!
LOL! It certainly got me ranting :lol: (This may have also had something to do with me just finishing a 2 hour fight with the BIABacus which involved several visits to the fridge :P.) Ended up working 6 hours today instead of two so never was able to ring G&G. They're good blokes there so will do tomorrow.

Okay recipe-wise... Todd (nicely presented recipe mate :peace:), I think jake already has bought his stuff which upon a re-read is the stuff in the first post. Is that right jake?

If so, it's very hoppy for such a small batch. For example it has about the same hop bill as a full batch of the NRB All Amarillo Pale Ale. If you don't want it too hoppy, I would make the hop additions all 12 grams with the last two being 6 grams of Cascade and 6 grams of Amarillo each. (Doing this will increase the aroma additon from 10 grams to 12 grams but I think this is a good thing.)

If this sounds right, then I think you are good to go. Grain bill (once again, I'm assuming post #1) looks fine.

:peace:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 28 Dec 2011, 16:06, edited 3 times in total.
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Post #21 made 14 years ago
by jakethesnake559
Hmmm...a 2 hour fight with the BIABacus...I'm sure beer will be the winner in the end :lol: !

Thanks for the recipe Todd, the colour looks brilliant :yum: !
Will definately consider it for my next brew, but as PP mentioned, already picked up the grain.

Finally got the brew on yesterday with the reduced hop qty recommended.
The burner was great!! Might have had the boil a bit fast ('cause I could ;) ).

Started with 18L.
Mashed in at 70C (temp dropped to 68 then to about 65 after the 90mins).
Start of boil - 16.5L (1.038)
End of boil - 11.0L (1.068)...think the boil was a bit fast.

Got about 9.5L into my 10L cube and it's now sitting safely in the fridge till I pitch the yeast when the weather cools down a bit. Had a hard time squashing all the air out, the cube looks pretty deformed.

Will add 2.5L of boiling water to the fermenter to bring the OG down to about 1.054.
I'm thinking if the cube is about 6C out of the fridge, the boiling water should bring it up to about 23C.

Thanks again for all the help guys :salute: !!
Jake.

Post #22 made 14 years ago
by PistolPatch
Glad you went for it jake good on you!

All sounds as though it's in hand though you could keep the cube out fo the fridge if you wanted and just add cooled boiled water (even tap water rarely will cause a problem) at pitching time.

Haven't had any more fights with Excel since then. Yay!

Happy new year to you jake :thumbs:
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