So i just finished up my first BIAB... mostly just a test of equipment and technique. I think i screwed up almost everything by being sloppy, but i was mostly just interested in extraction efficiency and trying out my own bargain basement method.
I was trying out the mini-biab with the amarillo pale ale recipe, but i had to buy the grains by the 1/2 kg so i ended up with 2kg of pale, .5 of caramber, and .5 of dk munich. I bought them about a month and a half ago and milled them when I bought them. First mistake.
Second mistake, i had a little bit more capacity than the mini biab, and i like boozy beer, so i figured what the heck, i'll try to mash the full 3kg of grain.
I heated 15L strike water to 68 exactly, and poured it in an igloo drinking water cooler (gatorade thing, yknow?), then threw the grain in using the paint straining bag, which looks like perfect material, and you can buy 3 of them for just under $3 US at the home supply store.
The temp was down to about 65 so i heated another 2L of water to boiling and threw that in. The temp came up to exactly 68.
The second mistake comes about 15 minutes in, at which point, for some reason, i decided to throw in the first hop addition. As i was stirring it in thinking 'something about this is wrong... dont i usually do this while the pot is on the stove... D'OH'
so then i let it sit for the next 75 minutes and the temp held, only dropping 3 degrees by the time i transferred to the brew kettle.
I added a little bit of sparging perversion to the technique, because it seemed like it made sense. After pulling the bag by hand, i put the bag in a collander over the mash tun and poured two pitchers of 70 degree water over the grain pile.
At transfer my SG was 1.063 which makes sense... maybe, seems pretty high for only adding about .7kg of grain to the bill, but maybe not.
I boiled the brew and added the rest of the hops at about 15 minutes. I noticed that it tasted pretty normal when i put it in the pot, maybe a little bit off, but as it boiled it developed a really nasty bitter taste. Might be what you guys call 'astringent' from the tannins, but my temps were dead on.
when i racked it into my fermenter, it was full of crap. i clogged my racking tube twice and had to wait a couple times for the bloom to settle to the bottom. the taste has become pretty nasty.
the final sg was around 1.070 so i added a bunch of water to the fermenter. the color of the beer is very dark, i think the extra caramber and dark munich might give the beer nice characer, unless i've screwed something else up terribly and it tastes like crap.
what do you guys think? did the hops ruin me? ever screw this up before? is this how real wort is supposed to taste and i'm just used to wussy extract sugar water? should i teach myself distilling so i can make use of my disgusting creation?
Post #2 made 15 years ago
Hmm, maybe too much Caraamber? I think 20% is the upper limit, however that would need some offsetting with other spec malts, it is a sub for biscuit malt.
However, that should not be too bitter, rather it should be too sweet- your bittering hops went out with the grist I presume? If so, it really should be very very sweet. One way or another, it will be out of balance, could account for the peculiar taste.
Ferment it out and see what happens is the obvious next step, if you're not sure what normal wort tastes like, it could be that you're just unfamiliar with it. If there is something wrong with it, then you'll learn from it, probably a few things. If it is in fact good, then you'll learn how forgiving beer making is? One way or another, you'll learn from it!
However, that should not be too bitter, rather it should be too sweet- your bittering hops went out with the grist I presume? If so, it really should be very very sweet. One way or another, it will be out of balance, could account for the peculiar taste.
Ferment it out and see what happens is the obvious next step, if you're not sure what normal wort tastes like, it could be that you're just unfamiliar with it. If there is something wrong with it, then you'll learn from it, probably a few things. If it is in fact good, then you'll learn how forgiving beer making is? One way or another, you'll learn from it!
[center]Give me a beer and I will move the world. Archimedes[/center]
Post #3 made 15 years ago
LOL motz and great to hear you had a very casual first AG.motzingg wrote:So i just finished up my first BIAB... mostly just a test of equipment and technique. I think i screwed up almost everything by being sloppy, but i was mostly just interested in extraction efficiency and trying out my own bargain basement method...
Ralph's line above, 'you'll learn how forgiving beer making is', plays out a lot in all-grain and that recipe is a very robust one so I think all will be okay.
Couple of things...
1. Extraction Efficiency: You can't determine this from a single brew let alone a single reading. You need to do a few brews and build up an average. Single readings and brews can vary wildly.
2. Pre-fermented wort tastes bitter. Up to 40% of this bitterness gets absorbed during fermentation.
3. Throwing your hops into the mash is 'mash hopping' and this technique, while costing more hops, can give a very nice beer. Mash hops replace flavour and aroma hops not bittering hops though, so, if anything, you might find this beer under-bittered as Ralph has said.
4. Gently, gently on the racking! Not sure from your post if you chilled or no-chilled but, if going straight to the fermenter, you need to give time for the wort to settle. Racking instruments are made for the purpose of gently transferring liquid. They aren't designed to be filters
. If you are using a small pot, put something under one side of it so the kettle tilts a heap and the trub falls to the down-side. When syphoning, gradually lower the syphon on the up-side until crap comes through and then lift it up a tad. Racking from the kettle like this is a PITA but, if done right, will give you the highest 'true' efficiency. Great post motz! Please let us know how this one turns out.
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 15 May 2011, 21:37, edited 5 times in total.
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Post #4 made 15 years ago
so awesome thanks for the consideration guys!
the hop thing is what really had me worried, i didn't realize that was possible, mostly just wondering if it would upset the enzymes.
like i said, i've tried wort from extract brews, but i pretty much just skipped the whole extract brewing learning period thing because it is expensive and boring. in my experience it was sweeter with strong hoppy flavors. this wasnt so much a hop bitterness, more of a acrid flavor.
i was afraid too much husky, grainy bits might have ended up in the boil and gotten the tannins cooked out of them. but when i poured out the strub there wasn't as much grain material as i thought, just a lot more 'break' than i'm used to from extract brews.
what do you guys think about 'dry hopping' when i transfer to secondary? i did it with my extract brews, and given how much break crap i got sucked into the fermenter, its probably a good idea this time too.
i also listened to that brewing webcast about hot-side aeration posted on the mini-biab discussion. good stuff, very educational about where these flavors come from. the bottom line being that the yeast cleans almost everything up. probably why my bottled extract brews get rid of that 'extract brew flavor' that the brew has when it goes into bottles.
the hop thing is what really had me worried, i didn't realize that was possible, mostly just wondering if it would upset the enzymes.
like i said, i've tried wort from extract brews, but i pretty much just skipped the whole extract brewing learning period thing because it is expensive and boring. in my experience it was sweeter with strong hoppy flavors. this wasnt so much a hop bitterness, more of a acrid flavor.
i was afraid too much husky, grainy bits might have ended up in the boil and gotten the tannins cooked out of them. but when i poured out the strub there wasn't as much grain material as i thought, just a lot more 'break' than i'm used to from extract brews.
what do you guys think about 'dry hopping' when i transfer to secondary? i did it with my extract brews, and given how much break crap i got sucked into the fermenter, its probably a good idea this time too.
i also listened to that brewing webcast about hot-side aeration posted on the mini-biab discussion. good stuff, very educational about where these flavors come from. the bottom line being that the yeast cleans almost everything up. probably why my bottled extract brews get rid of that 'extract brew flavor' that the brew has when it goes into bottles.
Post #5 made 15 years ago
also regarding under-bittering i used the wrong hops, my brew store didn't have the ones suggested, so i used something with AA 6.1 instead of 8... probably going to want to dry hop in hopes of bittering this a bit.
Post #6 made 15 years ago
motzingg, sadly you won't get any increase in bittering from dry hops, only aroma. 
So, there's every chance it will be under- bittered. I'd either cop it on the chin or add some isohop, other options aren't really worth contemplating for one experimental batch.
So, there's every chance it will be under- bittered. I'd either cop it on the chin or add some isohop, other options aren't really worth contemplating for one experimental batch.
[center]Give me a beer and I will move the world. Archimedes[/center]
Post #7 made 15 years ago
last weekend at a national homebrew day party, a guy was making a hop 'tea' by boiling hops in water then adding the strained off 'tea' to the brew kettle at the end of the brew. would doing something like that, only adding it when i rack to secondary, have a bitter effect? i guess i still have a lot to learn about how hop flavors are created and the significance of boiling time on the hop flavors.
i guess i dont care much about a specific taste, i just want this stuff to be drinkable. the fermentation is going like crazy, a good 1-2" krausen head on the beer and the airlock is purging about every 4 seconds.
i also found my reciept from buying the grain and i guess i bought (and used) 5 lbs pale malt and 1 lb each of the adjuncts. (7 lbs total, instead of 3kg) so my efficiency wasn't so good as i thought, but still not out of line of what others are getting. bottom line, there is a lot of sugar in that wort and its going to town right now fermenting away.
i guess i dont care much about a specific taste, i just want this stuff to be drinkable. the fermentation is going like crazy, a good 1-2" krausen head on the beer and the airlock is purging about every 4 seconds.
i also found my reciept from buying the grain and i guess i bought (and used) 5 lbs pale malt and 1 lb each of the adjuncts. (7 lbs total, instead of 3kg) so my efficiency wasn't so good as i thought, but still not out of line of what others are getting. bottom line, there is a lot of sugar in that wort and its going to town right now fermenting away.
Post #8 made 15 years ago
Yes, some hops tea could do that, that's one of the other options I was thinking about. It would probably work most effectively with high AA% hops for a shorter boil, plus some malt extract, say 100g/L. I would use a recipator (i.e brewing software) to give say at least 50% of the original bittering addition, so boil a litre or two of water plus enough malt, but calculate the mass of hops for the full- sized batch. I have a feeling it would be best added sooner rather than later, so don't dilly- dally would be my suggestion!
[center]Give me a beer and I will move the world. Archimedes[/center]
