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Episode #10 - Brew in a Bag from Down Under

BeerSmith

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This week I talk about Brew in a Bag (BIAB) all grain techniques with Pat Hollingdale from Australia:

http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2011/02/24/brew-in-a-bag-biab-down-under-beersmith-podcast-10/

Cheers,
Brad
 
This was my first time listening to the beersmith podcast.  I will definitely be listening to more!

I wanted to comment on the part when it was asked to Pat about what disadvantages there are to the BIAB method.  Ive looked into this a little bit before, and found that the main disadvantage that ive seen is that it requires a larger than normal brew kettle.  most new brewers or extract brewers, the largest kettle they would have is the turkey fryer kettle that came with the burner that is only 7.5 gals. This is (from what ive seen) too small for the 3-4 qts of water/lb of grain, in addition to the grain itself, which all must go in together.  I have a 9 gal pot myself an I believe its too small for BIAB.




 
brewmoreblack,

    Try to get a hold of a (legal) Beer keg. There are lots of video on the web as how to convert this $35 wonder vessel into a 15 gallon stainless steel pot. With a turkey fryer burner you are good to go.
 
Loved the Podcast, thanks!! 

I've printed just about all the material I can find regarding biab and a new 62 qrt stock pot should arrive tomorrow, but how do I set up my 'equipment' in BeerSmith?  Aside from a couple of kits, (extract w/partial mash), I'm pretty new to all this... 

I found a recipe I wanted to try for a 5-gallon batch, but aside from it saying Batch Size 5.50 gal, and Boil Size 6.57 gal, I really don't understand how to make BeerSmith work...  I was hoping I could enter the ingredients and the program would provide the 'instructions' but without entering the appropriate equipment and mash profiles first, I'm getting no where fast...

I understand with biab, you add all the water up-front, but how do I determine how much water to use?  The recipe I found doesn't say, Mash=x.xx / Sparge=x.xx... Does Boil Size = total Mash + Sparge? 

If I'm using a 15.5 gal pot for a 5-gal batch does my evaporation rate change from the equipment setup for a 10-gal batch?

Can someone walk me through this please?  I'm sure I'm making this harder than it is...

Thank you!!
 
Try the BIAB website for instructions on the amount of water versus the size of the batch.    I used the link in the podcast article and found a lot of information there.  Admitedly,  they use a lot more water than I'm used to for the given batch size,  and I haven't yet tried that amount myself.    When I did a BIAB batch,  I used about 1 more gallon of water to get to my boil size.... For a 5.5 gallon fermentation,  I normally have an all grain amount of about 6.5 gallons for a 60 minute boil.  I would use about 7.5 gallons with this approach for this sized batch based on their information....  a bit less then recommended on their web site,  but the amount I think my system can utilize effectively for this size batch.  Good luck.

 
I have only done one post here before so firstly, let me say hello and that I am Pat from the BIABrewer podcast.

Secondly I'd like to thank Brad who made the interview process extremely easy. During the interview I acknowledged the many hours and the quantity and quality of information he constantly produces here. He seems to have edited those compliments out :).

Thirdly, I'll try and answer your questions...

brewmoreblack

Your kettle size question is correct and I should have posed this as a disadvantage. It did not occur to me because in Australia, most brewers jump from 'kit' brewing (which requires no boiling) straight to all-grain. When they do this, they always seem to start with at least a 13 gallon (50 litre) kettle or a 10.5 gallon (40 litre) electric urn and using the above equipment it is easy to produce 5 gallons (19 litres) of beer into your keg or bottles.

Having a kettle smaller than the above will force you into either reducing how much beer you produce or into incorporating some "Maxi-BIAB" techniques. "Maxi-BIAB," is not a great term but basically it is a compromise between the techniques of BIAB (single 'hard' vessell,  'passive' sparge, 'full-volume,' brewing) and/or batch-sparging (at least two 'hard' vessells  plus an 'active' sparge) and/or some wort dilution.

Maxi-BIAB is a method that should be investigated only by those brewers who are restricted to brewing on a stove-top or by brewers, like yourself, who are finding their existing kettle is a bit small. If the latter, dilution techniques should be sufficient and so a second hard vessel (HLT or MLT) will not be required.

I think a bit of dilution will be your answer brewmoreblack. Once you get a feel for things, you may or may not decide to move to a bigger kettle.

Time-Travelers

Like the above, your question is also an excellent one. Recipe conversion from one source to another is extremely difficult at present. Terms such as 'batch size,' 'efficiency,' and 'brewhouse efficiency,' are widely abused or incorrectly used.  You currently have to be a 'brewing,' detective to decipher what any single brewer means by these terms.

So, as a new brewer, unless someone holds your hand through recipe conversion, there is considerable room for error. I know that Beersmith 2.0 will solve most or all of the existing issues of recipe conversion but my advice for now is to get someone to hold your hand :).

Even when BeerSmith 2.0 comes out, our policy on BIABrewer.info will be to encourage new brewers like yourself to learn how to use The Calculator for their first five or so brews. It's just a very basic but solid spreadsheet with clear definitions. But, once you understand this spreadsheet it should be a smooth step up to gaining all the benefits of BeerSmith 2.0.

On BIABrewer.info, we also have a thread dedicated to questions such as yours. It is called, Use this thread to convert your recipes to suit your equipment so posting your question there will give you a detailed answer as well as put you in an excellent and early position to understand and utilise the benefits of BeerSmith 2.0 upon it's release.

Our registration process on BIABrewer.info is a bit onerous. To avoid spammers and keep the forum of high quality, we require you, even after your initial registration, to actually write a post to this thread to become fully registered. It's not hard to do and I think you'll find it worth your while.

Hopefully Time-Travelers, you and others will become masters at recipe conversion and be able to put other fellow brewers on a fast path to getting the maximum use out of quality brewing software.

Many thanks for the feedback above and for the great questions. Most thanks though has to go to Brad. It's quite easy to produce a basic bit of brewing software but to make brewing software full of features that is also easy for us to use is an incredibly difficult, almost impossible task. From the little I know, I can't wait for BeerSmith 2.0!

Cheers,
Pat



 


 
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