First mini BIAB advice please?

[dericboy1]

Ive been getting ready to do do my first BIAB soon and have the use of a fifteen litre burco boiler,I came a step closer yesterday when i delivered to a shop next door to The Hogsback Brewery.I popped in to have a look around and came out with10kg of pale malt ,1kg of crystal malt and 250g of fuggles with the intention of doing a TEA clone and some left over to make some more . Now ive got these sat in my kitchen ready to be used and perhaps i should have put a bit more thought in to a recipe for my small boiler.Ive just downloaded brewmate calculator but it looks a bit daunting to me and dont know where to start Could someone please help me with a recipe for a small batch please and possibly recommend what yeast to use.

 

[rich27500]

What did brewmate say?

 

[dericboy1]

Haven't quiet worked out how to use it yet, I'm not the brightest with that kind of thing. Not being lazy and expecting anybody else to do it though. Tried downloading the calculator from BIABrewer and that wasn't successful either sorry.

 

[RobWalker]

15L boiler...I'd say you could probably get 12L mash water in there. from there you'll probably lose about 1.5L to evaporation. 450g (1lb of grain) will absorb about 0.1 gallon of water which you won't get back....

Assuming these are your figures...

9.5L Batch Size (final volume.)
10.87L Boil Volume
12.6L Mash Water

12.6L minus 1.8 gal grain absorption comes to 10.8, which is your boil volume. So that should work.

So all you gotta do is Mash In with all your grain and 12.6L mash water at 71c. Mash over 90 mins, strain bag, which shall leave you with about 10.8L liquor to boil (give or take.) From there you boil, add the hops, cool and ferment!

Here's a nice basic recipe (are you using high colour? If not you can throw a bit more crystal in if you want,)

Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.70 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 87.2 %
0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 12.8 %
25.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (60 min) Hops 29.8 IBU
10.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (10 min) Hops 4.3 IBU

I would start there. Measure your water volumes to the god damned millilitre, and write down EVERYTHING. Your absorption, how much boils off, how much you lose to grain absorption, your efficiency, your final volume...

With a few easy calculations, you'll know exactly what you are capable of after that, and you can start to play with recipes and ingredients.

Hope this helps!

 

[rich27500]

Good place to start http://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=153

And http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=27271

And blowing my own trumpet...http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=21655

You are not limited by the size of your pot.

 

[pittsy]

you can use this http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe easy to use just remember to change amount of liters used for brewing and boiling , smaller batches require more hops to reach bitterness ( IBU) just add amounts of grain etc and it will tell you expected Gravity ect

 

[dericboy1]

Haven't quiet worked out how to use it yet, I'm not the brightest with that kind of thing. Not being lazy and expecting anybody else to do it though. Tried downloading the calculator from BIABrewer and that wasn't successful either sorry.

 

[dericboy1]

Thank you Rich and Pitsy will check those links out.

 

[dericboy1]

Thank you too Rob that's a great help. Will let you all know the outcome. I feel a lot more confident now.