IainM
Landlord.
So my HBC BIAB starter kit arrived yesterday, complete with HBC Belgian Triple AG kit, where I'm staying with my parents over the Easter holidays. I was planning to wait and do the first AG brew back home, but opened the box and saw the bag had split, with about 1kg of crushed grain sprinkled around the box. I wasn't going to let it go stale on me, and this was the perfect excuse for being impatient and doing my first AG at the earliest possible opportunity. So, I found a brand new homebrewonline starter kit on ebay, normally �ã50, got it for a tenner! Picked it up last night for todayââ¬â¢s impromptu BIAB#1 brew day in the sun.
All started well, got 20l to 72C, put the bag in above the 'false bottom' (wire cooling rack), stirred in the grain gradually without clumps, and got a nice mash temp of 65C. Covered with towels and mashed for 90 mins, stirring every 30, and it kept its temperature well. Pulled the bag, sparged in the fv, and ended up with 22l of delicious sweet wort. Wow, tastes so much better from fresh grain than extract ever has!
Chucked in the candi sugar rocks, took it to a rolling boil, followed the hop addition schedule exactly, and added half a whirlfloc at 5mins from the end. So far, so good.
Chilling it was a pain. Got down to 40C pretty quickly, but then it slowed down a lot. This is when it started to go wrong. The flies were buzzing about, and one found its way to the wort (ugh). At this point, I also realised that the hop filter had been dislodged from the tap, so the tap clogged pretty much immediately. Ended up putting the wort through a colander, with fairly large holes, so all the proteins and stuff that had coagulated into 'clouds' in the boiler in the pic above ended up in the fv. Should've used the BIAB bag to strain it instead, but I forgot about it! Doh. I hope this drops out properly when I cold crash later on. It did start to seperate in the fv, which is encouraging:
Anyway, got 18l in the fv with OG of 1.080! Nice, definitely around the Belgian Triple mark. Pitched with Safbrew T-85 at 24C, as I was in a bit of a hurry, then I realised I hadn't aerated it. Oops. Took the paddle to it once the yeast had already dropped from the surface. Hope I didn't disturb the little critters too much, and I still reckon I haven't aerated it enough. Oh well. Who knows, perhaps the stress of low oxygen and being thrashed with a paddle will help them make nice fruity Belgian flavours. Either that or they'll just munch the candi sugar and give up before eating the maltose haha. Overall, BIAB#1 didn't exactly go smoothly, and I ended up with very hazy wort with lots of sediment, and a fly (I did skim it out!), but the trial jar tastes damn good. It could've been worse, and it was definitely a learning experience. I'm looking forward to BIAB#2 in April. I've found a brew-buddy who had been doing kits on and off for 15 years, and we've organised a brew day and BBQ if the weather holds out.
All started well, got 20l to 72C, put the bag in above the 'false bottom' (wire cooling rack), stirred in the grain gradually without clumps, and got a nice mash temp of 65C. Covered with towels and mashed for 90 mins, stirring every 30, and it kept its temperature well. Pulled the bag, sparged in the fv, and ended up with 22l of delicious sweet wort. Wow, tastes so much better from fresh grain than extract ever has!
Chucked in the candi sugar rocks, took it to a rolling boil, followed the hop addition schedule exactly, and added half a whirlfloc at 5mins from the end. So far, so good.
Chilling it was a pain. Got down to 40C pretty quickly, but then it slowed down a lot. This is when it started to go wrong. The flies were buzzing about, and one found its way to the wort (ugh). At this point, I also realised that the hop filter had been dislodged from the tap, so the tap clogged pretty much immediately. Ended up putting the wort through a colander, with fairly large holes, so all the proteins and stuff that had coagulated into 'clouds' in the boiler in the pic above ended up in the fv. Should've used the BIAB bag to strain it instead, but I forgot about it! Doh. I hope this drops out properly when I cold crash later on. It did start to seperate in the fv, which is encouraging:
Anyway, got 18l in the fv with OG of 1.080! Nice, definitely around the Belgian Triple mark. Pitched with Safbrew T-85 at 24C, as I was in a bit of a hurry, then I realised I hadn't aerated it. Oops. Took the paddle to it once the yeast had already dropped from the surface. Hope I didn't disturb the little critters too much, and I still reckon I haven't aerated it enough. Oh well. Who knows, perhaps the stress of low oxygen and being thrashed with a paddle will help them make nice fruity Belgian flavours. Either that or they'll just munch the candi sugar and give up before eating the maltose haha. Overall, BIAB#1 didn't exactly go smoothly, and I ended up with very hazy wort with lots of sediment, and a fly (I did skim it out!), but the trial jar tastes damn good. It could've been worse, and it was definitely a learning experience. I'm looking forward to BIAB#2 in April. I've found a brew-buddy who had been doing kits on and off for 15 years, and we've organised a brew day and BBQ if the weather holds out.
![BREWING THERMOMETER STICKERS ACCURATELY MONITOR FERMENTING BEER & WINE LIQUID TEMPERATURES 5PCS HOME BREW SPIRITS WINE LCD ADHESIVE [US]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/311DDjo2X3L._SL500_.jpg)
. This morning it had dropped to a more reasonable 22/23C. SG had dropped from 1.080 to 1.018, giving it an abv over 8% after only 36 hours! Trial jar has definitely got some Belgian smells hiding behind the strong smell of raw alcohol. I've got a feeling this is going to take a long time to condition, but it will be a beast.
