AG#1 - Mad Boris Russian Imperial Stout
I started my first AG BIAB on Boxing Day, and I thought I’d share my notes and learning points. Apologies for the overly long post and if you’re an expert / experienced brewer this might not be for you and you might want to stop here. It’s probably best suited to new brewers such as myself; I’ve only previously done two kit brews.
I thought I’d planned this pretty well, having read articles and researched. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was needed and what to do and when to do it. I was pretty much there but I missed a few things. I don’t think it will make too much difference, but I note it here for the benefit of others.
I was using the Russian Imperial Stout recipe from James Morton’s Brew book. I had used BIABacus to scale the recipe down to about 8 litres into FV.
I treated the strike water with sodium metabisulphite (campden) but then forgot to treat the sparge water in the same manner. Getting the water up to temp seemed ok but I then had thermometer probe issues. First, it would not switch on and then when I did get it working, I had not realised that it had locked and I had to keep taking the battery out to reset the thing. So I happily whizzed past 75c - which meant I then had to faff about taking hot strike water out and replace with cold to get it back down again.
Grain in, and I did this really slowly, probably too slowly, so the temp went down quite a lot to about 65c. I probably should have heated it back up a bit more at this stage. I elected to put it in the oven to mash. Mash temp should have been 68c but ended up being 65c-67c by the time 90 mins was up – I elected to mash for slightly longer as I was using standard crush on the grain.
I had underestimated the mash out. It’s not just the weight per se; only 3.2kg total grain plus absorbed water. The issues are these: it’s heavy-ish, it’s large and unwieldly, it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s sticky. And you’re holding it up and at arm’s length, trying not to splash this hot sticky liquid over SWMBO’s cherished induction hob.
I don’t think I sparged correctly. I put some hot-ish water in a FV, lowered the grain bag in and let it sit for 10 mins. In hindsight, I think I should have poured the water through the grain and then let it sit. It may only make a small difference.
The boil went mostly without issue. I had expected to bring to the boil and then turn the power down to something like 5 to simmer, bit no. It needed to be on 9 for the whole time. I did initially forget to put the hop pellets in the hop sock, but managed to put the majority in there. I would recommend doing this. I would advise against just throwing them in. When I took the hop sock out at the end, it was full of the brown hop sludge, which would have otherwise been in the wort.
I do not have a chiller, so I had prepared loads of massive ice cubes and freezer blocks to stick in the sink. Seemed to work ok and probably took about 40 mins to cool down to a reasonable temp.
I rehydrated a packet of MJ M42. I sanitised tap nozzle, the scissors, the yeast packet, the glass, and the cling film. I know it was a much smaller batch than usual, but on balance, given it’s better to pitch too much, given it’s a high ABV brew and given that it’s not that warm in the garage presently, I used the whole packet. I ‘mis-remembered’ what pitching temp was. I had recalled it needing to be under 25c, so may have been a tad high.
I transferred to the FV through a piece of voile sat in a sieve. I’m now trying to recall if I sanitised it or not. Too late now I guess. When it came to the FV itself, I had a few issues. Firstly, I had selected a FV that was too small – or at least not enough headspace to take into account a lively fermentation. So – cue a rushed clean and sanitise of large FV, tap, etc. Transferred the wort to a larger FV, only to notice that the tap was leaking, so another transfer back to the (cleaned and sanitised) pot, refit the tap (re-sanitised) and transfer back to the final FV.
By the time I had finished all this, it was something like 7 hours later! Two hours of that was cleaning up the kitchen and making sure I was handing it back to SWMBO in exactly the same condition that I had received it in.
After 24 hours, there was some evidence of activity, but I’m having temp issues. With the heat that is generated from the fermentation itself, it can get up to 24c in a reasonably ambient (19-20c) room, whereas it’s going as low as 14c when insulated in a garage. So I’m trying to do the best without any fancy temperature management.
All in all, feeling pretty happy with my first grown up brew, here’s what I learned.
Positives
BIAB seems pretty easy, even though I appeared to make a right meal of it.
The resulting wort tastes so much better than kit wort. I hope this is a sign of good things to come.
Negatives
Find a mate – I was lucky I had someone to help me for most of the time.
It will probably take a lot longer than you think it will – certainly for the first one.
Make detailed notes, not just what you have done, but what you need to do and in what order.
Get a decent thermometer – one with an alarm
Make sure the taps are in correctly
I started my first AG BIAB on Boxing Day, and I thought I’d share my notes and learning points. Apologies for the overly long post and if you’re an expert / experienced brewer this might not be for you and you might want to stop here. It’s probably best suited to new brewers such as myself; I’ve only previously done two kit brews.
I thought I’d planned this pretty well, having read articles and researched. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was needed and what to do and when to do it. I was pretty much there but I missed a few things. I don’t think it will make too much difference, but I note it here for the benefit of others.
I was using the Russian Imperial Stout recipe from James Morton’s Brew book. I had used BIABacus to scale the recipe down to about 8 litres into FV.
I treated the strike water with sodium metabisulphite (campden) but then forgot to treat the sparge water in the same manner. Getting the water up to temp seemed ok but I then had thermometer probe issues. First, it would not switch on and then when I did get it working, I had not realised that it had locked and I had to keep taking the battery out to reset the thing. So I happily whizzed past 75c - which meant I then had to faff about taking hot strike water out and replace with cold to get it back down again.
Grain in, and I did this really slowly, probably too slowly, so the temp went down quite a lot to about 65c. I probably should have heated it back up a bit more at this stage. I elected to put it in the oven to mash. Mash temp should have been 68c but ended up being 65c-67c by the time 90 mins was up – I elected to mash for slightly longer as I was using standard crush on the grain.
I had underestimated the mash out. It’s not just the weight per se; only 3.2kg total grain plus absorbed water. The issues are these: it’s heavy-ish, it’s large and unwieldly, it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s sticky. And you’re holding it up and at arm’s length, trying not to splash this hot sticky liquid over SWMBO’s cherished induction hob.
I don’t think I sparged correctly. I put some hot-ish water in a FV, lowered the grain bag in and let it sit for 10 mins. In hindsight, I think I should have poured the water through the grain and then let it sit. It may only make a small difference.
The boil went mostly without issue. I had expected to bring to the boil and then turn the power down to something like 5 to simmer, bit no. It needed to be on 9 for the whole time. I did initially forget to put the hop pellets in the hop sock, but managed to put the majority in there. I would recommend doing this. I would advise against just throwing them in. When I took the hop sock out at the end, it was full of the brown hop sludge, which would have otherwise been in the wort.
I do not have a chiller, so I had prepared loads of massive ice cubes and freezer blocks to stick in the sink. Seemed to work ok and probably took about 40 mins to cool down to a reasonable temp.
I rehydrated a packet of MJ M42. I sanitised tap nozzle, the scissors, the yeast packet, the glass, and the cling film. I know it was a much smaller batch than usual, but on balance, given it’s better to pitch too much, given it’s a high ABV brew and given that it’s not that warm in the garage presently, I used the whole packet. I ‘mis-remembered’ what pitching temp was. I had recalled it needing to be under 25c, so may have been a tad high.
I transferred to the FV through a piece of voile sat in a sieve. I’m now trying to recall if I sanitised it or not. Too late now I guess. When it came to the FV itself, I had a few issues. Firstly, I had selected a FV that was too small – or at least not enough headspace to take into account a lively fermentation. So – cue a rushed clean and sanitise of large FV, tap, etc. Transferred the wort to a larger FV, only to notice that the tap was leaking, so another transfer back to the (cleaned and sanitised) pot, refit the tap (re-sanitised) and transfer back to the final FV.
By the time I had finished all this, it was something like 7 hours later! Two hours of that was cleaning up the kitchen and making sure I was handing it back to SWMBO in exactly the same condition that I had received it in.
After 24 hours, there was some evidence of activity, but I’m having temp issues. With the heat that is generated from the fermentation itself, it can get up to 24c in a reasonably ambient (19-20c) room, whereas it’s going as low as 14c when insulated in a garage. So I’m trying to do the best without any fancy temperature management.
All in all, feeling pretty happy with my first grown up brew, here’s what I learned.
Positives
BIAB seems pretty easy, even though I appeared to make a right meal of it.
The resulting wort tastes so much better than kit wort. I hope this is a sign of good things to come.
Negatives
Find a mate – I was lucky I had someone to help me for most of the time.
It will probably take a lot longer than you think it will – certainly for the first one.
Make detailed notes, not just what you have done, but what you need to do and in what order.
Get a decent thermometer – one with an alarm
Make sure the taps are in correctly
Again, it spreads the jobs out a bit so you have a break between brewing and pitching.
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