First AG - BIAB - (sort of)Patersbier

[nicowk]

I've done a few kits and decided to throw myself into AG. I'm interested in smaller batches, and BIAB appealed to the tight Yorkshireman in me as I could buy less equipment.

I went for Greg Hughes Patersbier because it looked fairly simply, and is the style of beer that I like, a few on here have said its a bit bland, but we shall see.

I am a big fan of people posting photos on here as I find I learn most from those threads, so I took a bunch.

I basically scaled the whole recipe down by 33% (since it requires 4.5kg of malt and I bought a 3kg pack).

So as a first timer, mistakes happen, I have no idea how I did it but only realised on the day, I have ordered German Bohemian Pilsner Malt, rather than Belgian Pilsner Malt.. Oh well, carry on!

Grain:
Bohemian Pilsner Malt (3kg)

Hops:
Saaz (20g) start of boil
Hallertauer Mittelfruh (7g) last 10 mins

Yeast:
Wyeast 3787 Trappist high gravity

Expected:
Makes: Just over 15L
OG: 1.046
Bitterness: 16.4 IBU
Colour: No idea as I have the wrong grain

Step 1, ingredients at the ready:

Step 2, fail to prepare = prepare to fail

Step 3, heat 12L of water to 70 degrees. I anticipate I will lose 2L in the grain, and will add 2*4L of dunk sparges after the mash to take the preboil volume to 18L, to hopefully end up with just over 15.

Step 4, add the grain in the brew bag, remove clumps

Step 5, check the temp was 65 degrees for the mash as calculated.. Hmm not quite, I expect to lose a couple of degrees I'm happy enough with 66.4 degrees.

Step 6, wrap in half a dozen towels, return a couple of times over the hour to give it a poke and stir.

Step 7, after an hour check the temp, 64.2, so I lost 2.2 degrees in the mash.. I'm fairly happy with the considering my methods.

Step 8, pull out the bag and squeeze that mother!! At this point I realised my 21L pot diameter was difficult to sit 3kg of grain on top without spilling over the side. The squeezing was awkward and difficult to be honest.

Step 9, dunk sparge. I heated 4L of water to 75 degrees and put the grain in, and gave it a good prodding for a few mins and poured into the big pot. I repeated this for a second time. During this I put the big pot on full heat to get towards to boil. The transferring of the dunk sparge water while holding the heavy grain bag was again, difficult!

Step 10, hops bagged up and ready, while the boil nears rolling.

Step 11, she's going! Chuck the bloody hops in! I became immediately concerned because I was expected 18L preboil, and my 21L pot appears to be full to the rim, where on earth has the extra water come from? Unfortunately I have nothing to measure how much was actually in the pot. Added the hops as per the schedule, there really wasn't much compared to other recipes. And 1tsp of irish moss with 15 mins left.

Step 12, cool. This is where is all went a bit wrong. I was just cooling in the sink with ice. I prepared a bunch of big ice blocks and cubes, and within 5 mins these were all melted and the water was warming up. I was repeatedly replacing the water with fresh cold water.. But god, it took hours to cool down, maybe about 3 hours? So I might be looking at chill haze issues?

Step 13, transfer to the fermenter vessel and add yeast. The yeast was liquid where to smack the pack to activate.. I didn't read the instruction saying leave it for 3 hours, and by this point it was half 10, so I slapped it and just poured it in. Will see when I get home from work if it's working. Fingers crossed.

I ended up with ~16L of wort, about what I was expecting so maybe my pot isn't really 21L!

OG reading came out as 1.051, so higher than I expect, no idea why...!

So that was it. I learned I definitely need an immersion chiller. I also had no idea when boiling there would be lots of coagulated proteins, so I thought I had infected it with something for a while.

Now I wait and see. Any thoughts?

 

[Covrich]

Yeah you can sometimes see all sorts of things when you brew and are cooling, it will all compact down in day or so..

As for the beer it should be nice, I know some say its bland but I think its the lawn mower style more delicate noble hop flavor rather than smash you around the face hop nukes..

 

[jayjt29]

Great write up mate, soon you'll be doing it without notes :) All my Biab brews I just no chilled overnight and transferred to a fermenter the next day had no problems at all and saved a few quid on a chiller.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Notlaw]

From what I've read, the main difference between the Belgian and Bohemian malt is the friability, which is the ability to break down into smaller pieces, basically. The Bohemian can break up easier, meaning slightly more chance of a stuck mash (which you didn't get anyway, so all's good) and possible better extraction from the malt (again, all good).

 

[Leon103]

Good brew day and nice post. I plan to do the Greg Hughes recipe soon

 

[SwissBrew]

Really helpful post for my first attempt. Thanks for sharking your experience

 

[serum]

Looks good. I'll get round to one of these one day but I can't seem to tear myself away from the stronger beers!

 

[chuffer]

Great step by step walk through - hope it turns out great.

Re. your cooling issues I'd recommend using a bigger container of water and saving old plastic milk cartons or fizzy drinks bottles, clean them up, fill them up with cold water and put in the freezer. If you don't have a lot of space in the freezer then you could do lots of little ones (e.g. Yakult pots or 1pt milk cartons). At the start of the brew day put half of your frozen bottles into a large container of cold water (e.g. bath or trug). Add the remainder as the cavalry when you're pot has warmed the water up a bit. I span my pot clockwise with one hand and occasionally swirled the container water in the opposite direction. I managed to cool approx 15 litres of wort in about 1/2 hr doing this

 

[Halfacrem]

Looks good. I hope it works out well. I'm on my second batch of Patersbier. I don't think it's bland at all. It's certainly not a hop or malt monster, but it's not meant to be. I'm sure you'll enjoy it on a nice hot Summers day (whatever and whenever that might be)

 

[nicowk]

Cheers guys. Referring to it as bland might have been a little harsh, I'm into fruity pale ales, blondes, IPAs, so I'm just looking for a nice gentle beer which I think it will be.

After a couple of days in the fermenter there very little bubbling but a colossal krausen - so all good.

I'm planning on filling 2 mini kegs and half a dozen bottle, can't wait!