Welcome mkrist.

I guess a pharmacist could look at the brewing process like compounding a dosage form. After all, beer is good for your health (mostly).

There is a lot of knowledge on this site, but you will have to spend time looking for some of the subjects. Read the threads that interest you (check the INDEX at upper left) and ask questions if you have any. Alternatively, you can use the SEARCH magnifying glass (upper right) and browse that way.

As for a yeasty off-flavor, consider the fermentation conditions as one possible source, including the total time involved. Pitching temperature has an impact on the initial yeast population growth and strength = what starts the whole package after it gets going. Low & slow is better than too warm and fast. The temperature conditions during fermentation (including a small exotherm) also play a part. I have had an airlock start bubbling in less than 8 hours and take as long as 36 hours (not a leak) to start. They both turned out OK.
I usually rack to a secondary fermenter (wide-mouth glass carboy) between day 6 and 9 and then wait another week before considering it finished. Check the density (Specific Gravity) when you think it is finished, wait 2 days and check it again. If it dropped 2 points then check it again in two more days. After the major part of fermentation has slowed to a crawl, the yeast needs several days to "clean up" what are still process intermediates hanging around. And it is different for every type of yeast!!
Start fermentation (ales) with low temperatures (~17 ºC) and give it time, then you might warm it slowly to near 20 ºC for a few days and maybe cool again at the finish. If you bottle the beer (not keg) a very cold "cold crash" can reduce the level of yeast you need for carbonation in the bottle making it take longer than normal to get ready to drink. Temperature after packaging is another thing.

Conversion in the mash is related to volumes of water, pH, time and temperature, grain crush size, the thread count of your BIAB bag and maybe more that I don't remember right now.

That's enough variables to think about and do experiments for many batches. Relax, you will get beer, eventually. Keep good notes!

Hello Mike,

Welcome to the site!

I have not brewed with a keggle, and have never used a brew basket. My son uses a brew basket, as do others...so certainly it works. No idea on if it works as well as the bag that most of us use. His gets much more sediment than I do. Many folks use a keggle. I have a Bayou Classic brew kettle with gallon markings on the side - which I find very useful...except their measurements are slightly wrong and I have to have a cheat sheet to help correct it. Checking remaining volume could be a little more challenging with a keggle, but using a yard stick to check remaining contents rather than reading number on the side should be fairly easy...

With using the BIABacus file to help plan and conduct a brew session is super helpful! When using it we check things such volume in the pot at different times, along at checking gravity at certain points. These are like “check points” to me that can give me an indication if something is off course, so that I can take corrective action mid brew.

I would recommend checking out the BIABacus file along with the Clear Brewing Terminology Page on this site. CBT explains the terminology and helps connect the dots. Being an engineer, no doubt you will like these.

BIABacus File: https://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1869
CBT: https://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2685

Let us know how it goes, plus if you have any questions..

Hello @Jonah15 and @brew.noob

Welcome to the forum! There are some recommendations with the BIABacus and terminologies section, a few posts up.

Let us know what questions you have... Definitely having the right equipment is import. There is much help already listed on here in different places and if you have any specific questions go ahead and ask.

Hello @biabolo ,

Welcome to the forum, from another guy that used to brew and took...about 16 years off. My previous brewing was all extract and was decent but not great. Coming back to brewing much older I started again with extract and it was better but I wanted better yet...and wanted Pilsners to look like Pilsners. I made the upgrade to full volume BIAB and 67 batches, 4 years ago and the beer quality was a big upgrade. Very high quality.

I gave some recommendations to someone a couple posts up and feel they apply here to. Please review and see if they help you too. And let us know how it goes.

Welcome, jja. Brewing definitely combines skill, art and science and your lab experience will serve you well. BIAB is very hands-on and the process is one you can watch, even fermentation if you use glass fermenters. I think that it is better than stuffing ingredients into a vessel and flipping a switch. It is more challenging to get high reproducibility using BIAB.; as long as you keep good notes, you can do it.

I have read about Kveik / Voss yeast and their high fermentation temperatures, but have not tried it yet. You can inform the rest of us when you start doing yours that way.
I am always interested in rye in the grist, having brewed an ale with 40% and no real problems with draining the pulled bag. I am now drinking an ale made with 16% oats that is good and subtly different in its body. Next year I'll go for a combination of both rye and oats with a base malt and see what happens.

ShorePoints wrote: ↑

5 years ago

It is more challenging to get high reproducibility using BIAB.; as long as you keep good notes, you can do it.

@ShorePoints - you must be comparing BIAB to a system that has everything automated, and perhaps @Jja was describing. I get much better consistency than others in my brew group that all use standard 3V systems, with me using the BIABacus for calculations and the traditional full volume BIAB process. Most of them use manual by hand calculations and probably are less exact than me with their ingredient measurements.

Depends on the brew. For example I have a much easier time with a Munich Helles getting excellent consistency, than an American Pale Ale recipe because of reliance on higher flavored hops, and how dependent results are to exact Hop addition procedures used. Or exactly how well the yeast performs during fermentation. Admittedly I have no experience with super automated systems and if they can trim variables even more - yeah, should result in even better consistency. But point is, at least compared to normal non-automated / traditional 3V systems, BIAB with proper use of the BIABacus software should be more consistent.

Scott is correct.
My comparison of my own BIAB brewing is to the majority in my local home brew club. They are engineers, contractors and high-tech guys. Most use a commercial web recipe builder and automated brewing systems either self-built or grainfather type. Four get together and brew once a week on 15 gallon scale. They make the same 4 beers repeatedly with consistent results and a lot more hardware than I’ll ever own. Two started a very small commercial brewery that is five years old now.
I’ll clarify my remark about reproducibility, limiting it to mean folks like me who brew outdoors in four different seasons and aren’t trying to make the exact same beer. I love it when they taste my brews and ask if I am still doing BIAB. It is not as crude as ‘earth, air, fire and water’ in a retort but I do lots more by hand and get beer, too.

Welcome to the forum @Gomer! Let us know if you have any questions, and look forward to you contributing in the future.

Hello @Aggie10,

A couple thoughts to add to Tony’s advice...

We are going to prefer more proper and longer established brewing traditions with a longer mash time and a longer boil time... In fact, we prefer 90-minute mash and 90-minute boil.

That said, some including the Brülosophy blog writers have been doing tests with “Short and Shoddy” brewing, where you cut corners on processes in the sake of saving time. They report success with this, so quite honestly there must be something to it. I would figure on needing to use more grain to get the job done. The BIABacus file (Excel) should be capable of altering and running variables like time lower just fine.

You have my curiosity up on this one and I would really like to hear how it goes for you.

Angie - I took a photo of a 12 cm long banana slug on a trail near Squamish, BC. Is that near you?

...LME plus steeping grains, and I have figured our a way to get the results I want while making a very short brew day, ex. I can do 2 23L simultaneously including clean up in 2 hrs.

LME is post-mash material concentrated to a viscous state, meaning that it is high in fermentable sugars. Steeping grains, or adjuncts, provide flavors and starch, proteins and more, but do not supply much in the way of enzymes that convert starches to fermentable sugars during a mash at proper temperature. If you remove LME and replace it with base grains (that do provide enzymes for starch conversion) yet do a short mash time period at less-than-most-favorable temperature, you will not get very much in the way of fermentable sugars compared to other procedures. Fermentation will give you a low alcohol beer with lots of starches (apparent low attenuation). See the chart in the middle of the second row at http://bit.ly/2pnFnSH and read http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Starch_Conversion I say 'apparent low attenuation' in that the ABV will be low while the yeast may have fully attenuated the very limited amount of fermentable sugars available. The yeast does not consume the starch.
There may be base grains sufficiently 'modified' by maltsters that can do the starch conversion by their enzymes in short times and whatever temperatures others have used to get beer, but I know it does not apply to all combinations of grains in the grist. I would also venture that the efficiency in time (valuable to you) costs more in grain weight (not significant to you) - see that graph again for how much more fermentable sugars one gets at 90 min over 40 min mash times. Am33106 Tony's advice on "most" being extracted early is correct, but how much is discarded? Total water volume is also important for extraction from solids, providing mobility to the mixture. Much less mash liquid means thicker paste of solids and less stuff extracted.
Boiling kills things that you do not want in your fermenter. No boil means that if they are present at the start, you have not killed them. It could all work out fine, but you have increased the risk of infection.

You may still proceed with a trial run and get beer, but try one batch before doing two simultaneously. Picture how you will lift the heavy wet bag of spent grains and where you will put it. Good luck.

Hello @@Jimmy01

Welcome to the forum! Thanks for the good information about what you are doing.

I can understand concern about keeping weight in check as we age. There are ways to stay healthy and still regularly enjoy beer. (Smaller portion size and less servings...of everything consumed, is one way). And adding physical activity to the mix is important. That said, “you can’t out run a bad diet”, as my wife likes to say.

There are certainly people on the site that specialize in small batches. Principles are the same. Most of us like using the BiABacus Excel file that was designing on here with the brew day; some fly by the seat of their pants. There are several posts above this that explain this in more detail.

I look forward to seeing you on the forum. Sounds like you have considerable experience to share. And let us know if there are any questions.