Hey folks!
First off I'd like to say hello - this is my first post in this forum and I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by asking something that may have already been posted on the board. If so, I am sorry but my lack of searching skills has led me to come to the point where I have to ask.
Secondly, my primary language is Swedish. If I express myself poorly I hope you'll bare with me on the matter.
Here goes;
I am restricted in my brewing since I only have room for an 18 l pot on my stove. I have made my first brew using BIAB, but felt like I had to guess a lot regarding volumes and such. I want to end up with a good 14 l of bottled beer, so given the restrictions of my small vessel I figured that Maxi-BIAB would be the right way to go.
I am really having trouble figuring out at what stage I should add extra water to reach my desired volume. For my initial brew I added 15 l of water to the vessel and mashed for 90 minutes.
I made an extra sparging of the bag and added this to the end of the boil to kill whatever bacteria I may have caught in the process. I did not bother to measure the amount of wort in this stage. Might have been a mistake though.
So, after the boil and chill, I measured the gravity and was amazed by how high it was - 1100! Most probably due to a significant boil off, but still. Since I was aiming for an OG at 1060 I added extra pre-boiled water to the wort until reaching that. I was very happy with the clarity and taste of the wort and ended up with almost 15 l of wort into the fermenter. How this will all end up is still uncertain since it's set to ferment for some time.
So, what I am looking for is a way to set up BeerSmith so that I can get a good and clear picture of how future brews will go.
As mentioned, my vessel is only 18 l and a 16 l boil is probably as high as I'd feel comfortable with. How should I set up my profile for let's say 14 l of bottling volume?
Besides the numbers in "Boiler" and "Fermenter/Bottling Volumes" I am fairly certain that I have got it right! Is it really that simple that I only need to add Top Up Water accordingly to make up for the drawback of having such a small vessel and not being able to make a "simple" BIAB brew in the first place?
Does topping up water prior to fermenting affect the result in any other way, or is this the golden ticket to reach a decent bottling volume from a smaller vessel? Would stars and planets align and bring me a fairly correct OG and bottling volume?
Best regards,
Andreas
First off I'd like to say hello - this is my first post in this forum and I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by asking something that may have already been posted on the board. If so, I am sorry but my lack of searching skills has led me to come to the point where I have to ask.
Secondly, my primary language is Swedish. If I express myself poorly I hope you'll bare with me on the matter.
Here goes;
I am restricted in my brewing since I only have room for an 18 l pot on my stove. I have made my first brew using BIAB, but felt like I had to guess a lot regarding volumes and such. I want to end up with a good 14 l of bottled beer, so given the restrictions of my small vessel I figured that Maxi-BIAB would be the right way to go.
I am really having trouble figuring out at what stage I should add extra water to reach my desired volume. For my initial brew I added 15 l of water to the vessel and mashed for 90 minutes.
I made an extra sparging of the bag and added this to the end of the boil to kill whatever bacteria I may have caught in the process. I did not bother to measure the amount of wort in this stage. Might have been a mistake though.
So, after the boil and chill, I measured the gravity and was amazed by how high it was - 1100! Most probably due to a significant boil off, but still. Since I was aiming for an OG at 1060 I added extra pre-boiled water to the wort until reaching that. I was very happy with the clarity and taste of the wort and ended up with almost 15 l of wort into the fermenter. How this will all end up is still uncertain since it's set to ferment for some time.
So, what I am looking for is a way to set up BeerSmith so that I can get a good and clear picture of how future brews will go.
As mentioned, my vessel is only 18 l and a 16 l boil is probably as high as I'd feel comfortable with. How should I set up my profile for let's say 14 l of bottling volume?
Besides the numbers in "Boiler" and "Fermenter/Bottling Volumes" I am fairly certain that I have got it right! Is it really that simple that I only need to add Top Up Water accordingly to make up for the drawback of having such a small vessel and not being able to make a "simple" BIAB brew in the first place?
Does topping up water prior to fermenting affect the result in any other way, or is this the golden ticket to reach a decent bottling volume from a smaller vessel? Would stars and planets align and bring me a fairly correct OG and bottling volume?
Best regards,
Andreas
