BIAB#5 Bluebird Bitter

[ajclarkson]

I've long been a fan of Bluebird, and grab a bottle whenever they have it in the local supermarket, so it has been on my list of things to brew for a while now. Since I've had a lazy Sunday afternoon, I thought why not have an evening brew?!

Here's the recipe

Style
Bluebird Bitter
OG: 1.036
Volume into FV: 10.8L

Fermentables
1.778 KG Marris Otter
0.092 KG Pale Crystal (60 EBC)

Hops
20g Challenger - 60 min boil
12g Challenger - Flame Out Aroma Steep

Mash
Single Step at 66C with 17L of water, 8g Gypsum and 3g Epsom Salts added.

Boil
60 minutes, Whirlfloc added with 10 remaining

Yeast
WLP007 Dry English Ale

You can just see the new copper dipstick I've made and calibrated today in this ingredients shot. I've been guessing my pre/post boil volumes and not hitting my targets effectively enough. So hopefully, with a calibrated measuring stick I'll be able to find out where my losses are and do something about it.



Just doughed in, and it's rather stylishly wrapped in a towel, so hopefully it won't be too late when I finish!

[ajclarkson]

60 minute mash over, I lost about 3-4C over the hour despite the mash being wrapped in two different towels. This thin stainless stockpot really doesn't hold the heat in, and my mini-herms build can't come soon enough for tighter control in that aspect. However, the mash went well, The expected start of boil volume was 15.83L and from my 1L graduated dipstick I'm estimating 15.8 or there abouts, so I'm very happy with that.

Collecting every last drop from the grain bag was easy enough with this < 2KG lightweight grain bill:



Also, the expected start of boil gravity was 1.029, whereas I recorded 1.032 (though that's at the mercy of an online hydrometer temperature correction thing). It's just coming up to the boil now, so unless I hit all of my volume targets on this, I expect I'm getting more evaporation that I thought over the course of the boil

[Goulders]

it's a good recipe. Mine has been in the bottle a week and father in law had one.Said it tasted good so should be better in a couple of weeks

[ajclarkson]

Excellent! Is the hop schedule similar to what you used? That was the only bit I wasn't sure of with this recipe really. The 60 mins are already in, but theres time to add a 15 if needed!

[ajclarkson]

Flame out hops are in now, IC is doing it's thing and I'll be shaking the WLP007 like a madman to try and break it all up!

[timbo41]

Am I missing something obvious here aj. ..was there a sparge? Or does mini biab not require one? I have tried to open the biabrewer guide but once again poxy tablet letting me down..oh well christmas hinting may help!!

[ajclarkson]

Nope, no sparge needed with BIAB. Some people still do one, but I never bother. My general procedure for end of mash is:

- Lift bag (as shown in picture) and wait until the drain off has become a drip
- Put grain bag into a colander, sat in a bucket so more dregs can run off.
- Move pot back to stove to get it boiling, go back to bucket and add any dregs into kettle (usually get another 200-500ml this way).

Doing it that way I usually hit the estimates given in the biabrewer calculator on the head every time. My "into kettle efficiency" (post-mash) was 88.1% today. It's one of the great time savings of doing things the BIAB way, not needing a sparge!

[ajclarkson]

Down to pitching temps, and it was into the FV via the new Venturi effect tubing I mentioned in the California Steaming brew thread last week. I've made a slight modification and opened the air hole in the tubing slightly, and it's made a world of difference, the head of foam generated with no other form of aeration was pretty impressive.



WLP007 shaken like crazy and pitched (saving some dregs to culture in future).
Now it's in the water bath at 18C and I'll leave it alone for a couple of weeks before priming and mini-kegging.

So, in terms of my efficiencies - since it's the first time I've been able to reasonably accurately track them.

The post boil volume was expected to be 12.6L but it actually came in at 13.4L so there wasn't as much boil off as I'd expected. The extra .8L meant the OG came in at 1.035 rather than 1.036 but I'm not too worried about that to be honest. I got 11L into the FV, I was expecting 10.8L, but this is an area I still need to look at. There isn't 2L of wort left in the boiler, so I'm a bit puzzled as to what's going on there.

Brew summary:

Into Kettle Efficiency: 88.1%
End of Boil Efficiency: 81.7%
Efficiency into FV: 67.1%

So I'm pretty happy with how it went as a brew day!

[liquidman]

Hi,

You'll find if you put somthing a bit more insulating than a couple of towels over the pot during the mash your temp will drop less. I did a brew today in the shed (5 degrees it was a bit chilly!) and lost half a degree over the hour long mash. I covered the pot with a towel and two winter coats.

Keeps it simple, the towel stops any crap geting on to the coats.

Andrew

[ajclarkson]

RE: the kettle -> FV losses I actually went back just before cleaning, and stuck the IC back into the kettle, and with the displacement there, I'd estimate about 1.6-1.8L was actually left in the kettle. So that at least accounts for some of it!

Hi,

You'll find if you put somthing a bit more insulating than a couple of towels over the pot during the mash your temp will drop less. I did a brew today in the shed (5 degrees it was a bit chilly!) and lost half a degree over the hour long mash. I covered the pot with a towel and two winter coats.

Keeps it simple, the towel stops any crap geting on to the coats.

Andrew

Cheers Andrew, I suppose I was putting a bit too much faith in the insulating power of towels! The thinking was layers!

I'm building a HERMS anyway so I can mess on with step mashes and easy mash outs, and just because I enjoy building DIY kit, but if I brew again before it's ready, I'll certainly take your tips on board and get some coats on there!

[Twistedfinger]

On my 52L pot I use 2 sleeping bags and an old bean bag for the top. You would probably get away with just a sleeping bag. Another tip is to preheat your chosen lagging I put mine in the tumble drier for 10 minutes before use.

[ajclarkson]

On my 52L pot I use 2 sleeping bags and an old bean bag for the top. You would probably get away with just a sleeping bag. Another tip is to preheat your chosen lagging I put mine in the tumble drier for 10 minutes before use.

Another top tip! That would have certainly helped today, it wasn't warm in that Kitchen!

[Redimpz]

I use a cool box and cover with a couple of old fleece jackets, don't lose much heat at all. The secret is layers, and don't have them tight, my main reason for switching to the coolbox was to up the grain bill for maxi-biab, with sparging I am now fermenting 23l brews.