First BIAB brew in the fermenter!!

[Meatymc]

Well that was a bit of a marathon - 5.5 hours for 2 gallons of beer - hopefully!!

Missed my pre-boil target by only 2 points and ended up 18 points over end of boil target. Couldn't believe it at first having kept a close eye on the wort level but by the time it had cooled I found it was well under the 2 gallon target I was aiming for so by the time I'd topped it up I was at 1058 - 2 points short of the target 1060. Need to calculate what hot liquid volume I need to acheive required amount of beer when bottled - thought I had bang-on 9 litres of brew but it was actually well under when it cooled. Already looked it up and difference couild be up to 5% when static and (obviously - doh!) more if trying to measure in a rolling boil.

Lessons learnt:

Takes a long time for 3.5 gallons of water to come to temperature to mash.
Then another age (on my hob at least) to take up to a rolling boil
Don't expect to get an accurate reading of liquid depth in your pan if it's still boiling
And then even if still, apparent volme will still be about 5% more when hot than when it cools
Takes even longer to cool it down to pitching temperature.
A finished bag of grain is very hot and very heavy
It also won't sit in a standard plastic kitchen colander over a saucepan withour dribbling all over the damn place
Don't try and 'package' 6 seperate lots of vacuum packed hops in 6" squares of hessian tied up with string. 7g's compacted might look small but as soon as it hits liquid it expands - mightily.
Don't brew when you get home from work after 7pm and expect to get to kip same day - well not until you've fine tuned your process.
And finally, don't start the whole thing by having a pint of 6.5% hoppy ale in hand and then progress through your stock ending up on a 8.5% Diablo - 8 pints of home brew makes you head hurt - a lot - it's still hurting!

So ignoring the time spent, it all went well. My only concern is the wort was at the top end of the temperature scale for the yeast when pitched (I was walking sideways by this point and needed to lie down) and there was little going on when I had a peek at 6.30am this morning - I know I shouldn't have but couldn't resist.

Fingers crossed!

[alexlark]

Well done mate. It's so satisfying doing your own brew. I'm sure my first BIAB was over 6 hours!

Few tips:

If you got a combi boiler use that for your water. I use mine and its circa 60c out of the tap this time of year, not much to heat it up by then.
Ikea sell a large sieve which holds a 5kg bag of grain no problem.

I done a BIAB brew last Sat and that took 48hrs to get going in the FV so don't stress over it.

Bet your brew will turn out good!

[Meatymc]

Thanks Alex - much appreciated.

And you're right, despite being knackered and p&%%$d it felt great to think that it is MY BREW - not someone else's, and even though it was based on a recipe it will be slightly different to anyone else doing the same.

I'll look into the sieve thing plus a stainless steel bucket.

Already thinking about (weekend) BIAB brew number 2 although next job is getting the brew fridge set up to get the son-in-laws lager underway.

[alexlark]

Here you go: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50103755/

I'm going to be doing a few BIAB lagers this winter. I got no fermenting fridge so I'm going to be fermenting in the spare room with the rad off. I've a done a few Coopers Euro Lagers (which use true lager yeast) fermenting that way and they turned out good.

If you like hoppy pale ales I highly recommend you try a single hop brew (SMaSH). My first attempt at a recipe was an Amarillo SMaSH, truly amazing what you can achieve with just 1 hop.

Happy brewing, and welcome to the dark side

[Raize]

2 gallons of beer

A finished bag of grain is very hot and very heavy

You're gonna have SO MUCH FUN with full batches!

[WalesAles]

Meaty,
Glad to see you are enjoying it!
I`ve mellowed a bit after my 2nd BIAB is in the bottles and looking `Bloody Lovely Mun`!
On my first Brew I burned a little hole in the bag in the pot.
Top tip, upturned Pizza tray in the pot keeps the bag off the heat. 28cm tray from the Pound shop fits a 19Lt pot perfectly!

WA

[Meatymc]

WA - I was a bit concerned about the bag 'melting' if i had to give the pot a blast of heat during the mash but picked up a tip from a youtube vid and used a bungee cord tied around the outside lip of the pot trapping the bag and holding it above the bottom until finished heating - also really helpful keeping the bag neck open when pouring in the grain keeping a hand free.

Like the pizza tray idea though!

Cheers

[alexlark]

Had a PM from poolking but you have PMs disabled. Anyway, you ask if its ok to use the hot tap. If you have a combi boiler then yes it is fine. A lot of members on here do it. It really speeds up the brew day.

[WalesAles]

Meaty,
The sieve that Alex links to in Ikea, pops up in Aldi / Lidl now and again for £3.50!

WA

[Meatymc]

Cheers WA - keeping an eye out!

Just so you know, as Alex said, worrying about (lack of fermenting action) nothing. Been a nice 1" thick krausen on there after day 3 - not massive but it is only a 2 gallon trial brew after all. The smell is great but not as hoppy as I'd expected. I crammed the hops into bags that were way too small - when I cleared up still very compressed in the bags i put them in. Down at the daughters at the weekend taking 9 bag size pieces of off-cuts (all 4 times bigger than what I used) from the mash bag I made plus another piece as big as the home made bag. She's a bit of a wizz' on the old sewing machine so I'm hoping I end up with 9 'hop socks' plus a spare mash bag.

Got to say, really enthused about brewing from scratch and not sure whether I'll be doing too many kits from now on. I know Ditch was hacked off with ex-kit men making comments on the Kit forum about moving on/over and understand where he's coming from - particularly with his incomparable Stout but, at the end of the day, I want to brew something unique to me or, at the very least, replicate 'commercial craft brews/styles' I like - controlling the whole process through grains, hops and yeasts seems to me to be the only way to achieve that.

Brew fridge finally up and running this evening as well - no excuses now!!

Cheers for all your help guys - much appreciated

[WalesAles]

9 Hop Socks! Great!
When you fish them out of the Brew, empty the hop debris in the bin. Rinse the sock under a running tap, inside and out,
clean off as much hop debris as you can. Tell your other half that YOU are putting the washing on, throw in the hop sock with the
washing, when YOU hang the washing out to dry remember to pick off all the hop debris that gets stuck to the clothes!
No big deal really, but women hate seeing hop leaves on clothes blowing in the wind!
You will be boiling them for sterilising next use so no worry on the comfort conditioner making them nice and soft and fluffy!
(Boil the Hop Sock, NOT the woman)

WA

[Meatymc]

Well first check on gravity last night and down to 1012. Hoping we might get down a bit more as target on the 'recipe' I'm trying is 6.8% although this is my 1st time so won't be greedy.

The smell is great and a quick 'nip' out of the trial jar has got me all excited - well as excited as a Yorkshire lad can get when he only has 150ml of 'beer' in hand. It's all looking so positive though and I can't wait to get this finished off - perhaps in time for a bottle or 2 at Xmas.

WA - keeping a close eye on your BIAB experiences as well - you're ahead of me but seem to be just as positive about the results. Assuming I can bottle next week I'm already looking to get another brew on before the jollies and hope I'll be both better organised and quicker than this first attempt.

Do we tell Ditch or keep schtum?!? And who is going to be the first to do a BIAB cloned Ditch's stout - or is that taking things too far?!?

[Meatymc]

1st bottle..........Oh Yes.......Oh Yes!!!!!!

[alexlark]

Now you reap the rewards

[Meatymc]

To paraphrase Juror number 4 (12 Angry Men - best film ever made!) - "I'm convinced".

I also think however that my remaining years are going to be filled with the search for the perfect BIAB brew. Still, I can think of far worse ways of spending your time and money!!