warnie
Active Member
Well I've entered this darkside you all seem to love and had well, mixed experiences!
I have a 19ltr pot so decided to go down the Maxi route as per Ralphs guide on BIABrewer. I did this as it's a way of doing BIAB without having to worry to much about volumes etc as it works on a full to the brim method.
So anyway I weighed my ingredients out, which were 4480g of pale malt along with 31g of fuggles, 18g of northdown, both start of boil and 10g of goldings post boil. Not forgeting a protofloc? tablet 15mins from the end. The yeast I used of which I re-hydrated for the 1st time (so thats 2 1st time ducks cracked!) was SA-04.
I filled my pot two thirds full and hit my strike temp of 71 and doughed in the pale malt, stiring as I went along. I then took the temp and added the some water from the kettle which I'd pre-boiled, to top up my pot to the brim as my temp had dropped below my 66 degree mashing temp. After 45 mins I opened up the pot to stir and the temp was still at 66. But then 45 mins later at the end the temp had somehow dropped to 61.5 degrees
so that was the first error! anyway the concentrated wort was at 1065. I was hoping for nearer 1070...
Next I pulled the bag, drained what I could then dumped it in my 10ltr pot which I had already added 2ltrs of just off the boil water too. I then opened up the bag and added another 2ltrs of just off the boil water to bring the pot upto the brim again and stirred, I then left it for 15 mins. Whilst doing that I had fired up the burners to get my original wort upto boiling point. The idea with Maxi biab (Ralphs guide)is to sparge again and add what you can before the boil starts and then to keep adding the rest as the wort evapourates. I rushed my sparge for some reason and left myself short :? and ended up adding it all before the start of the boil, so therefor couldn't top up during the boil!
I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do and not to realise but as this was my 1st BIAB I wasn't thinking straight! Anyway due to this and my low mash finishing temp, I ended up with only 11ltrs of wort in the FV. So using ralphs formula to get my OG down to 1044, I needed to add 7.25 ltrs of water. I even messed this up and added 1ltr extra as I didn't take into account that my FV was was slightly raised at the front
So the upshot is, that I ended up with 19lts of beer at a very week 1036og. The good news is that I brewed this on sunday and by wednesday it was down to 1005, which gives me after priming at least a 4.2% beer! which is what the commercial stuff is ( how I don't know!) and it seems to taste right!
I now know what to do differently next time to improve everything in the process, and to be honest I would like to use the BIABacus, but I just can't seem to get my head around it
I'm going to add some pics and like others use this as a bit of a brewing log.
Next up is Timothy Taylors Landlord, wish me luck :
http://s84.photobucket.com/user/waynesidaway/media/20130505_135708.jpg.html]
[/URL]
I have a 19ltr pot so decided to go down the Maxi route as per Ralphs guide on BIABrewer. I did this as it's a way of doing BIAB without having to worry to much about volumes etc as it works on a full to the brim method.
So anyway I weighed my ingredients out, which were 4480g of pale malt along with 31g of fuggles, 18g of northdown, both start of boil and 10g of goldings post boil. Not forgeting a protofloc? tablet 15mins from the end. The yeast I used of which I re-hydrated for the 1st time (so thats 2 1st time ducks cracked!) was SA-04.
I filled my pot two thirds full and hit my strike temp of 71 and doughed in the pale malt, stiring as I went along. I then took the temp and added the some water from the kettle which I'd pre-boiled, to top up my pot to the brim as my temp had dropped below my 66 degree mashing temp. After 45 mins I opened up the pot to stir and the temp was still at 66. But then 45 mins later at the end the temp had somehow dropped to 61.5 degrees
so that was the first error! anyway the concentrated wort was at 1065. I was hoping for nearer 1070...Next I pulled the bag, drained what I could then dumped it in my 10ltr pot which I had already added 2ltrs of just off the boil water too. I then opened up the bag and added another 2ltrs of just off the boil water to bring the pot upto the brim again and stirred, I then left it for 15 mins. Whilst doing that I had fired up the burners to get my original wort upto boiling point. The idea with Maxi biab (Ralphs guide)is to sparge again and add what you can before the boil starts and then to keep adding the rest as the wort evapourates. I rushed my sparge for some reason and left myself short :? and ended up adding it all before the start of the boil, so therefor couldn't top up during the boil!
I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do and not to realise but as this was my 1st BIAB I wasn't thinking straight! Anyway due to this and my low mash finishing temp, I ended up with only 11ltrs of wort in the FV. So using ralphs formula to get my OG down to 1044, I needed to add 7.25 ltrs of water. I even messed this up and added 1ltr extra as I didn't take into account that my FV was was slightly raised at the front
So the upshot is, that I ended up with 19lts of beer at a very week 1036og. The good news is that I brewed this on sunday and by wednesday it was down to 1005, which gives me after priming at least a 4.2% beer! which is what the commercial stuff is ( how I don't know!) and it seems to taste right!
I now know what to do differently next time to improve everything in the process, and to be honest I would like to use the BIABacus, but I just can't seem to get my head around it
I'm going to add some pics and like others use this as a bit of a brewing log.
Next up is Timothy Taylors Landlord, wish me luck :
http://s84.photobucket.com/user/waynesidaway/media/20130505_135708.jpg.html]
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