Hi Guys,

Brand new to BIAB and brewing in general. I've spent about a week on the site digesting the biabacus, reading through forum posts, watching videos and reading How to Brew. It's a lot to take in and some of it is still confusing but I'm sure a lot more will make sense (and perhaps more questions will arise) when the rubber meets the road and I run my first brew this weekend.

I've decided to run the NRB's All Amarillo APA from the BIABacus as my first try since it sounds pretty delicious. I've attached my BIABacus for that recipe where I've filled in my kettle dimension and VIF. I am doing a "mini-biab" on my stovetop, so desired output is in the 2 gallon range.

The default setting for Whirfloc tablet was 5 minutes but the ones I got say 15 minutes. I set it to 10 minutes to split the difference but I'm not sure what to go with. I have selected Y for natural priming since I have priming sugar I'm using, I assume that is natural?

It doesn't seem like there is a lot to screw up if you are going off of the default recipe here, so hopefully I'm doing it right. I did use conservative numbers for my kettle measurements, it is supposed to be a 5 gallon kettle.

When I went to the LHBS, I got double the grain bill listed for one brew because I figured I would brew it again but this time with different hops to explore something different. So for my second brew, I am still using the default template for the All Amarillo, but have made some tweaks to support what I want from this second brew. This is where I'm more unsure because I'm not sure if I have done this correctly.

I picked up 2 oz of Cascade Hops for the second brew and figured I would use them all to make for a slightly more bitter and hoppier brew. I kind of want to try making a 'session IPA' which I realize is just a hoppy APA. So, I've adjusted my OG down a little bit to reduce alcohol % to 4.6 and added in my hop bill to reach an IBU of 46.2 and leaving some of them for dry hopping in the fermenter.

I have attached the BIABacus for both, but I'm most interested in feedback on the Cascade experiment. Does this look like it can work with the changes I made or have I created a recipe for disaster? I'm not sure if changing the OG of the original recipe changes how long I should mash and boil for?

Thank you for any feedback, I hope I posted this in the correct forum for these questions.

Rick wrote:Everything looks okay, but I would ditch the amber malt for the IPA (unless somebody here can vouch for it).

Considering the low gravity, 7.7% would be okay for a direct substitution with crystal malt. If you want roast, I would drop it to about 5% and sub in something like Victory, Biscuit or Aromatic malt. Those are much less intense than the amber, which I think will clash with the added hoppiness (which I assume you want this to be more forward).

Also, more dry hops! I would quadruple that amount, to start.

I might also add some oats, rye, flaked barley .. or whatever for mouthfeel. Not a sub, but as an add on ... just increase the gravity again to account for it.

Just my .02c

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the input! I've already purchased my grain bill and it's been mixed for each batch, so I think I'm stuck with the amber. Perhaps it's better to shelf the IPA idea and do something that complements the amber better? Or just roll the dice and see what happens with the plan and pick up some more hops. I basically see this as an experiment more than anything else in using the same grain bill but different hops to achieve a different product.