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First BIAB - Does this look right?

Post #1 made 10 years ago
by Shekwan
Hi all! I'm a new BIAB brewing looking to start out with a simple 9 litre APA recipe using pale ale malt and citra. I want to emphasize the taste of the hops without going overboard into IPA territory.

It's all new to me so if I've missed out something big please let me know.

My main questions are:

Should I dry hop? Maybe an oz?
Is the hope schedule appropriate?
Is the mash temperature appropriate? The strike temp seems a little low?


OVERVIEW

Style:American Pale Ale
Name:Citra Smash APA
Yeast:US 05
Fermentation Temperature:19C
Original Gravity:1.055
Total IBU's:40
Colour (EBC):Don't know. Light ish?
Efficiency at End of Boil:?
Mash Length (mins):90min
Boil Length (mins):60min
Your Vessel Type (Pot/Keggle/Urn):Pot
Source/Credits:
Notes/Instructions/Comments:

Note that The Calculator download below is based on this recipe.

Volumes etc.

Your Vessel Volume (L or gal):20.5
Your Vessel Diameter (cm or in):30cm
Water Required (L or gal):16.13l
Mash Temperature (C or F):65C
Volume at End of Boil (L or gal):11l (VAW?)
Volume into Fermenter (L or gal):9.5l
Brew Length (L or gal):9.5l
Total Grain Bill (g or oz):2500g

Grains - Colours - Percentages and/or Weight (g or oz)

Grain 1:Pale Ale Malt
Grain 2:
Grain 3:
etc

Hops - AA% - IBUs - Weight (g or oz) at Minutes

Hop 1: Citra 12%AAU 13g @60min
Hop 2: Citra 12%AAU 5g @10min
Hop 3: Citra 12%AAU 5g @5min
Hop 3: Citra 12%AAU 5g @0min
etc

Adjuncts/Minerals/Finings etc

Adjunct:
Mineral:
Finings:
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by Shekwan on 15 Sep 2015, 11:40, edited 1 time in total.

Post #2 made 10 years ago
by safebrew222
Hi there...

Good luck on the 1st brew. Generally speaking, using tried and true recepies for your first few brews are the way to go, imo. I've been brewing for the better part of 3 years and still am working my way through my recipe books. But, if you got the itch to do one of your own... have at it!

Secondly, we always recommend a 90 minute boil. According to your file, you should still be able to do it in your pot.

Last, I'm no recepie expert, but I think you need to bump up the late hops to get the flavor you're looking for. Maybe some more experienced members can give some recommendations on how much.

Happy brewing.

Jeff

Post #3 made 10 years ago
by rickoles
Hi Shekwan

Citra yum! I can't get any where I live, I'm a bit jealous.

The temperatures are good. The higher your mash temps the greater the body but fewer fermentable sugars are created. The lower the temperature the opposite happens. 65c is a great middle ground go-to mash temp.

If you want greater hop aroma you can dry hop. Around 60g should work nicely for the style and a brew this size.

The calculator says your brew will be 8EBC in colour. Check out an EBC chart and see if you like that. Personally I prefer darker beers around 26. I know you said it was SMASH but if you wanted you could add up to 10% Dark Crystal 120EBC to bring it to around 20EBC. Crystal will help with head retention and add some caramel flavours also.

As Safebrew said above you may want to change your hop schedule a bit. I believe the basics are 60min for bittering, 20min for flavour and 5min for aroma. If you want more hop taste you may want to increase the second hop addition and reduce the first. For what you want I would put the same amount of hops in at each addition.

Take note of section X. After you do a few brews you will be able to adjust this section to help hit your numbers more accurately. I feel this is the most important part of the calculator and something you should be aware of while learning.

If you were to brew this beer as is you would come out with an excellent beer. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
    • SVA Brewer With Over 50 Brews From Australia

Post #4 made 10 years ago
by Shekwan
Cheers for the help!

Based on your advice I think I will use this hop schedule:
9g@60
9g@20
4g@5
4g@0

Would dry hopping be needed to really get a taste for this hop? I have another ounce.

I'm not averse to adding other ingredients but I'm aiming for a lightly coloured ale. Since this is my first all grain I'd also like to get a taste for just the base grain. Hence the smash. I do have some carapils though, I could add some for head retention. But again I'd like to start with SMASH and see what my base is like without additions.

Section X does seem important. What's the best way to measure these variables during brewday? Variables like kettle efficiency and evaporation rate? I have no idea what FPL is?

Post #5 made 10 years ago
by rickoles
It is said that aroma increases your ability to taste so I would definitely dry hop if I had left overs. Dry hopping doesn’t add flavour however. You usually dry hop after fermentation is complete. You could bottle a few and then dry hop the remaining and see which you prefer.

KFL with BIAB is used to reduce trub. I set mine to 3l which leaves the majority of the trub in the kettle. I was sick of losing 3-4l of of beer in the fermenter to trub.

FPL is fermenter to packaging loss. This is how much trub is in the fermenter which you can’t bottle. It’s not that important.

You will have a good idea of your evaporation rate after a few brew days.

After a few beers you will be able to adjust your efficiency up or down. This will help you hit your targets.

Don't think too hard on section X just yet, but it is important to know it’s there.
    • SVA Brewer With Over 50 Brews From Australia

Post #6 made 10 years ago
by Shekwan
Okay so I will dry hop a little to check the effect it has.

I put 3l KFL into my Biabacus calculations. It gives me the warning that I'm reaching my kettle limits. Which is an awesome thing to find out before brewday! Is this figure for 9l batches or 19l batches?

Post #7 made 10 years ago
by rickoles
Your batches are a lot smaller than mine. I would put 1l KFL to begin with and adjust from there, definately not 3l. It will increase the amount of water and grain you need so watch that.

You don't even have to use it if you don't mind trub. Your hob bill is quite small so might not be much at all.
    • SVA Brewer With Over 50 Brews From Australia

Post #8 made 10 years ago
by Shekwan
Ah okay. Will do.

What efficiency should I put into the biabacus? It seems like the default is a little high. It's my first BIAB so I'm thinking I will hit a lowish one - does 70% or so sound right?

Post #9 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Hi Shekwan. I would suggest leaving section X alone for your first brew, or probably first 5 brews really.

BIABacus is very good at predicting things based on many variables, including your equipment, grain bill, etc etc. Leave it at defaults, use it to record the brew (Section L). Go over section L before you brew, you will see when you need to measure and take gravity readings, so you will be prepared to do so when the time comes. A ruler works great for measuring volume, as long as you have your kettle dimensions correct. Measure from the top of the kettle down to the liquid in cm, put that number in section V, this is a very handy calculator which will give you the voloume via headspace whenever you need it. (Mash vol, VIB, VFO etc)

Once you get a good set of Biabacus results from 5 brews or so, you can compare section L to section k, and look to see if anything is consistently off the estimate over the set of results.

Good luck and happy brewing!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Canada

Post #11 made 10 years ago
by Shekwan
Hey all! Happy brewing!

This recipe worked really well. Delicious, and I now have a good handle on what Citra brings.

I'm going to do the same recipe but with Tettnang. My aim is to make a simple blond ale. So I'm going to use the same recipe but with Tettnang. Could the collective wisdom of Biabrewer.info have a look at this recipe? The hop schedule is the main thing. I don't think I need a bittering addition. What do you think? Also I'm going to add carapils to see how it affects body. How much is recommended for a 9l batch?

OVERVIEW

Style:Blonde Ale
Name:Noble Blonde Ale
Yeast:US 05
Fermentation Temperature:19C
Original Gravity:1.055
Total IBU's:around25
Colour (EBC):Don't know. Light.
Efficiency at End of Boil:?
Mash Length (mins):90min
Boil Length (mins):60min
Your Vessel Type (Pot/Keggle/Urn):Pot
Source/Credits:
Notes/Instructions/Comments:

Note that The Calculator download below is based on this recipe.

Volumes etc.

Your Vessel Volume (L or gal):20.5
Your Vessel Diameter (cm or in):30cm
Water Required (L or gal):16.13l
Mash Temperature (C or F):65C
Volume at End of Boil (L or gal):11l (VAW?)
Volume into Fermenter (L or gal):9.5l
Brew Length (L or gal):9.5l
Total Grain Bill (g or oz):2500g

Grains - Colours - Percentages and/or Weight (g or oz)

Grain 1:Pale Ale Malt
Grain 2:Carapils for body and head retention? How much?
Grain 3:
etc

Hops - AA% - IBUs - Weight (g or oz) at Minutes

Hop 1: Tettnang 5%AAU 12g @60min
Hop 2: Tettnang 5%AAU 8g @40min
Hop 3: Tettnang 5%AAU 4g @5min
Hop 3: Tettnang 5%AAU 4g @0min
etc

Adjuncts/Minerals/Finings etc

Adjunct:
Mineral:
Finings:
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

Post #12 made 10 years ago
by goulaigan
Looks good to me, make sure you put in a y or n for hopsock. Also, make sure you clear out section L and M and fill them out with the actual values of this brew. Hop schedule looks fine as is, if you don't want to do a bittering addition, I assume you mean by removing the 60 min addition, you will need more hops to still achieve the 25 IBU. Its really up to you, but looks fine as is. I usually use maybe a half pound of carafoam to a 23 litre batch if I want to improve head and body, so for your batch size maybe 75-100 grams? All just my opinion here since recipe design depends wholly on personal preference, you will develop yours further as you experiment, and you don't have to be too worried about trying things with such small batches I suppose. :)
Let us know what you decide and how it turns out.... Good luck!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Canada

First BIAB - Does this look right?

Post #13 made 10 years ago
by Contrarian
To add to the above I would leave the default BIABacus settings alone to begin with and just measure what your actual volumes are. The main volumes you need to look for are the amount of water you start with, the amount of wort you get into your fermenter (VIF) and what losses there are in between.

There are 3 losses you need to be able to measure. The amount of liquid absorbed by the grain is measured after you have pulled the bag and drained or squeezed (assuming no sparge). Then there is evaporation during the boil measured at the completion of the boil (there is an adjustment for temperature here as water expands when it is hot) and then there are losses between the kettle and fermenter. This is the trub and is comprised of hop matter as well as proteins that have clumped together during the boil (hot break).

If you chill in your kettle you will also add cold break to this. Generally brewers try to leave trub in the kettle and the amount you leave will depend on how you are transferring to the fermenter (tap, syphon etc) an how much there is will depend on the recipe you are brewing.

I would suggest for your first few brews just punching numbers into the BIABacus and carefully recording your actual volumes and gravities throughout he process. This is the best way to understand your process which is the most important thing.

And don't worry too much, at the end of the day you will still make beer!
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