Newbie first brew questions

[DipenK]

Hi all,
I've recently been bitten by the brewing bug and thought I'd try my hand at BIAB brewing. I bought a BIAB starter kit with a peco boiler, etc from the HBC. I have had a couple of tries with limited success and thought it might help to get some advice off some experienced brewers. Here are some things that have confused me and I hope you can help me:

1) To Sparge or not? I have read conflicting posts on this... some don't bother with sparging, some cold sparge, some dunk sparge.. How do you decide? I only have the one boiler, which is being used for the BIAB mash at the time, so its difficult to heat a large quantity of water separately for sparging. Is it just a timing or efficiency thing? Whichever you decide (sparge or not), do you have to adjust the other items in the process... e.g. use more water in the mash if you decide not to sparge?

2) How to calculate how much water and ingredients to use for different batch sizes? I see recipes for 23l batches that I want to try, but at this stage I don't want to wait to go through 23l before i brew my next batch, I have limited space and number of bottles, so want to learn on smaller, more frequent batches. How do I adjust the recipes, just divide them all proportionally, e.g. divide all ingredients by 2 for a 12l batch instead of 23l?

3) cooling the wart.. I have an immersion cooler that I use to get the temperature down, but after it gets to about 30 degrees C, it does not seem to work any more, probably because the inbound water is not cold enough. How best do I handle this? Can I add ice to the wort at this stage? How much can I put in? I cant put the peco boiler in an ice bath, so can I transfer the wort to the fermenter early and then put that in the ice bath? Or should I just leave it to cool naturally for the rest of it? How long is reasonable to wait to cool it before its at risk of infection?

4) Size of FV? As I said before, I want to try different batch sizes, and I have limited space. I have one 23l FV, the standard bucket that most places sell. If I am only brewing a 10l batch, can I ferment in the same bucket or is there more risk of infection/ oxygenation as there will be more air in there? Or should I buy some smaller 5-10l fermenter vessels?

5) Bottle Capper : I have a youngs capper (black one with 2 handles) that I bought off ebay. Have I got a dodgy one or are they all as difficult to use? I find myself going through 2-3 caps before one fits correctly on a bottle. Or is it something I will get better at with experience?

Sorry for dumping all my questions at once, but these are really bugging me and I want to solve them before my next attempt at a brew. I appreciate any help I can get... I am sure I will have many many more questions as I learn more... but hopefully I will be able to answer some for people too.

Thanks and cheers!

 

[GerritT]

Hi all,
I've recently been bitten by the brewing bug and thought I'd try my hand at BIAB brewing. I bought a BIAB starter kit with a peco boiler, etc from the HBC. I have had a couple of tries with limited success and thought it might help to get some advice off some experienced brewers. Here are some things that have confused me and I hope you can help me:

1) To Sparge or not? I have read conflicting posts on this... some don't bother with sparging, some cold sparge, some dunk sparge.. How do you decide? I only have the one boiler, which is being used for the BIAB mash at the time, so its difficult to heat a large quantity of water separately for sparging. Is it just a timing or efficiency thing? Whichever you decide (sparge or not), do you have to adjust the other items in the process... e.g. use more water in the mash if you decide not to sparge?

2) How to calculate how much water and ingredients to use for different batch sizes? I see recipes for 23l batches that I want to try, but at this stage I don't want to wait to go through 23l before i brew my next batch, I have limited space and number of bottles, so want to learn on smaller, more frequent batches. How do I adjust the recipes, just divide them all proportionally, e.g. divide all ingredients by 2 for a 12l batch instead of 23l?

3) cooling the wart.. I have an immersion cooler that I use to get the temperature down, but after it gets to about 30 degrees C, it does not seem to work any more, probably because the inbound water is not cold enough. How best do I handle this? Can I add ice to the wort at this stage? How much can I put in? I cant put the peco boiler in an ice bath, so can I transfer the wort to the fermenter early and then put that in the ice bath? Or should I just leave it to cool naturally for the rest of it? How long is reasonable to wait to cool it before its at risk of infection?

4) Size of FV? As I said before, I want to try different batch sizes, and I have limited space. I have one 23l FV, the standard bucket that most places sell. If I am only brewing a 10l batch, can I ferment in the same bucket or is there more risk of infection/ oxygenation as there will be more air in there? Or should I buy some smaller 5-10l fermenter vessels?

5) Bottle Capper : I have a youngs capper (black one with 2 handles) that I bought off ebay. Have I got a dodgy one or are they all as difficult to use? I find myself going through 2-3 caps before one fits correctly on a bottle. Or is it something I will get better at with experience?

Sorry for dumping all my questions at once, but these are really bugging me and I want to solve them before my next attempt at a brew. I appreciate any help I can get... I am sure I will have many many more questions as I learn more... but hopefully I will be able to answer some for people too.

Thanks and cheers!

1) I sparge (AND I use a bag), and it's an efficiency thing. Rinsing more sugars out of the grain. Some BIAB purists squeeze the bag and consider it some, some don't do even that. You could add 10% more grain to make up for efficiency problems.

2) Just halve the recipe. Below 5 liters it's getting weird and difficult, because tiny variations can come out with huge effect. For instance: 1 gram of bittering hop more or less, not much of a problem with 20 liter brews, but with 5 liters... ouch.

3) No-chill IS a way of cooling, as in: leaving it to the next day (covered and all) and pitch then. If the temperature is right of course. Not much cooling going on with night temps of over 22º :/ You can transfer the wort to a sanitised fv, let it cool there, and pitch.

4) The fv is okay, the layer of co2 will be distributed over a larger space, so a bit less intense, but it should work. 25% headroom is considered good practise anyway (no real need for blowoff tubes and the like). So a 17 liter brew would be quite optimal for your fv. But 12 will do fine.

5) I bought a table model capper, £15-ish but a winged capper would be a nightmare for me.

Other people might have other answer to you questions, possibly better ones, but if you have more questions: keep 'm coming!

Best hobby in the world, no need for mysteries or doubts or uncertainties

Welcome!

 

[DipenK]

Thanks for the responses @GerritT , very helpful. A couple of follow ups if I may :

1) How much water do you sparge with? Most of the recipes give mash volume, but not sparge volume. Is it always the same quantity, regardless of recipe? Whats the best way? dunk, pour it over the bag? My boiler is in use at this stage so I will need to boil my 1.5l kettle and collect the hot water in my FV or similar.

2) So if I partial chill with the chiller as low as I can get it, then move it to a sanitised FV, cover and leave it to chill the rest of the way and then pitch the next day, that will be OK?

Definitely the best hobby in the world... but it can get so consuming and expensive though... i am so tempted by the all in one systems, fermenting fridges, kegs, wireless hydrometers etc... but I want to first get my brewing right before getting all the more expensive kit and trying to find more room in the shed!

 

[Gulpitdarn]

Hi, good of you to join us and indeed it is a great and rewarding hobby. Careful with the capper they can be dangerous as you can imagine from my photo.

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

Thanks for the responses @GerritT , very helpful. A couple of follow ups if I may :

1) How much water do you sparge with? Most of the recipes give mash volume, but not sparge volume. Is it always the same quantity, regardless of recipe? Whats the best way? dunk, pour it over the bag? My boiler is in use at this stage so I will need to boil my 1.5l kettle and collect the hot water in my FV or similar.

2) So if I partial chill with the chiller as low as I can get it, then move it to a sanitised FV, cover and leave it to chill the rest of the way and then pitch the next day, that will be OK?

Definitely the best hobby in the world... but it can get so consuming and expensive though... i am so tempted by the all in one systems, fermenting fridges, kegs, wireless hydrometers etc... but I want to first get my brewing right before getting all the more expensive kit and trying to find more room in the shed!

I'm a new BIAB brewer myself; so I am not sure how much help I am going to be here really, but my thoughts...

My first biab brew a few weeks ago was intended to be 10L. I ended up with a bit more than that in the fermenter as I added more hot water to the mash as my mash temp dropped a bit low. I didn't measure FV volume accurately as to be honest I was just wanting to get this first one out the way and hopefully not flood my kitchen etc but I think it was in the region of about 10.5 L. Eventually lost quite a bit to trub: I bottled 15x500ML PET bottles in the end.

1) I mashed with 6.5L and batch sparged with 6.5L as well, both bottled water. The sparge was cold. I used a portable induction heater to brew with, my main hob is also induction, and I only have one induction suitable pot, so I did cold water for convenience, putting it in a spare FV for 10 mins. I squeezed the bag. I think next time I am going to get one of those big Idealisk strainers from Ikea, sit the bag on top of that to drain a bit into my pot, and then sparge again with 6.5L of water and squeeze. I wasn't too worried about efficiency last time as a first time and didn't take pre-boil gravity, but ended up with higher than anticipated post boil gravity so in the end I guess I initially underestimated my efficiency.

2) I had problems with cooling so am looking to get a wort chiller, but if no chill is alright then I might consider that instead.

3) Bottling- in the past my missus helped me with bottling, I have a wilko capper which for the most part is fine- but last couple of brews I have used Coopers PET instead. Easier and I can do those myself whilst she runs around after the baby rather in it being a "one person hold bottles, one caps" two person job.

 

[Brewed_Force]

I dunk sparge into a small bucket of cold water, no need to heat up more water.

 

[DipenK]

Hi, good of you to join us and indeed it is a great and rewarding hobby. Careful with the capper they can be dangerous as you can imagine from my photo.
View attachment 19882

ouch looks painful, I might have to look at the PET bottles or swing top bottles... I'll see if I can get better with the capper, probably a 2 person job.

 

[DipenK]

thanks for the replies @Brewed_Force and @Hengoedbrewer . I think I will try a cold sparge next time. How do you decide how much water to sparge with? Is it the same every time (depending on batch size) or do you vary it per recipe?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Hi, good of you to join us and indeed it is a great and rewarding hobby. Careful with the capper they can be dangerous as you can imagine from my photo.

You are not supposed to stamp on it.

 

[GerritT]

Thanks for the responses @GerritT , very helpful. A couple of follow ups if I may :

1) How much water do you sparge with? Most of the recipes give mash volume, but not sparge volume. Is it always the same quantity, regardless of recipe? Whats the best way? dunk, pour it over the bag? My boiler is in use at this stage so I will need to boil my 1.5l kettle and collect the hot water in my FV or similar.

2) So if I partial chill with the chiller as low as I can get it, then move it to a sanitised FV, cover and leave it to chill the rest of the way and then pitch the next day, that will be OK?

Definitely the best hobby in the world... but it can get so consuming and expensive though... i am so tempted by the all in one systems, fermenting fridges, kegs, wireless hydrometers etc... but I want to first get my brewing right before getting all the more expensive kit and trying to find more room in the shed!

Suppose I want to end up with 16 liters of ale.
Per 1 kilo of malt you can get 4 liters of regular ale. So I need 4 kilo.
The ratio malt/water is about 2.5-3 , so I need to start with 10 liters of water (12 is fine too).

Heating it up to 75-ishº, move the grainbag with grain into the water.
Temperature stabilises at around 65º, add a pint of cold or hot water if needed, and wait for an hour (stir after 20 and 40 mins, not more).
Remove the bag with wet, and deposit the whole bag in my fv that has a false bottom and a tap. Every kilo of wet malt absorbs a liter of water so there are 6 or 7 liters left in the pot. Keep the pot warm to save time.
That all means that I have to get 10 liters or so back into the pot, some from sparging, some from cooldown water or ice.
So I rinse by sprinkling hot (75º) water on top of the grain while at the same time using the tap to get sugar water from under the grain. Sprinkling can be done with a foodgrade watering can, or by carefully emptying a hotwater jug in a skimmer to reach the sprinkling effect. Be careful.
Three pints of hot tapwater and one pint of boiling water will give 4 pints of approx 75º by the way.
I use enough sparge water to get to 14 liters in the pot. Gives me an efficiency of 65%, or 75% on a bad day. Bad, because the recipe needed 65%. Took some lastminute decisions in the recipe, not happy about that.

Boiling 14 liters for 90 minutes leaves 12 liters, doing the hop additions when needed, do a whirlpool, wait an hour (those flame-out hops need time too), use a silicon hose to transfer most of the wort into the fv, use a sieve and cheesecloth to get the most out of the last liter of trub, and then fill up with cold water to 17 liters in the fv. So that answers 2)

Next morning I pitch. And it's now fermenting at 25º :/

 

[lhooq]

1. I brewed BIAB with a Peco boiler for a while and dunk sparged in a spare bucket because I thought I ought to. I think it's the most awkward part of the process and you do need some other bucket (or suspension system!). It's certainly fine not to and if you're doing half batches no issue getting full boil volume and grain etc in the Peco. Highly recommend James Morton's book Brew which is very sensible and straightforward on BIAB techniques & recipes - he does large mash volumes and smaller sparges (so you can effectively heat that water in a kettle).

3. If you can fit chiller in your fv I would decant to that and then chill, helps a fraction anyway and then to chill in ice bath etc. Easier than ice bath: you can add ice if you're happy your water is sanitary (should be fine, although some will disagree!) - you'll be diluting wort so calculate for that. Or freeze a few plastic bottles full of water, you can then sanitize them if you like (eg spray with starsan) and chuck in (fish them out when you get to temp).

5. Yes wing cappers are DEFINITELY not all equal! The one I got with my first kit (red, no brand name except it says "made in Italy") has done into the thousands of bottles and I can cap a batch in minutes with it. Otoh I got another as a random freebie with a delayed grain order and it is utterly useless despite looking basically the same...

 

[Ian Watkins]

Re the bottling, check that the fatter bit on your bottle neck goes down about an inch from the top, most bottles do. Some however have the ridge which the capper grips to much higher up near the top (eg, google guiness porter bottle). These are much more difficult to cap. It may be the problem and worth keeping an eye out for.

 

[MrRook]

I dunk sparge into a small bucket of cold water, no need to heat up more water.

Don't you need to bring this to a boil at some point? Starting with cold sparge water would just make it take more time to get to boiling temperature.

 

[Popey]

Hi, good of you to join us and indeed it is a great and rewarding hobby. Careful with the capper they can be dangerous as you can imagine from my photo.
View attachment 19882

The same thing happened to me and the capper was promptly returned for a refund. I then bought a bench crown capper.