First brew day in a while

[jm21]

So I made several batches of beer using BIAB, the last couple of which came out nicely, but it's been about 2 years now and I sort of remember what I'm doing but hoping someone can check my math. I'm in a bit of a unique situation in that:

1. I'm doing no-chill brewing, so just using the boil for bittering hops.
2. I don't have enough insulation on my pot and it's very thin so I usually have to reheat the water at least once, usually 2-3 times. So I need more water than most calculators suggest.

I'm aiming for an IPA and I'll be using
12kg aussie 2-row barley
safale s-05
130g chinook for bittering, added at 60min
A few different hop varieties for dry hopping, still kind of debating.
EDITED VERSION:
Don't have a big enough pot I guess, so...
6kg aussie 2-row
70kg chinook for bittering


Looks like I should end up with around 35l and 1.013 final gravity. Should have ABV of 7.3% and around 100 IBUs.
EDIT:
will end up with 20l, 1.011 FG, 6.39% alcohol, 117 IBU after reducing the batch
size. Upped the hops a little bit because last time using the no-chill method the
bitterness largely went away after dry-hopping.


Early in the morning and I'm worried I'm having a brain fart and completely forgetting something major.

edit:
realizing this is going to be an extremely large batch of beer but I have a 15gal kettle and tons of fermenters...would really like to use up this last bit of grain I have.

Edit2:
Or just scrap it and do 2 batches with 6kg barley each? Doing volume measurements and 12kg is a pretty tight fit and will be difficult to stir up the grains.

Edit3:
Yeah, that's too much beer I think, two 6kg grain batches is probably the only way.

 

[jm21]

I don't understand why it takes forever to convert the starches to sugars. I've done this a few times now and it always takes quite a few hours to reach the right gravity, stirring and re-heating once an hour or so. How are people able to do this in one hour? :/

 

[RM-MN]

I don't understand why it takes forever to convert the starches to sugars. I've done this a few times now and it always takes quite a few hours to reach the right gravity, stirring and re-heating once an hour or so. How are people able to do this in one hour? :/

One hour? Why take that long? My grains convert in less than 30 minutes.

Mill your grains finely. With BIAB you can mill then to near flour. With the tiny grain particles the starches are gelatinized nearly instantly and conversion follows very quickly. If you take a sample from the top of the wort, it will show low. A sample taken 4 inches below the surface will be higher but the most sugar concentrated wort will be at the bottom of the kettle. My pipette isn't that long so I ignore the low OG of that sample and just pull the bag out of the kettle and do the sparge I need for volume (my kettle is too small for full volume, no sparge). With the first runnings plus the sparge mixed my OG is where I expect (or higher).

 

[jm21]

It's been taking me 3-4 hours to get the OG I am looking for, but I was just putting the hydrometer in the pot, so it was giving a reading from the top. Hm. I guess I don't understand what exactly is going on in the wort at a chemical level. Why does the top of the wort show low? Why does it show higher later on? Should I essentially be stirring the wort more? Never read about this before.

My grain mill is not good enough for a flour-like consistency but something to keep in mind.

 

[kh54s10]

You are putting your hydrometer directly in the mash? Is there enough liquid above the grains to float it? Are you correcting for the temperature. I assume the mash is about 150F. Your hydrometer is calibrated for either 60F or 68F. If you don't correct you will not get the right reading.

Your conversion should be fully done in well under an hour. The wort may stratify with the heavier (higher gravity) at the bottom. Stirring before checking the gravity should mix it.

 

[jm21]

I tend to do very large batches in a 15gal kettle so floating the hydrometer isn't usually a problem. After the first hour or so there was almost zero change in hydrometer readings. This has always been my experience. Takes 1-2 hours to get any sort of change at all, then about 3-4 hours before the changes stop.