First BIAB brew day
- Thread starter Sunfire96
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Milling your own grain adds another control point in your process. Your LHBS has their mill set at a gap acceptable for the general public (mine was .040) to avoid stuck sparges. And one unknown is how often do they calibrate? Double milling is good, but to what gap does that mill your grain? It won’t be .020.
I have my first two batches in fermenters from self-milled milled grains, one at .035 and the other at .025 and I BIAB. My observations so far are: 1) I find it fun to mill my own grain, 2) the grain bag is smaller as there is less air space in more finely milled grain, 3) there are a few more dough balls to break apart, 4) My efficiencies were higher and 5) my OGs were both spot on. Hopefully, this is another step to making better beer.
Update: brew day complete! I hit my target volumes without issue, but my gravities were low through the day. Oh well! I'm sure I'll get closer next time. I enjoyed BIAB much better than my old method. The oven worked great to maintain mash temps; my avg mash temp was 150 and I mashed for 60 minutes, no mash out. I didn't need to do much squeezing to hit the preboil target volume. Next time, I will decrease the strike water slightly, and do more squeezing, or maybe even a small sparge to increase efficiency. I shaved an hour from my brew day by reducing boil time and using kveik, so that's awesome. No taste test yet...I wanted to save as much wort as possible for checking if fermentation is complete, mostly because this is my first time with voss kveik and I want to be able to take multiple samples (a big downside to one gallon batches...) But it smelled hoppy and piney and delicious! Thanks again to everyone for your help!
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Not very much headspace there!
Good thing you have a blow off tube in place there!
One thing about squeezing to "get more sugary wort out"
Brewing is about consistency, and there is no way that your degree of squeeze can be consistent, it just can't.
The solution is to just let it drain, and get what you get.
If you need to top up with a bit of water to hit your volume, rinse a measured amount of water through the grains.
Just be sure to make a note to adjust your recipe for next time.
If after doing this your gravity is a little low, make a note, and you can adjust your recipe to suit for next time.
The cost of the additional grains will be next to nothing, especially at your volume.
This is how you can get to the point where you hit your volume, and your gravity consistently.
You will also be less likely to end up with a nasty burn.
That sweet wort will be beer soon! The Kveik will make quick work of it, and the bottle conditioning should be pretty quick too!
Well done! Cheers!
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Gospel!
One other thought, if head space in your gallon jug becomes an issue, just get another one and split it between them next time.
Thanks, @Craigerrr! Where's the fun if you're not brewing riiiight on the edge of the equipment's capacity
I'm prepared for a messy first few days, hopefully not my worst idea... Your advice about consistency makes a lot of sense, thanks. I was wondering how many days voss kveik takes to bottle condition, in your experience?
I do have another fermenter...Since I have a 3 gallon kettle, I've been thinking about doing a 1.5 gal batch, splitting it into 2 fermenters, and then I could experiment with dry hops/yeasts/conditioning time/etc.
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Unfortunately, I don't have first hand knowledge on that.Thanks, @Craigerrr! Where's the fun if you're not brewing riiiight on the edge of the equipment's capacity
I have only bottled beer fermented with it once (coffee porter), and it has been sitting now for a few weeks.
It will continue to sit until the cooler weather comes, part of my getting stocked up with a variety of brews come the Christmas season.
A typical yeast that takes a couple weeks to fully ferment, then takes a couple of weeks to bottle condition.
It stands to reason that a yeast than can be all done its work in 4-5 days, would also bottle condition in roughly the same time period.
The only step left after that is to chill em real cold for a few days, this clarifies it a bit, and to some degree will pack the sediment down well.
Makes for better pouring.
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Maybe a bigger container with the starsan in it, that is where the krausanic eruption will be headed!!!
My kettle is 3 gallons, so I make my batch size 1.5 gallons. During the mash, my kettle is full nearly to capacity, but I have plenty of room for the boil. Before I got the 12 liter Speidel fermenter, I split 1.5 gallons between a pair of one gallon glass carboys. In either situation, there is plenty of headspace.
Thank you! I think I read about your old process somewhere else on the forum, and that's when I started considering it
