I posted my experiences with my first extract brew here http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51675 , which was well received so thought I would do the same for my first AG BIAB.
Equipment was the same as shown in the extract thread, but with the addition of a square of net curtain type material to hold the grain, a thermometer and I also invested in a wort chiller. The thermometer was eight quid from Amazon, wort chiller £34 off ebay
I got the grain and hops from Otley brewing near Pontypridd, cost me 6 quid something! They make excellent beers and also sell some grains/hops/etc from their shop. So saved on the postage for a small amount. If you are in South Wales, they are ideal for this kind of thing, and nice guys too. The yeast I already had in the house, picked up in the sale in Wilko last year. So cost around £7 in ingredients to make this.
I opted for a single malt, single hop. I put some figures that seemed about right into brewmate, and then used the BIAB calculator from http://www.biabrewer.info/ to work out my water quantities and so on. I used a "dunk spargeâ method.
Ingredients
08:00
7L of water brought to 73c in 20L pan (9.66cm depth of water in my pan)
quarter of campden tablet
08:30
Insert nylon square into pan, to use as BIAB, fix to the edge of pan with bungee cord
Add 2.1kg of Maris Otter, stir in to avoid lumps
Adjust temp with hot/cold to 65c or a few degrees above (was 67c)
cover in towel, winter coat & sleeping bag for 60 mins
Check after 30 mins, still 67c! I assumed it would drop more...
After 60min mash, was down to 65c. Probably dropped those two degrees when I opened it at 30mins!
during this time, wash and sanitize fermenting bucket and everything else needed
9:00 start heating 9L of water in second pan to 80c, another quarter campden here.
9:30 lift out bag from mashing, allow to drain and light squeeze.
Put 9L of newly heated water into FV, and then dunk sparge bag. Temp in water down to 75c, leave in here for 10 mins.
Clean up first wort by transferring between pans with a sieve and then start heating wort in main pan.
9:45 lift out bag from dunk sparge, let water run out. Tip this water into 20L pan (through a sieve) and continue to boil. Was 14.5L of wort in pan at this point (20cm depth)
Discard grain and wash bag
weigh out hops
10:00 rolling boil under way - add 12g of cascade
10:40 another 12g cascade
10:45 insert wort chiller & a quarter of a protofloc tab (I forgot the protofloc. Damn, still no big deal)
10:55 add 15g cascade
11:00 flame out
10 min rest at this point
assumed 3L loss in evaporation, so around 11.5L at this stage. (15.8cm deep)
11:10
Cool with wort chiller till down to 20c, strain into FV. Took around 18 mins to chill.
Aim was to put 10.5L into FV. Actually put in 10L. Did not bother topping up.
Brewmate told me target SG was 1046, and what do you know I managed to hit this more or less spot on.
11:30 aereate wort and pitch yeast. Used around 2/3 of the 11g pack.
some pics from the morning here:
Lessons learned:
Use the BIABinfo calculator to work out volume per depth in your pan. E.g. in mine, its 1.38cm per Litre. Very useful to be able to measure volume with a ruler.
Use a checklist! Even though I had it in the notes i was following, I forgot to add the protofloc.
I can't believe how little the temp dropped during the mash. Next time I will just leave it alone and not open it up to check.
I assumed 70% efficiency in my calcs and what do you know, I hit it almost bang on, in fact I think it was 1047. I forgot to write it down in the excitement of hitting the gravity I was aiming for!
The calculator spreadsheet is incredibly useful, and was pretty much bang on with water amounts, evaporation values and so on.
I will need a better bag for BIAB. The netting I had let too much material through.
I lined the cooker with tin foil, in event of a boilover! It also made cleanup the little splashes of wort that will happen much easier. Recommended.
All grain is not much more work than extract. It does take almost an hour more, but a lot of that time is quite chilled out, waiting for mash to finish and so on. I enjoyed the morning, cranked up the music in the kitchen and drank a lot of tea.
I am going to up my quantities a bit more next time, using the same dunk sparge method. I don't need to make 23L of beer every time, but if I can up this to, say, 14-16L using this method, I think that would be an ideal amount. Will try that in a few weeks.
It does feel incredibly satisfying to do all grain. Thanks to Clibit for his "[FONT="]Have a go at simple AGâ [/FONT]thread from the other daywhich gave me the nudge to do this. It feels great that I can look at more or less any recipe and know I can make that.
If anyone has any comments, or any of the old hands can point out anything I did wrong, please let me know. I think what I did made sense, but it's new to me. :
Equipment was the same as shown in the extract thread, but with the addition of a square of net curtain type material to hold the grain, a thermometer and I also invested in a wort chiller. The thermometer was eight quid from Amazon, wort chiller £34 off ebay
I got the grain and hops from Otley brewing near Pontypridd, cost me 6 quid something! They make excellent beers and also sell some grains/hops/etc from their shop. So saved on the postage for a small amount. If you are in South Wales, they are ideal for this kind of thing, and nice guys too. The yeast I already had in the house, picked up in the sale in Wilko last year. So cost around £7 in ingredients to make this.
I opted for a single malt, single hop. I put some figures that seemed about right into brewmate, and then used the BIAB calculator from http://www.biabrewer.info/ to work out my water quantities and so on. I used a "dunk spargeâ method.
Ingredients
2.135 Kg of Maris Otter. Target SG 1046. IBU 39. 10L
Hops Cascade 7.5% - 50g
hop schedule:
First hop - 60 min boil 12g
second hop - 20 min boil 12g
late hop - 5 min boil 15g
quarter of a protofloc tab
wilkos gervin ale yeast - used around 2/3 of a pack.
Then saving 11g cascade for dry hop
Right, the day looked like this:First hop - 60 min boil 12g
second hop - 20 min boil 12g
late hop - 5 min boil 15g
quarter of a protofloc tab
wilkos gervin ale yeast - used around 2/3 of a pack.
Then saving 11g cascade for dry hop
08:00
7L of water brought to 73c in 20L pan (9.66cm depth of water in my pan)
quarter of campden tablet
08:30
Insert nylon square into pan, to use as BIAB, fix to the edge of pan with bungee cord
Add 2.1kg of Maris Otter, stir in to avoid lumps
Adjust temp with hot/cold to 65c or a few degrees above (was 67c)
cover in towel, winter coat & sleeping bag for 60 mins
Check after 30 mins, still 67c! I assumed it would drop more...
After 60min mash, was down to 65c. Probably dropped those two degrees when I opened it at 30mins!
during this time, wash and sanitize fermenting bucket and everything else needed
9:00 start heating 9L of water in second pan to 80c, another quarter campden here.
9:30 lift out bag from mashing, allow to drain and light squeeze.
Put 9L of newly heated water into FV, and then dunk sparge bag. Temp in water down to 75c, leave in here for 10 mins.
Clean up first wort by transferring between pans with a sieve and then start heating wort in main pan.
9:45 lift out bag from dunk sparge, let water run out. Tip this water into 20L pan (through a sieve) and continue to boil. Was 14.5L of wort in pan at this point (20cm depth)
Discard grain and wash bag
weigh out hops
10:00 rolling boil under way - add 12g of cascade
10:40 another 12g cascade
10:45 insert wort chiller & a quarter of a protofloc tab (I forgot the protofloc. Damn, still no big deal)
10:55 add 15g cascade
11:00 flame out
10 min rest at this point
assumed 3L loss in evaporation, so around 11.5L at this stage. (15.8cm deep)
11:10
Cool with wort chiller till down to 20c, strain into FV. Took around 18 mins to chill.
Aim was to put 10.5L into FV. Actually put in 10L. Did not bother topping up.
Brewmate told me target SG was 1046, and what do you know I managed to hit this more or less spot on.
11:30 aereate wort and pitch yeast. Used around 2/3 of the 11g pack.
some pics from the morning here:
Lessons learned:
Use the BIABinfo calculator to work out volume per depth in your pan. E.g. in mine, its 1.38cm per Litre. Very useful to be able to measure volume with a ruler.
Use a checklist! Even though I had it in the notes i was following, I forgot to add the protofloc.
I can't believe how little the temp dropped during the mash. Next time I will just leave it alone and not open it up to check.
I assumed 70% efficiency in my calcs and what do you know, I hit it almost bang on, in fact I think it was 1047. I forgot to write it down in the excitement of hitting the gravity I was aiming for!
The calculator spreadsheet is incredibly useful, and was pretty much bang on with water amounts, evaporation values and so on.
I will need a better bag for BIAB. The netting I had let too much material through.
I lined the cooker with tin foil, in event of a boilover! It also made cleanup the little splashes of wort that will happen much easier. Recommended.
All grain is not much more work than extract. It does take almost an hour more, but a lot of that time is quite chilled out, waiting for mash to finish and so on. I enjoyed the morning, cranked up the music in the kitchen and drank a lot of tea.
I am going to up my quantities a bit more next time, using the same dunk sparge method. I don't need to make 23L of beer every time, but if I can up this to, say, 14-16L using this method, I think that would be an ideal amount. Will try that in a few weeks.
It does feel incredibly satisfying to do all grain. Thanks to Clibit for his "[FONT="]Have a go at simple AGâ [/FONT]thread from the other daywhich gave me the nudge to do this. It feels great that I can look at more or less any recipe and know I can make that.
If anyone has any comments, or any of the old hands can point out anything I did wrong, please let me know. I think what I did made sense, but it's new to me. :
