stuff that's bothering me about my eighth brew so far

[Buzzing]

So I took a small plunge from extract and speciality grains over to, not what most here would consider the dark side I suppose, but somewhere in between the light and dark side ?

A local supplier makes up All Grain kits and I went for the American Pale ale All Grain Kit, described on his website as follows :

"This is an American pale ale recipe containing the following ingredients, no guessing, just add all the grain to the pot and brew 3.3kg pale malt 700g Caramunich 2 600g Munich malt 31g southern promise at 60 min 19g Cascade at 10 min 9g cascade dry hop 3 days into fermentation 1 packet of US 05 yeast SG is 1.052 FG is 1.012"

Not having acquired all the equipment yet, I went for a 45 litre grain bag and did a Brew-in-the-Bag style brew for my virgin AG.

Things went well, not good, just well. To compensate for my expected lower efficiency I planned a shorter brew with more than the stipulated grain weight per litre wort. I overcompensated for this and ended up with a 1.065 SG wort and while in the brew-pot added 10% of total volume boiling water. This resulted in a 1.056 SG wort, which I then went ahead and put in the primary fermenter. Was this a big mistake ?

The wort smelled and tasted absolutely excellent and has been fermenting very happily, with loads of krausen, for a week.

The brew came out at a 66% efficiency, where I was expecting a 50% and the design recipe assumes a 75% efficiency.

Next time I'll try to get it spot-on, because the addition of water to thin it out is concerning me that the ale ends up watery or too thin tasting. Still hoping for the best here...


Any comments / assistance / advice welcome.

 

[rich27500]

absolutely no reason why BIAB should be lower efficiency. I have hit 82%. Have a look at the BIAB forum tonnes of good advice specific to BIAB over there.

 

[alanywiseman.]

What BIAB method do you use Rich?

 

[rich27500]

maxi, I have posted about it here: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=21655

 

[Swift Pint]

How much water did you use in the mash?
How much wort did you end up with in the fermentor?

Rich is right that you can expect about 80% effeciency with the BIAB method.
I've only had bad efficiency from BIAB once, and that occured when I didnt mash with enough water to begin with. You need to make sure that you use the total volume that you need in the fermentor + what you will lose during the boil + what you will lose to grain absorbtion + any loses due to dead space in the boiler.

If you use less water then you wont get as much of the sugar out of the grain, and you wont have enough wort in the fermentor, so any dilution later will impact the SG.

Welcome to the Darkside Buzz, I think BIAB is a great way to brew, so dont feel like you arent AG-ing "properly" or anything like that, you're using grain and now have full control over your recipes, which is the key! :thumb:

And dont worry about how this one come out, an SG of 1.056 is still higher than the kit expected, so you arent going to have a thin beer. In fact it will be a bit stronger than the recipe. I suspect you've probably ended up with less beer than you expected??

 

[Buzzing]

I used 13 litres of water in the mash.
I ended up with 12 litres @ 1.056 in the fermentor.

The initial 10 litres @ 1.065 after mash-out was diluted to the 12 litres @ 1.056

I still have some grain left, as I did not have a brew-pot big enough to do the full run, and therefore attempted to compensate for an expected lower efficiency.

I initially thought that the biggest factor in my expected inefficiency would be the process I used and my temperature controll, but it seems that it is more sensitive to the grain/water ratio. This I'll get right the next time.

My expectations for this one was really low, and I saw it as an experiment. So I actually beat my expectations with 12 litres of ale ! But yes, once I do my second AG brew with the balance of the grain, I do suspect I'll come out short, as I can only brew about 6 litres with what remains, meaning I lost 5 litres of ale. ***Now where's that crying smiley***

AM I correct in saying that I could have achieved the same 1.065 SG with less grain initially and that the difference between the normal BIAB / expected efficiency of 75-80% and my achieved efficiency of 66% was due to over saturation of the sugars in my mash with a less-than-optimum ratio of grain/water ?

 

[rich27500]

Buzzing seriously check this out http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=352

 

[Buzzing]

This brew took 3 weeks to finish fermenting. Got down to 1.009.

It went along slowly, probably due to the low temps ? It was sitting between 18 and 19`C using SAFALE US 05.


I was kind of expecting a clean and crisp taste, but this is not what I got. The taste was not unpleasant, too light on the hops side for me, but what bothers me in the taste is that it doesn't taste like what my typical extract and speciality grain brews tasted at this age. The taste is difficult to explain, but it seems very rich and almost starchy ?

I squeezed the grainbag when draining alot in order to get as much wort out. The cold-break produced a huge amount of sediment (proteins ?), much much more than what I have seen from my previous extract and speciality grain brews. Could this have affected the taste ? The brew was also not perfectly clear (in comparison to my previous non-AG brews) but was good enough to bottle and was slightly darker than what I expected.

Any thoughts, comments ?

 

[rich27500]

Too many variables to pick through, there is a theory that squeezing the bag releases tanins but many also don't believe that. SO5 has always been an excellent yeast for me and always produced crystal clear ales. Did you use protafloc or another kettle fining?

 

[Buzzing]

I did not use any fining at all. I now think I know exactly what that little light brown tablet in the plastic bag that came with the AG kit was for ! What is the best type, methodology, amount and timing for the addition of finings ?

The bottles cleared out very nicely and there is now a 2-3mm sediment layer at the bottom. I had a taste test last night and it blew me away ! It was a very rich and creamy taste with a very good mouth-feel and having a complex malty character with a slightly subdued background hops flavour. First time I've worked with it, but can not really say that I like the Southern Promise hops, but will maybe dose it higher next time.


I'm sure there's been better virgin AG brews by others. I'm also sure there's been worse ones. This lot won't last too long and therefore there should be no concerns regarding the sediment layer ?

Next time I'll :

Mash 90 min
Boil 90 min
Use finings
dip-sparge my grain bag
leave it on the trub for 4 weeks
Brew a 5 gallon batch.


Can't wait !

 

[rich27500]

Good skills! If the brown tablet was a protafloc you chuck it into the last 15 mins of the boil.