First attempt at BIAB- recipe and method help

[Hengoedbrewer]

Hi all

I have had a very long break from brewing due to a house move and having a baby in the last couple of years. I aim to return to it shortly, initially I was going to attempt a Zombie Dust extract clone (after a lot of help from @phildo79 with the recipe for which I am very grateful and which I will do eventually!) but due to cost of extract I am going to have a go at BIAB instead. I've got a lot of tips off the excellent "have a go at simple AG" thread, but would just like some reassurance about my recipe before I go ahead and buy a new induction stock pot and brew in a couple of weeks time. Any pointers would be great as it has been a while and never BIAB'd before!!

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/821078/citra-biab

Thank you all.

 

[peebee]

BIAB was originally released on the home-brew market as a "no sparge" "full-boil-volume-mash" method (i.e. when the bag is removed what is left is boiled with the hops, perhaps a bit of top up but no sparging). I've got loads of swanky kit, but am using this "no sparge" technique because of the simplicity. Okay, I don't mash in a bag, but pretty close to that method.

Loads of advantages. It's not so much mucking about, its a lot easier getting the temperature right, you are not mixing potentially damagingly hot water with grain (you might use 70C, not 75C), don't have to figure out how to heat your "sparge water" ('cos you are not sparging!), and so on. Extract rates are about the same as "sparge" techniques, so no loss there, because the grain gets drained so well (I believe some BIABers actually squeeze the grain bag). The disadvantage is you need a fairly big vessel - I'm doing 21.5L batches in a 30L vessel (i.e. it's big enough to boil 30L in, probably 35-40L to the rim) and this size limits me to 4.5-5.0% ABV.

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

BIAB was originally released on the home-brew market as a "no sparge" "full-boil-volume-mash" method (i.e. when the bag is removed what is left is boiled with the hops, perhaps a bit of top up but no sparging). I've got loads of swanky kit, but am using this "no sparge" technique because of the simplicity. Okay, I don't mash in a bag, but pretty close to that method.

Loads of advantages. It's not so much mucking about, its a lot easier getting the temperature right, you are not mixing potentially damagingly hot water with grain (you might use 70C, not 75C), don't have to figure out how to heat your "sparge water" ('cos you are not sparging!), and so on. Extract rates are about the same as "sparge" techniques, so no loss there, because the grain gets drained so well (I believe some BIABers actually squeeze the grain bag). The disadvantage is you need a fairly big vessel - I'm doing 21.5L batches in a 30L vessel (i.e. it's big enough to boil 30L in, probably 35-40L to the rim) and this size limits me to 4.5-5.0% ABV.

Thanks for response. I probably should have mentioned the plan is to do small stove top batches, 10L using a 15L pot and MAYBE progress to a bigger boiler eventually.

 

[phildo79]

What is the difference in price between extract and BIAB for this planned brew?

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

2kg Maris Otter / 100g Citra / 250g of Crystal was £15, whereas the cheapest I could get the ingredients for the Zombie Dust clone was about £40.

 

[phildo79]

For a 10L brew?

 

[phildo79]

No biscuit malt?

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

No biscuit malt?

Good point- the £40 was for a 20L batch.

Should I be adding biscuit malt?

 

[phildo79]

The recipe I used had biscuit malt.
If the extract version is going to be roughly half what you thought, wouldn't it just be handier doing that and spending an extra fiver?

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

I could do; got most of the stuff so can pick up sundries if I have to...

 

[phildo79]

Do you have a grain mill? There's an extra £20 expense for BIAB.

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

Grain ready milled from Crossmyloof (also got my crystal / citra from there).