Hello forums! After conferencing with people, I have decided to do BIAB for my first batch. Using BeerSmith (what a great program for a beginner like me), I came up with a recipe for an APA in a 1.5 gallon batch to start. I was told to start small to get the process down and then go from there, thoughts? Well, here it is, go gentle, it is my first time... BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com Recipe: Python Pale Ale BIAB Brewer: Dan K Asst Brewer: Style: American Pale Ale TYPE: All Grain Taste: (30.0) Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Boil Size: 3.03 gal Post Boil Volume: 2.09 gal Batch Size (fermenter): 1.50 gal Bottling Volume: 1.28 gal Estimated OG: 1.055 SG Estimated Color: 5.5 SRM Estimated IBU: 41.6 IBUs Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 % Est Mash Efficiency: 87.1 % Boil Time: 75 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ Amt Name Type # %/IBU 3.00 gal Boston, MA Water 1 - 3 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 85.7 % 4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 7.1 % 4.0 oz Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.1 % 0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 26.6 IBUs 0.25 oz Ahtanum [6.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 9.7 IBUs 0.25 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 5.3 IBUs 1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 Yeast 8 - 0.25 oz Ahtanum [6.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs Mash Schedule: BIAB, Light Body Total Grain Weight: 3 lbs 8.0 oz ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temperat Step Time Saccharification Add 13.14 qt of water at 152.3 F 147.9 F 90 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 10 min Sparge: If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort Oh yeah and add Irish moss in the recipe as well... Thanks!!!
I like it. Just a side note having done BIAB, 87% Mash efficiency is possible with BIAB but not probable. Really depends on your crush. The best I was ever able to milk out of a BIAB batch was around 75%, but others have certainly gotten more. Just record all of your numbers and measurements on this first batch and plug the results into beersmith so you can dial in your next batch. Regardless, it's gonna be a nice beer!
Looks good. If after this, you feel OK about the process and the outcome, you might want to test ingredients. Consider doubling or tripling the percent munich and reducing the crystal by half. Playing with the ratios will help you learn the contributions of the different ingredients and evaluate what you like.
Thank you all for the feedback! This is actually an older (and by older I mean about a day or two) recipe before I adjusted the efficiency estimates. I want to experiment with hop combinations and do an APA that is unique-ish with Centennials leading the way followed up by the Ahtanum and Willamette. When I said "go gentle it's my first time" I didn't expect to get buttered up lol! But thank you so much for the feedback and I will let you all know how it comes out!
Looks tasty. I'll note that most of us do 5 gal batches, (or more), because we look at the amount of time invested and the yield from our time. Brew day typically takes 4 or 5 hours and if you're bottling your beer you can add another 2 hours onto that. 7 hours is a lot of work for a 12 pack of beer. It's your time and your money, but usually 5 gallons is very manageable for anyone with a healthy back. Also, have a gallon of hot water on the ready during mashing. Have ice cubes on the ready during mashing. Have DME and RO on the ready when you are getting close to the end of your boil. This helps you hedge your bets if you're high or low on temp on mash and high or low on gravity.
@inchrisin Thanks for the tips! This is my very first batch, so I am trying to keep overhead costs down and also the defeatist factor down. If I mess up the first time around, I don't want to discourage myself by ruining 5 gallons of beer versus 1.5 gallons. I think as I get more experienced, I will do the full 5 gallons. Also, my equipment is somewhat limited and by limited I mean I have nothing! I plan on borrowing a kit from a fellow homebrewer. Thank you for the advice!
[warning: certain aspects of this post may contain horse-crap and/or bullshit] Suggestions: A) add hops at flameout. Use a shovel if you want an IPA. But if you just want an APA it still wouldn't hurt to add a little at flameout for more aroma. If you don't add any, I have a sneaky suspicion the world may continue turning anyway, but don't tell anyone. B) reduce data when posting stuff for critique. BS2 is fine (I have it too) but there's much extraneous information in those reports that's not needed (esp not on internet forums, where we want it super-barney style, minus the frills). Internet forum rule #17: as the amount of extraneous information goes up, the number of people who will actually read it plummets like Dr quackpot Oz's reputation after Claire McCaskill reamed him a new butthole on the floor of the senate a couple days ago. C) focus on fundamentals. While dialing in your system is important, efficiency isn't something that is going to make a whole lot of difference* if it's in any kind of reasonable range. D) fundamentals: fermentation temperature control (below 70F for ales, my preference 64F) yeast pitching temperature control (same as above, approximately) sanitation full rigorous boil with the lid off KISS methodology and recipe formulation fast cooling of wort (i.e. get a wort chiller cuz you'll get real sick of it using ice real quick and ice doesn't work very well anyway) if there's any chance of your municipality using chloramine, 1/2 a campden tablet for 5 gallons of water will kill the taste of band-aids that results for chloramine in the water. Most municipalities use at least some chloramine at least part of the year so it doesn't hurt to add it if you're not sure. If there's a lot of chloramine in the water and you DON'T use campden you will surely know it quite quickly when you get that fantastic band-aid taste in your beer don't get too drunk on brewday, especially if you don't know what you're doing formulate a detailed procedure based on your specific recipe and equipment BEFORE you brew and FOLLOW it (see my early blog posts for examples. A simple extract recipe might have 20-25 steps, a complex all grain recipe could easily have 60 or more) once your beer is in the fermentation vessel, don't fuck with it for any reason whatsoever for at least two weeks. If necessary, hermetically seal your beer inside a 1/4" stainless steel container, have it welded shut (except for the airlock or blowoff tube, of course), and place it inside a swimming pool filled with 6 foot electric eels. Then hire your redneck neighbor to shoot you in the ass (for the next two weeks) with rocksalt from his 12-gauge shotgun if you attempt to enter the pool anything other than completely naked during that time frame. If you're SO intent on messing with your damn beer that you're willing to enter a pool filled with electric eels naked (or are willing to be shot in the ass by rocksalt), then by all means, go ahead and mess with your stinking beer before two weeks is up! play lots of really loud METAL music when brewing and/or jam your guitar/bass/drums like there's no tomorrow between steps. If you have any neighbors that complain, pour large caldrons of hot oil over the sides of your castle if they try to breach the walls with ladders. It doesn't hurt to hire the local teenagers to load and re-**** your trebuchets and catapults either; that can get really tedious when you're trying to play guitar and brew at the same time *troof be told, after I dialed in my system I haven't measured efficiency since. I've taken so much math (and still am) in college that I'm not going to calculate shit on beer if I don't have to and/or don't have a very specific reason to do so. Occasionally someone else has calculated and told me the result of one of my beers, but it's not a parameter that's make or break me, so it's more of an academic curiosity than something I need to keep track of. Dialing in your system IS important (and there's some great instructions on how to do it with beersmith on beersmith's website). But once you're consistently hitting your numbers on a given system, you are dialed in, and keeping track of certain parameters becomes less important (at least to some of us). Parameters like temperatures never become less important.
How do you plan on maintaining your mash temp? I am curious because I do smaller BIAB Batches (usually 2 or 2.5 gallons) and I find that when I go smaller (have done 1 gallon in the past) you get tons of heat loss through your pot. May want to consider keeping the stove element on like a very low setting to maintain the temperature. Also you could go and buy some of that reflective aluminium bubble wrap insulation, and wrap your brew pot in it. I have done that and it makes a noticeable difference.
That's one advantage of doing BIAB in larger 5 gal batches--you have 8 to 9 gals of water in the mash, so the thermal mass is large enough to help against temp loss. I also wrap my kettle in a sleeping bag during the mash. For smaller BIAB batches, I've heard of people putting the kettle into the oven during the mash, if the kettle fits inside. Set the oven at it's lowest temp setting (maybe 175F, depending on brand?), and I've heard that the mash might only heat up a degree or two during the entire mash from the nominal low to mid 150s mash temps.
I plan on over-watering. The recipe calls for like 3.03 gallons of water for the mash but I plan on putting in 3.5 to 3.75 gallons to compensate for heat loss. I am on an electric (eep) stove with very limited oven space; even if I put the rack on the lowest rung I am not sure it would fit a 5 gallon pot. But, all suggestions are good ones at this point. I actually do not plan on brewing until the end of summer when finances (I am a teacher) and child-rearing duties are not as prevalent (not sure if I want a 2.5 year old wandering around while I'm transferring boiling hot wort, if you know what I mean).
