Beginning BIAB Brewer

[goldbread]

hello all,

i've recently decided to start brewing my own beer and landed on 3 gallon BIAB batches. they're attractive to me based on the fact that i'm limited on space and resources, and since i'm a beginner, it won't hurt so bad to mess up a batch here and there. not that i'm planning on it, but, you know.

i've been researching grain/hops/yeast for something like a west coast IPA. i'd like to do something simple, perhaps with 1-2 hops, where i can start to get a feel for the different characteristics the hops contain. i kind of like the sound of falconer's flight. but i'm not entirely sure where to start on grain, especially considering the limitations on availability in austria. anything i buy will have to be shipped from a neighboring country because there isn't a quality home brew shop within austria. at least not that i've found. as far as yeast is concerned, i've found that safale us-05 is probably a good place for me to start. thoughts?

any feedback would be much appreciated. thanks!

(if this has been discussed in a previous thread that i missed, a redirect would be appreciated as well.)

 

[Brewcycle69]

Hi Goldbread, welcome to the forum!

Good place to start is the IPA Recipe Database; you can follow one of the recipes there or look through them and see what kind of grains and hops are being used.

Most of the recipes will be for 5 or 10 gallon batches, you'll need to convert them down to 3 gallons for your purposes. You may want to think about getting a brew program like BeerSmith to help with recipe creation or conversion.

Good Luck.

 

[goldbread]

hey brewcycle, thanks for the welcome! and the lead. i will have a look at the recipe database and go from there.

 

[julioardz]

As far as yeast, I think that's a good place to start. US-05 is a workhorse. It's easy to use, forgiving, and generally inexpensive. That's what I use most of the time.

Falconer's flight is a nice blend of hops for an American IPA. It's not my favorite, but it's good. I like using Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, and Simcoe to come up with my own blends for an IPA.

My basic IPA grain bill by weight is 93% pale ale malt and 7% Crystal 40 or Crystal 60. There are so many other great options in malt, but when I want the focus to be on the hops, I like this grain bill. It's just enough sweetness to compliment the bitterness.

Now as far as the hop schedule. I go with a strong bittering addition at 60 minutes then add the bulk of my hops in the last ten minutes of my boil for a very pronounced flavor. My IPA's are typically estimated to be around 65-70 IBU.

Then there's the dry hopping. I find that 1 ounce of hops per gallon works best for me when dry hopping an IPA.

There are many different approaches to making an IPA. This is mine, for the most part.

Welcome and best wishes on your IPA. Let us know how it all turns out for you.

 

[goldbread]

thanks for the comments, julioardz!

after some further research, i'm thinking maybe a chinook or centennial smash. any thoughts on something like that? many of the recipes i've seen call for MO, but i'm not sure it's available around here. any ideas for a substitution grain on something like that? could i do a smash with just a pale ale malt or would that be ill advised?

 

[goldbread]

or this?

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/40532/smash-1-golden-promise-centennial

 

[julioardz]

I've made an American pale ale SMaSH with pale malt and cascade that was really good, but I have never tried a SMaSH IPA. I'm sure there's some good ones out there, I've just never tried them.

Some Munich or Vienna would help add malt flavor if you can't find MO. I think simple 2-row alone would be too weak of a flavor for an IPA. The hops and bitterness may come out too harsh.

 

[jCOSbrew]

Check this site, brew toad, and northerbrewer for recipe ideas. You could use brewtoad.com (or another other recipe SW) to tweak your recipe and calc gravity and IBUs.

Standard IPA is something like this for grains:
11 lbs 2-row
12 oz crystal (20L to 60L)
8 oz carapils
Hop schedule for 50-70 IBUs

 

[goldbread]

thanks for the comments, guys.

i think i've decided on a recipe:

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1645/bells-two-hearted-ipa

i know, it's not a smash, but i think that's something i'll try later on down the road when i have more knowledge about the hops i like. as for this recipe, it's pretty near to the recipe you have posted jcosbrew. i guess i will learn these things as i go.

as for a conversion to a 3gl biab, does anyone have any good tips for doing that? i will probably get beersmith but i still have yet to experiment with it.

thanks again! much appreciated.

 

[PRE66_6TART]

You don't need to do anything special to scale recipes. Just divide everything in half if you're going from 6 gallons to 3. You can also make adjustments based on your efficiency but you won't know what that is until you brew some batches so don't worry about that for now

 

[goldbread]

thanks for the feedback. definitely helpful.

 

[PRE66_6TART]

Another thing you'll figure out once you start brewing is how much water you lose on your system. I have a pretty low boil off rate, plus I squeeze my bag pretty dry and stain my wort into the fermenter so I only need 4.5 gallons for a three gallon batch so you might want to start there and top off if you come up short

 

[goldbread]

also helpful.

i've read a bit about boil off but since i have yet to do it, i guess i will have to wait and see exactly how it works out. 4.5 sounds like a good starting point.

what size of pot do you use for your 3 gl batches? i'm planning on getting a 25 liter stainless steel pot, which is approx. 6.6 gl. if my starting volume is 4.5-5, that should be plenty of space for a potential boil over, correct?

thanks for the tips!

 

[singybrue]

I'd recommend an 8 gallon pot(30-32l). The slightly larger capacity has less chance of a boil over, and the ability to brew bigger beers, especially if you go with the no-sparge method.

 

[cgherrington3]

Yeah if you can swing an 8 gallon pot go for it.

Start with an IPA. Until you get your mashing skills dialed in, you can hide your mistakes with hops.

When your kung fu improves, you can do some malty beers.

Good luck!

 

[goldbread]

thanks guys. here's to hoping my kung fu improves!

 

[DaveSt]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money for a large brew pot there is another way that has been working pretty well for me. I make smaller batches, anywhere from 2 to 3 gallons at a time but I only have a 5 gallon brew pot. So, I mash in a 5 gallon drink cooler (Menard's, $15) and use a paint strainer bag. Once the mash is over, pour the wort into a 5 gallon brew pot and you are good to go. One nice thing about using a cooler is that I don't need to worry much (any really) about the mash temperature dropping over the 75 minutes or so that I am mashing. Since I don't mash out or sparge I just dial my efficiency down a little bit in Beersmith and I usually hit my target gravity.

There is a thread here somewhere about this but I can't seem to find it right now.

*Here it is ***
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/cant-i-just-use-grain-bag-cooler-152578/

 

[Cider123]

Now, as for determining the amount of water and ingredients, I would suggest a spreadsheet called the BIABacus. I am a BIAB brewer also and cherish this wonderful program. I tell it the amount of wort I want to put into my fermenter, the starting gravity (OG) I want, ingredient types, and the IBU's I'm looking for and it tells me how much water, hops and grains to use.

It is a free program that is offered by the forum members of BIABrewer.info
Again it is all free and those folks will explain how to use it and anything you could imagine about BIAB. It is a great source to be schooled on the technique.

 

[goldbread]

thanks yall for the information!!

i've been on the fence about a large brew pot (30 liter), because the stove top i'm going to be using is pretty small and i'm not sure how well it would fit. so i've been researching some other techniques. a lot of people in europe have good things to say about this thing:

http://www.lidl.de/de/Weitere-elekt...T-Gluehwein-/Einkochautomat-digital-mit-LCD-1

i'm not sure what it would be called in english...maybe just a beverage warmer or coffee urn? anyway, i could probably get ahold of one, but once i have it, i would apparently need to make some electrical modifications to it in order for it to maintain a rolling boil. which i'm semi comfortable doing, since there are pretty detailed threads about the way it should be done. once those are done, it seems like it would be a pretty supreme setup for the size and type of batches i will be making.

the other option i've thought of is similar to dave's idea, although i was considering using this beast to mash in:

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Edelstahl-Th...41?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item58a9859b15

then just transport the mash to a 5-6 gallon pot on the stove. i have also seen people cook in two separate smaller pots and have thought about that. though it seems a little more complicated than just one.

i wish there was a menards around here, but no such luck! i could however, get this cooler on amazon:

http://www.amazon.de/dp/B000PKOOSY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

basically the cheapest option that i can find right now. i've heard of a few guys turning this specific cooler into a mash tun, but technically, i could just throw my grain into a bag like dave was talking about and move it to a pot after the mashing process is complete?

thoughts on any of this would be appreciated. thanks gang.

 

[goldbread]

and cider, thanks for the BIABacus tip. i will definitely check it out.

 

[robames1]

Here are a few videos to help

[ame]http://youtu.be/IneNZ4l6das[/ame]


[ame]http://youtu.be/o6WVul6IEKk[/ame]