Hello All.

Regarding silicone tubing, would all silicone tubing be 'food grade'?

I ask that as saw some on Amazon that is being sold for aquarium purposes and wondered if that can be used, as seems a much cheaper way of buying it.

10 metres of 5mm silicone tubing for £6.19 delivered - Link to Product on Amazon HERE

Regards,


Greg

Thanks BobBrews & lambert for the links.

I'll have a go at brewing with the kit that lambert sent me 'as is', and see how a brew or two comes out, and then look at the tubing and perhaps get some of the thinner stuff to slow it down if I need to. I'll bear in mind that the thickness of the wall is important because of the heat.

I've received my order from themaltmiller.co.uk - woo hoo! So I'm going to try hard to find enough time over the weekend to get my first BIAB batch going.

I was intending on doing the Bombay IPA that lambert suggested first, but I'm waiting for the Nottingham yeast to arrive, and I cant wait(!) and want to crack on!. I've got enough ingredients for three different batches (if I've done things properly in BIABacus!), so I'm going to first have a whirl at one of the other ones I planned to do later on which I found on BrewMate.net - Nugget Ale (blonde). I've got the ingredients (I think) & recommended yeast for that one. I've got a load of Maris Otter so I'm hoping that is pretty much the same as (or near enough/as good as) just Pale Ale malt specified in the recipe. Any thoughts on this or experiences of that recipe would be most welcome if anyone has any.

I have been reading through the information on the forum on how to use BIABacus and am fairly comfortable with what it has come up with based on inputting the minimum amount of information to get the volumes etc. There seems to be good capability for getting into much finer detail on it, but way over my head at this time!

So I should be all set to go. I picked up some iodine from the chemist for a starch test (shout me down please if that is overkill - it only cost £1.35!). In one of the recipes I am planning to make, it mentions adding Irish Moss 10 mins before the end of the boil. As such I got some Protofloc tablets which are the same thing. Now, the Nugget Ale I am making first doesn't specify adding any to it, but should I add it anyway for this and any other brews as a matter of course or do no all brew need 'clearing'? Are there any downsides to using it?

Oh another quick question - once I've opened up the pack of vacuum packed hops, is it best to freeze them to make them keep well?

Regards,


Greg

Hello lambert.

Yes, I certainly did and had a great time doing it.

I have been reflecting on the experience and looking through my notes and been writing up how it went this evening. I should have it finished and on here tomorrow evening (or actually this evening now - Wednesday!) but thought I'd quickly post this to respond and let you know I'm still here!

Regards,


Greg

Hello lambert et all.

Here is how I got on with my first BIAB. Apologies in advance for the length of this post.

First up, I’m mildly embarrassed about a couple of mistakes but from the kind advice and generosity I have received here, I feel you all deserve to find out how it’s gone and I shouldn’t gloss over any bits, and other newbies may be able to learn from my experiences and avoid making them!

Prep
Cleaned everything that was going to be in any contact with the beer, and then sat most things in a spare FV filled with water and sterilising solution, and those things stayed there until needing them.

Water
I was a bit confused with how the water needed gets calculated. I couldn’t figure out why Strike Water Needed could be higher than Total Water Needed. So I did a bit more trawling through the site and then gathered it was due to expansion from heating it up, which made sense.

I entered 11 litres for the desired ‘Volume Into Fermenter’ as wanted at least 10 litres for ‘Volume Into Packaging’. That gave me a warning about the mash approaching the kettle limit (very handy warning that), so I entered 3 litres into section ‘W’ under ‘Water Added During Boil’. Why the 3 litres? I wanted to keep as close to the full amount as possible so only wanted to reduce it by the minimum possible but enough to keep it from spilling over. I chose ‘Water Added During boil’ over the other options in ‘W’ as it is the one that seem to make the most sense to me. But that then changed the TWN number as well as some of the other volume figures which I couldn’t work out how they got to those numbers as they weren’t just those numbers minus 3 litres (SWN + 3 litres didn’t come to TWN). It also changed the grain amount needed figures. I’m totally sure there are very good reasons for the numbers shifting, but I don’t yet understand what is going on there, so I scratched my head for a bit and decided that pondering over it any more was wasting time and I needed to take a punt. So I just held 3 litres back and stuck with the rest as it was. The changes in the figures only seemed very nominal so I thought the risk of catastrophic cock-up from getting that wrong was low.

I filtered the water (did a few more litres than I needed in case of any accidents) into a FV and stuck in half a campden tablet ready for when I needed it. I calibrated my jug ready for transferring it to the pot.

At this point it is worth mentioning that I referred to ‘The Commentary’ document to guide me through the process which I found really helpful.

I put the water (minus 3 litres!) in the pot and heated it up to Strike temperature (68c as recipe stated 66c for mash). That kettle element does the job well but I did aid it by also running the gas hob on the other side of the pot (to keep well clear of the plastic covering and fittings on the outside of the pot). I think the gas would have struggled on its own, and really would if I got a 50 litre pot as per original discussions.

Mash
I then got the bag in and ‘doughed in’ the grain pouring from about 30cm above the pot – a good stir around and that was good as no clumps. That lost me about 4 degrees which was below the mash temperature so I held the bag to one side (to prevent direct heat from element touching the bag) and switched the kettle element on and kept the water moving to distribute heat, until back up to 67c ( 1 degree over to allow for loss between that point and getting it all covered over). I then put the lid on and wrapped a load of blankets and towels around the pot to insulate it.

I lost a couple of degrees half way through the mash, so pulled the bag over again and turned the heat on again to get it back up, then hurriedly covered it back over to keep the heat on. It was sitting on the range cooker through all of this so I turned the oven on low just to help keep the whole area a bit warmer (no insulation under the pot as been on the flame). I’ve had a measure up tonight and next time I could possibly put the pot in the oven (on very low heat) to keep the mash temperature up.

Whilst waiting for the 90 minute mash, I read through the checklist and pondered over whether to do a mashout.

I dithered a bit but then thought that I couldn’t see any negative reasons for doing it (other than burning myself but that wouldn’t ruin the beer!), but by doing it could only improve the efficiency so I did the mashout after the 90 min mash. I increased the temperature to 78c (keeping bag clear of element again), turned the heat off, gave it a stirring and then waited ten minutes.

After that, I put the Marigolds on, lifted the bag up and squeezed it until the liquor stopped running, and then sat it in a large colander over another pot to collect some more from it

Starch Test
My basic understand is that this is to test that the mash has completed in that the starch will have been converted to fermentable sugars, and any starch left will turn iodine black. So I added some iodine to a small amount of wort in a white dish – didn’t turn black, just stayed the same. So that seemed successful to me. I’m not sure that is a necessary step for a noob, but I did it mainly out of intrigue as to what would happen, as well as to hopefully get the right result to give me some confidence that I am heading in the right direction.

Boil
I took a gravity reading at this point. I don’t quite know what it means at this moment, but took it as it may be a helpful comparison further brews down the line and once I understand what it means at this stage. I cranked the heat on and got the wort up to the boil, got the timer started and planned out my hop additions (60, 20 & 5 minutes). That all went well and I didn’t have a steam issue as opened up as many windows and doors as possible. I did do a little test to see how much steam would be floating about by check and closed most of them up for a few minutes and the kitchen filled up with steam pretty quickly, so opened all back up again and it was fine. I added in the additional liquid from the colander that the grain bag was sitting in.

Hops & Protofloc
Added these as per the schedule - no dramas here.I love the smell of hops!

Clanger
Here is where I ahem, went a bit wrong! Coming to near the end of the boil, I remembered that I had forgotten to add in the 3 litres of water that I held back, so I swiftly got that in. I thought I’d read somewhere in The Commentary that this would be a good time take a gravity reading, and I was keen to know how it is going, so i got some wort into the trial jar and stuck the hydrometer in. The reading wasn’t any higher than the pre-boil gravity reading. Now I’m getting concerned, with various thoughts going through my mind - doubting the boil has worked, was adding the (held back) 3 litres of water at that point a major cock-up, was the boil not hot/vigorous enough as I’m now thinking that it doesn’t look like anywhere near the 6 litres that BIABacus said would evaporate, has done so. What do I do now? Not sure, so after getting it back up to a boil from the temperature reduction caused by the 3 litres, I kept boiling for a while longer –probably 15 minutes or so more while I fluster about what has gone wrong, why I am even trying to make real beer as I know nothing about it etc etc! I did take the hops out after 5 of those minutes though thinking that I might end up making it too bitter it or boiling off the flavour and aroma. But then it dawned on me, liquid is thinner when it is hot, so perhaps this was why the gravity reading was low. As such, I cooled the wort in the trial jar down as quick as possible, and yes, it was looking like I was right – as it cooled the gravity reading started getting higher. Once it crept passed 1.040, my mind was made up the mistake must have been from the hot liquid in the hydrometer, so I quickly got the wort off the boil whilst dreading the worst for my beer!

Cooling
I siphoned the wort to a Fermenting vessel. Incidentally, despite the extra boil time, I ended up with the correct amount of liquid I was hoping for/expecting – approximately 11 litres. I sat the FV in the bath filled up with cold water. However, it was getting late and it seemed to be taking ages to cool, so I sealed the lid on tight and left it cool gradually without any chilling.

OG & Yeast
The next day, I did a gravity test – 1.051 (@ 20.7 degrees c). That seemed to me to be a great result – target was 1.052. I then deliberated over whether to rehydrate the dried yeast or just sprinkle it on as per the packet instructions. I did a bit of reading up on this forum and others to find peoples thoughts on it. I read that rehydrating it in water ensures more of the yeast cells stay alive, whereas adding straight to the wort can kill off up to 50%. There seems to be a fair bit of debate on this, but it made sense to me, and the only negatives that I could find for doing this were that it was another pot to have to sterilise and wash up and further 20 minutes to wait, and that for me wasn’t a reason to not do it – surely the amount of time (and love!) already spent making this beer warranted a little bit more if it meant getting a better (or more stronger chance of) result? So I rehydrated it – put warm water between 26c & 29c (80f-85f) for 20 to 30 minutes in a pot and put the yeast in and covered the pot with cling film. Once that frothed/creamed up over the top of the surface and all yeast had been absorbed, I agitated the wort and poured the yeast in.

Next Morning after that
The beer was already fermenting well - yippee!

Enhancements for next brews?

• I want to get an oven probe meat thermometer that is designed to stay in the meat during cooking which also has a temperature alarm, as I can suspend the probe in the wort when mashing and leave it in there, and have the alarm set to come on if it drops by a certain number of degrees. I want one that can stay in there all the time so I can monitor the temperature real time, and to stop heat loss from removing the insulation – I probably lost the 4 degrees just from uncovering the pot to check the temperature! I found some inexpensive ones on Amazon/eBay that should do the trick (probably need calibrating though).
• Also, I wouldn’t mind calibrating the pot and etching in some lines into the inside the pot in 2 litre increments (or whatever number is suitable) to help keep an eye on how much liquid evaporates to have confidence in the progress during the boil.
• Spend more time working out how BIABacus works. It seems to me to be a very, very clever system and hats off to the people that put it together. I just need to suss out how the calculations are made and why

So there we are, a fairly lengthy write up of my first BIAB. Apologies for the length – I made some notes anyway to help me with the next brews and struggle to cut them down much. I can’t wait to try the beer once fermented and bottled conditioned. Yes, I made a mistake but they were bound to happen so just hope that it wasn’t catastrophic, but even if it was, I am not bothered as all part of the learning and I won’t make that one again. I really enjoyed making it and very pleased with the outcome – a huge sense of satisfaction, totally different to using the kits where deep down you know someone else or a machine has done all the real hard work and you’re not really making it, just preparing it.

Apologies if you got bored ages ago from reading this....!

Regards,

Greg

n.b.

Yeasty wrote:Look up Graham Wheelers BYORA. Its a cracking book for British Ales ( No lagers)

I ordered this a few days ago and it arrived today and looks good so far - cheers for the recommendation Yeasty.

Thank you lambert, mally & smyrnaquince for the words of encouragement and further advice.

Its reassuring that my clanger doesn't seem too bad then!

With the temperatures, I did swirl the liquid before testing it. Whilst waiting for the water/wort to heat up, I did a bit of testing in different areas of the pot to see the difference in temperature, and there certainly was a fair difference reinforcing the need for a good swirl! My probe is a fairly cheap one so not sure if it is very accurate, so I will look to get another one that is certified for accuracy, but if I cant will calibrate as suggested. In terms of cooling the wort sample down to test the gravity, I did stick the plastic trial jar in cold water, but I reckon it would have been a lot quicker in a stainless steel container. I'll find the bit of paper for the hydrometer and have a look at the offsets. I did run the hydrometer under the hot tap before putting it into the hot wort though to avoid it breaking - I've only got one so didn't want to muck that up!

Regarding the TWN & grain, I think it was right to hold the 3 litres back as there wasn't a great deal of headspace and it may have been splashing over if it was all in there. What I didn't understand was how BIABacus was changing the grain amount even though I would still end up using the same amount of water, just splitting it slightly But that shows there is lots for me to learn so I'll read up on it, starting with pistolpatch's posts. I find the potential depth of brewing - it seems that making beer can be approached in a fairly casual and non-scientific way, but there is scope to take it into scientific fine molecular detail if desired.

Now that I'm into the primary fermentation stage, I need to think about how long to leave it there for. Once the gravity readings have stopped changing over a couple of days, should it stay there for longer or should I bottle it straight away and condition from there? If it needs longer I the bin, is there a suitable/typical time period that covers most, or is a recipe-by-recipe thing? When I made the kits, I got the impression that longer is better (in the bin) so I left them for longer than the instructions with the kit suggested (I think I left one for 2 months before bottling it). However, I do wonder if leaving 'real beer' for a long time could diminish the hop aroma/flavour. As much as I cant wait to try it, I am in no rush if more time in the bin will be better, but likewise I don't want to degrade it from giving it too long. Any thoughts on that will be very welcome!

Thanks again.


Greg

Hello everyone.

I hope you are all well.

My first BIAB has been a great success. That is, relatively speaking as the beer isn’t up to brewery standard!

Briefly, here is what I did after brew day. I left the beer in the fermenting bin for 4.5 weeks (checking the gravity here and there) and then transferred to a bottling bin, and then bottled it. I then waited patiently(!) for a month before cracking one open. A mixture of nervousness and excitement kicked in – being a very different way of making beer than using the kits with a lot more to control and therefore a lot more to go wrong, I really wondered if it wouldn’t be very good – would it be way too bitter, flavourless, flat or just plain horrible?! But to my relief and mild surprise, it is very good and exceeded my expectations. Hopefully, it wasn’t down to luck though.

What I am encouraged about though, is that where there can be improvements, I am starting to get a feel for some basics as to why some negatives are there and how I can improve on them.

So in terms of the beer, it has got a good amount of bitter flavour, but also has a nice fruity ‘nose’ (that sounds poncey I know!) and delicate fruity flavour that balances well with the bitterness.

So they’re the plus points, but what the ‘areas for improvement’...?

• The beer is a bit thin. When I mentioned the lower FG than expected to lambert, he mentioned that this could be down to a lower mashing temperature which gives more fermentable sugars resulting in more alcohol and a thinner bin. I think that is spot on here, so I need to make sure I’ve got the mash at the right temperature or a thermometer that is telling me the right thing or I adjust accordingly. I have bought a new thermometer probe that I can leave in the pot for the whole brew duration. I have done some calibrating with it using boiling water and it is coming out with temps 2-3 degrees lower than the other thermometer I used, so if the new one is accurate (99.7c in boiling kettle water as opposed to 103 for the other thermometer) it would reinforce lamberts suggestion that the temp was a bit low for the mash as the reading was giving me 66c, but in fact it may have really been 62-63.
• The beer is a bit hazy. The clanger I had meant that the boil went on for longer than it should, it meant the protofloc got boiled for longer so i wonder if that reduced its effect? I will try cold crashing the beer for the next brew to see if that helps there. I have just had a 15 litre fermenting bin delivered to help me do that as it will fit in my beer fridge that I can use for the cold crash, and is a more appropriate size for these batches than the 25 litre bin I have used so far.
• The beer doesn’t have as much hoppiness/floral(ness!) as I’d hoped for. I think this is down to my wee clanger - as I boiled for longer than I should have, the hops got too long and lost some of those qualities. I should be able to avoid this next time by not being a numpty!

So all in all, the beer was really good – I am well impressed, and my wife really liked it a lot and said that it is easily the best I have made so far (only kits prior to this) which is encouraging and wouldn’t have just been saying that to be nice! My wife specifically asked for a bottle of it the other night which is also a good indicator as I’m not having to push them her way!
I wanted to get another brew started before now, but then decided to wait until I tasted the first batch to know if I went in the right direction at all with it, and also wanted to wait until our heatwave had passed (also known as ‘summer’!).

So next up is the Bombay IPA that lambert recommended as a Jaipur clone/equivalent, which I am planning on brewing over the next few days. I will attach the BIABacus that I have completed for it. If anyone gets a chance, could you have a glance over it and see if it looks okay? I have only entered minimal information in it but any observations or tips would be most welcome. I couldn't quite put all of the hop additions in though. The original recipe that makes 21 litres calls for two packets of Nottingham yeast. I have one packet for 11 litres – is that okay or too much? I only ask as normally one packet would do for 23 litres so this seems like twice the amount. I’m happy to use the packet if that is what is needed, but wondered if that does seem right and if anyone has any comments on why that amount is needed and to what effect.

I'm liking this BIAB malarkey a lot.

Oh, and below are a few pictures of the beer. Photos of beer at home always turn out poor (dim lighting and not a lot of natural light) so I lit one up to try and see the colour better and show the bubbles! Oh and also, if you are that inclined, you can watch a short video of me ahem, pouring a bottle. I’m that pleased with it I filmed it! :sneak:If you do watch it, have the sound on so you can hear my youngest son’s commentary!!

Regards,


Greg


YouTube video link - CLICK HERE