to squeeze or not

[naked spark]

Hi

doing small quantities of AG on the stove and after mashing should i squeeze the bag to get everything out ?? not sure if the last few bits of wort are needed ,they dont look very good(very cloudy).
For sparging i dunk the bag in an other pot with water at 80 degrees ,is this too hot ?

managed 6 brews so far and have increased my grain amount for last 2 to try and get more flavour.

got one in bottles at moment which tastes ok but seems a bit winey? sweet ,any ideas what causes this ?

waiting for the day when i hit the nail on the head and produce something good enough to offer round(could be waiting a long time)

cheers

[soupdragon]

Hi naked spark

I've not long started supping my 1st BIAB beer and am very impressed. I squeezed my bag to get a bit more out of the grains as I didn't sparge. I was a little concerned as the wort going into the boil was very cloudy but when I tipped the final brew into the fermenter through my voile all the hot break muck was taken out
I had been suffering a constant off flavour in all my grain and/or extract beers. This BIAB method seems to have done the trick for me
Your winey flavour could be caused by too high a fermentation temp or too much glucose produced in the mash ( low mash temp ) but I'm sure some of the more knowledgeable brewers on here will give you a more enlightened answer

Cheers Tom

[EoinMag]

Squeeze, but don't go crazy. Too much will probably cause issues, but if you hang the bag and spin it to tighten it up a bit it shouldn't be a big issue.

[RdeV]

Yep, as per other guys, a reasonable squeeze is fine. If you're dunk sparging, then there's really not much need to squeeze too madly on the initial lift, just a gentle wind and give it a little grope to get the majority of the first runnings, then dunk it in some 80C water, which is fine too BTW. Even after sparging you don't need to squeeze the life out of it, hanging takes care of that.
Also, don't be concerned about cloudy runnings! Boiling will usually take care of that, if it needs a helping hand then use kettle flocculant like koppafloc or whirlfloc, also getting good results with PVPP added to secondary in my lagers while lagering (they're the only beers I put through secondary or use PVPP in).
A winey taste could well be infection, but there's a few other probable causes, eg. its too young, ferment temp too high for the strain etc. If it persists as the batch matures and subsequent batches, then we'll need to straighten it out.

[naked spark]

Your winey flavour could be caused by too high a fermentation temp or too much glucose produced in the mash ( low mash temp ) but I'm sure some of the more knowledgeable brewers on here will give you a more enlightened answer


Cheers for that ,
Could be low temp in mash ,think i acheived 63 but probably finished at 59 ish (will take more care in hitting mash temp next attempt).

I dont hang the bag i sit it in a collander after spargeing so will give it a squeeze.

I dont controll the temp of fermentation i just sit it in utility,stick on thermometer normally settles down to 22(ok i think for ales)

Will update on the slightly winey beer after a few more weeks in bottle(it was a xxxb recipe and had some sugar added)

Cheers Scott

[EoinMag]

Can you post the recipe Scott? The winey taste could be from a high proportion of sugar and should mellow out with time, I'm wary of using sugar myself after a few less than successful additions, that said it's normally ok once kept under about 10% of the total fermentables bill.

[naked spark]

This is small scale at moment before i invest in 25 litre set up although brewing 6 to 7 litres does'nt take long and quite like the experimental side of it.

Recipe :
800g pale
90g dark crystal
80g torrefied wheat
10g chocolate
40g sugar

Hops at start:8g goldings 8g challenger

Last 15mins 4g fuggles and irish moss

this bottled in 7x 500ml
S 04 yeast

[EoinMag]

That's only 5% sugar, it should have no discernible effect on taste in those proportions, but early on you might taste it, but sounds like that probably isn't your problem, it might mellow with time.

[naked spark]

Update on the winey taste

Its has mellowed in the bottle but seems i'm left with a fairly bland beer.

Need to rethink my brewing techniques.

At the moment i mash with 4.5 ltrs and then dunk the bag in 6 ltrs using about 1kilo of malt 100g to 160g of crystal and small amounts of wheat,chocolate,roasted etc dependant on brew.This gives me about 5 ltrs of beer

Never tried a beer engine thingy but does this seem ok on amounts ,probably should increase either mash quantity or sparge to achieve desired 6ltrs but not sure wich one

Any thoughts

Cheers Scott

[soupdragon]

Its has mellowed in the bottle but seems i'm left with a fairly bland beer.

HI Scott

Safale s-04 isn't the best for allowing the full flavours of a beer to shine through. It will produce a good repeatable brew but if you want a fresh hoppy flavour then Safale us-05 might be a better bet........

At the moment i mash with 4.5 ltrs and then dunk the bag in 6 ltrs using about 1kilo of malt 100g to 160g of crystal and small amounts of wheat,chocolate,roasted etc dependant on brew.This gives me about 5 ltrs of beer

Never tried a beer engine thingy but does this seem ok on amounts ,probably should increase either mash quantity or sparge to achieve desired 6ltrs but not sure wich one

Recipe :
800g pale
90g dark crystal
80g torrefied wheat
10g chocolate
40g sugar

Hops at start:8g goldings 8g challenger

Last 15mins 4g fuggles

That should give you a brew of around 4.7% with beer engine's calculations, might be on the bitter side though. How long do you plan to boil for? How big is the pot/boiler that you're using? There may be ways to tweak your method to get more from your pot before you need to invest in more kit

Cheers Tom

[naked spark]

That should give you a brew of around 4.7% with beer engine's calculations, might be on the bitter side though. How long do you plan to boil for? How big is the pot/boiler that you're using? There may be ways to tweak your method to get more from your pot before you need to invest in more kit

Hi
Mash for 1 hour at 64 (possibly too low)
Boil for 1 hour.

The pot i use for boiling/mashing is 12ltrs and sparging pot is 9 ltrs ,i have to jug some of the sparge water over the bag first to lower water level in pot before dunking bag.

Is the bitterness from too much hops?

I think the recipe i used was a mixture of xxxb grains and an IPA hop schedule so was looking for something with a bit of bite

Cheers

[soupdragon]

That should give you a brew of around 4.7% with beer engine's calculations, might be on the bitter side though. How long do you plan to boil for? How big is the pot/boiler that you're using? There may be ways to tweak your method to get more from your pot before you need to invest in more kit

Hi
Mash for 1 hour at 64 (possibly too low)
Boil for 1 hour.

The pot i use for boiling/mashing is 12ltrs and sparging pot is 9 ltrs ,i have to jug some of the sparge water over the bag first to lower water level in pot before dunking bag.

Is the bitterness from too much hops?

I think the recipe i used was a mixture of xxxb grains and an IPA hop schedule so was looking for something with a bit of bite

Cheers

Hi Scott

For a standard bitter recipe you'd be looking at around 35 ish IBU but your additions shoud give about 55.
I'm sure it'll turn out ok regardless and even if you're not happy with the beer it's only a 5 ltr brew so won't take long to drink
If you're doing a BIAB making 5 ltrs in a 12 ltr pot why do you need to sparge? Why not do a full volume mash of say 8 or 9 ltrs with your grain then just lift your bag out of the pot after you've mashed and boil the remaining 7 ish litres reducing the volume to get you brew of 5?
Or is that what you plan to do and I've miss read something?

Cheers Tom

[naked spark]

Evening

I am not sure why i sparge ,my thinking was it would give me a better quality wort ?

I am aiming for 6ltrs of beer at the end so need to increase liquor amounts either mash or sparge or as you suggest full volume.

Without using software how do you work out IBU?

I hear of beers been'heavily hopped ' What IBU would these have roughly cos they taste superb ,especially Old Empire.....

Cheers

[soupdragon]

Evening

Without using software how do you work out IBU?

I hear of beers been'heavily hopped ' What IBU would these have roughly cos they taste superb ,especially Old Empire.....

Cheers

The only way I've ever worked it out is with Mr Wheeler's Beer Engine but I'm sure one of the old hands on here will post the calculations
Not a lover of Marston's beers I'll be honest but each to their own Are you talking about hop flavour or bitterness? There are plenty of different recipes with loads of hops but how they're used will completely change the beer...... Boiled for 60-90 mins or so will give you the bitterness but chucked in late on 20 mins and less will give you the flavour of the hop

Cheers Tom