First ever BIAB - Hobgoblin clone

[Old Speckled Ben]

Hi everyone

I've just acquired an Electrim boiler, and I'm going to be doing my first ever AG/BIAB

Main reason I wanted to get in to this side of brewing (been doing kits and TC for about 3-4 years) was so I could start doing Hobgoblin clones

After a lot of searching on here, I've decided on the following recipe:

20 litres

Mash:
Pale malt - 4.8kg
Crystal malt - 250g
Dark Chocolate malt - 100g
Black malt - 100g
90mins @65oC

Boil:

15g Fuggles (60mins)
15g East Kent Goldings (60mins)
15g Fuggles (30mins)
30g East Kent Goldings (20mins)
30g East Kent Goldings (5mins)

(I know I should use Styrian, but that's all they had lol)

1tsp Irish Moss (5mins)

I've got the ingredients, and should be picking up a grain bag this weekend, ready to start

I was hoping you fine people would offer me some reassurance and advice, as I'm a little nervous of making the leap from kits

I'm wanting to end up with 20 lites of wort, so should I fill up the boiler with the full 20l for mashing, then sparge with a couple of litres (making approx 22l) to allow for evaporation during the boil, then top up if necessary when I put it in the FV?

I'm a bit over my head, so if anyone could push me in the right direction, I'd be very, very grateful

Thanks, everyone
Ben

[AdyG]

Hi Ben

Your recipe looks fine. How big is your boiler in litres?

I start with about 35l of water to end up with 23 litres of wort at the end. I put 38l of tap water in my boiler the day before and boil for 30 mins to remove chlorine as much as possible. So the next day I have 35l which is heated to mash temp, grain bag submerged for 90 mins then removed to drain into a FV. I pour 3l of 78 degree water through the grain bag which all gets added back to the boiler. I heat the wanted up to 76-78 degrees and put the grain back back in for 10 mins, remove, then bring up to the boil.

90 mins of boiling leaves me with 23l, but more hops will soak up more water.

I went from doing about 10 kits to BIAB and haven't looked back. I've done nearly 20 now and the majority have been great, about 3 weren't so nice but still better than any of my kits.

Basically get stuck in and give it a go, most things that will cause problems are sterilisation after the boil, but you know all the basics about that anyway if you've done kits.

Any more questions then let me know.

[AnthonyUK]

How big is your boiler, 25l?
I don't think you've taken into account how much liquid the grain absorbs.
I would look at using some BIAB software such as BIABacus or Beersmith (21 day trial then paid) which will help with liquid volumes etc but I would think you are looking at MAXI-BIAB which is brewing over gravity wort and liquoring back (watering down)

[Old Speckled Ben]

How big is your boiler in litres?

How big is your boiler, 25l?

Hi guys, thanks very much for your comments

I think it's 32 litres, but to the brim....need to double check

No, I hadn't even thought about the grain and hops "drinking" all the liquid LOL

From what you have both said, I think Maxi-BIAB is where I'm heading

AnthonyUK, I'll take a look at those BIAB softwares and try to get my head around it

AdyG, as you say, I'll have to get stuck in and just take my time with it

Thanks again for your help

[AdyG]

I know mine is a 40l boiler, but when full to the max line it's 35.5l. If I'm putting 7kg plus of grain in for a strong 6% ABV brew then that's it full to the top... as it maybe trickling down the sides a bit! It's the main limitation of BIAB as 7kg of wet grain in a sack is pretty hard to lift out by hand into an FV, it doesn't always fit. I haven't done Maxi-BIAB, but assume you can add more water during a sparge process and add that back for the boil.

Once you've done a couple you'll know the equipment and how much everything holds. I used BrewMate, a great freeby but upgraded to Beersmith which is a great bit of software!

You'll be fine.... Happy brewing!

[Old Speckled Ben]

Well, I made the leap

Friday was spent doing my first BIAB/AG brew and it went pretty well

Mashed grains for 90 mins in the electrim (element switched off) with a couple of throws over it for insulation and it hardly lost two degrees

Boiled for 60 mins and electrim held a good rolling boil without any problems

All was going well right up to the part when I had to transfer in to the FV....then it went pear shaped

I've not got a hop strainer, so my plan was to run the wort out of the electrim's tap, through a sterilised sieve in to the FV, but, as you may have guessed, e tap clogged up with hops almost instantly

So, I got some 1/2" siphon tubing and used that to bring it through the sieve

However, I'd neglected to let it cool sufficiently, so the tubing kept kinking and going a bit wobbly

With about ten litres in the FV, I managed to catch the sieve and it fell in to the FV, so I had to tip the whole lot back in to the electrim and start again lol

Got to about 18.5l of wort in the FV (started with 25l water, pre-boil) and topped up to 20l with cold water

Cooled a sample down to 20oC and SG was 1.060!!!! So I obviously managed to get a lot of sugar out of those grains lol

Brought it up to 23l and took another sample....1.046, so hoping to get about 5% out of it


It's now fermenting away like a guddun' so I'm fairly confident that I should have something good to drink in a month or so


Before I do my next one, I'm going to take the tap off and replace it with a ball valve and hop strainer to make things easier on myself


Overall, I'm very happy wih my first attempt and can't wate to do it again