My First BIAB - AG#1 - Curdle Issues?

[baggybill]

Hi folks, following on from all the great threads & posts on here to get beginners started with AG, I finally took that step this afternoon with a 10L BIAB in a 16L stock pot :grin:

Picked up an 11L AG kit from LHBS yesterday which was recommended by the guys that work there as a great starter beer kit. Basically, it's a New Zealand Pale Ale using two grains - pale & wheat malt (I don't have quantities of each) with 5 hops additions (60,15,10,5,0) using dried hop leaf (not pellets). There was 2.8K of grain and the recipe says 7.6L water @ 67' Expected OG was 1.053

I used 8L water, 60 minute mash, 69' start and 63' end. Dunk sparged in another 6L water for 10 mins at 80' Total wort for boil = 12.5L

2.5g Irish Moss added at 15 mins from end.

Got a good rolling boil on but didn't notice any hot break. I was standing watching it closely for this so def didn't miss it. Is this common? :wha:

At 60 mins, moved to sink and chilled it real fast with cold running water constantly being replaced. Looked like a lava lamp inside the pot with all the swirling going on cold break maybe?

Once it was under 30' (maybe 15-20 minutes), poured through sieve into FV. The dried hop leaves seemed to be retaining a lot of the liquid and I reckon I lost another 1-1.5 litres to this. So at this point I have maybe 8.5-9 litres of wort at ~25' by now.

Liquid was starting to separate out by now, kinda like it was curdling. Gave it a good old mix with the electric drill & plaster mixer to aerate and blend in. Took SG and it was 1.077 :shock:

Added two litres of filtered water. Another 5 mins of drill & mixer and SG down to about 1.060ish.

Trouble is, it seems to curdle or separate back out really fast. Is something wrong here? I've never seen this before with a kit or any wine I've made. See photo.

It's now in the fermentation chamber at 20' with saf 05 added.

 

[stevej]

Looks ok to me pretty similar to the ones i have done so far
Regards Steve

 

[clibit]

That's normal. It's trub, generated by the mash and the hops, proteins, and grain and hop residue. If it gets in the FV it's ok, it settles out and you rack the beer off at bottling time.

 

[MyQul]

ITS INFECTED!! only joking. :mrgreen: Looks fine.

Re: The wort absorbed by the hops. How did you pass the wort through the seive? I use a plastic jug to transfer the wort from my pot and pour it into the FV throught a seive. As the hop debris starts to clog up the seive I use the back of the jug to 'swish' the hops and wort trapped in the seive to get it to pass through. I then squash the bejeesus out of the hop debris against the seive again using the back of the jug to extract any absorbed wort

 

[baggybill]

+1 with it looks fine.

Re: The wort absorbed by the hops. How did you pass the wort through the seive? I use a plastic jug to transfer the wort from my pot and pour it into the FV throught a seive. As the hop debris starts to clog up the seive I use the back of the jug to 'swish' the hops and wort trapped in the seive to get it to pass through. I then squash the bejeesus out of the hop debris against the seive again using the back of the jug to extract any absorbed wort

Very similar method. Sanitised 1L glass Pyrex jug and Asda cheapo SS sieve. Except I got struck with 'tannin fear' and only v.lightly pressed the hop leaves, just enough to stop it dripping on the floor when lifting over to empty it into the bin.

With it being hop leaf rather than pellet, it wasn't clogging up, just filling up.

TBH, I thought it was a lot of work and time for such a small amount of beer. Wife was on my case for stinking the house out too

Great way to learn though with the smaller scale brew. Can already see me out the front of the garage, come summer, with a big pot & stove. No hassle from the wife either

Thanks for the re-assurance on the brew - thought my hard work had been ruined by a bad grain combination or somit

 

[MyQul]

Very similar method. Sanitised 1L glass Pyrex jug and Asda cheapo SS sieve. Except I got struck with 'tannin fear' and only v.lightly pressed the hop leaves, just enough to stop it dripping on the floor when lifting over to empty it into the bin.

The production of tannins is a chemical one not a physical one plus you only get tannin production from the grains not the hops. So you can squeeze the bag like it owes you money to get all the wort out if you want but be careful of doing your sparge (if you do one) or mash too hot