How-To: Completely Awful BIAB (Brew-In-A-Bag)

Last Friday, as I was at the grocery store, noticed that they had added a small homebrewing section complete with equipment, fresh grain, and a cooler full of hops and yeast varieties. I immediately made a mistake and decided to have an impromptu brew-in-a-bag brew day, although I had never tried out the method before. Needless to say it didn't go very well, but I guess we'll see how things really turned out in a few weeks when the few gallons of beer is ready and (hopefully) drinkable. The goal was a refreshing, drinkable IPA or pale ale.

Let's jump in, here's the 3 gallon recipe:

• Grains
• 8 lb Maris Otter (probably 6.5 lb actually used)
• 0.75 lb Crystal 60L

               60 minute mash at 152F

• Hop Schedule
• 0.5 oz Magnum for 60 minutes
• 1 oz Centennial at 10 minutes
• 1 oz Centennial at flameout
• 1 oz Chinook at flameout

               60 minute boil

• Yeast
• Safale US-05
• Ferment at 68 F

This was done on the stovetop while also grilling out back (mmm deer burgers) in a 6 gallon kettle. The mash went alright except for the fact that I didn't consider that the grain bag wouldn't be large enough to fit all of the grain, let alone wrap around the outside of the kettle. Most of the grain was poured into the bag with ~1 lb left out completely, and another ~0.5 lb sitting above the water line in a sad column of packed grain. Nevertheless I let it ride, seeing that there just wasn't enough room for it all. The temperature only dropped 4 degrees, which I was happy with for some shoddy towel insulation while mashing. 

I didn't realize until afterwards that the hop amounts should have been scaled back due to the lack of malt, so the full amounts went into the wort. This brew was also my first trial with irish moss, so hopefully if the beer doesn't taste great it will at least look fine! With the lack of malt and prominent presence of hops in the beer my bet is that this will turn out to be more of a session IPA than anything else. If a session IPA comes out of this I will be thrilled. 

After the boil everything was immediately transferred to a sanitized #2 HDPE plastic bucket for the final mistake experiment: no chill wort cooling. As the smell of hot plastic came up from the bucket I got worried that I had actually ruined a half-salvageable beer, but it was too let. Just got to let it ride. The next morning I checked the gravity and, ha %&$#, 1.027. That's dang low. Laughably low. Then I realized I should have at least put a pound of sugar into the wort when I knew not all the grain was going in, but oh well. I transferred the wort to a clean and sanitized carboy before pitching a full dry yeast packet and it has done reasonably well so far. The yeast is doing its thing. 

At this point I'm just letting it go and will check it in a week or so. With any luck this beer will have a quick turn around time and be ready to drink soon, just to get some feedback on how far I can mess things up and still get a half drinkable beer. I'm curious to see if anything from this is salvageable, but at any rate it was a hell of a crash course for myself getting into BIAB brewing. 

Cheers! 

MO Fuggles MO Problems - Fuggles/Maris Otter SMaSH Extract Recipe

Since moving to St. Louis and back a few months ago for an internship I've seemed to pick up a new hobby...brewing. From April 2015 until now I've made five 5 gallon batches including an amber ale, Calypso hop IPA, French-style saison, holiday spiced ale, and a (currently fermenting) winter warmer ale. All of these have been premade extract kits (thanks Midwest Supplies!) and have turned out well, but recently I've been wanting to experiment and get creative myself. This post will feature the recipe that I eventually settled on, as well as some insight into how I got there and what resources I used to make decisions at every step.

Even though it's currently 30°F outside in mid-Missouri, spring and summer will come around soon. With that in mind I've been working with a recipe for a simple, tasty, refreshing pale ale. After searching around American Homebrewers Association recipes forum for hours and hours I made the first decision needed, that of what style to brew. The big stout and IPA burnout has been real recently, so I was in the mood for something lighter without being thin and a biscuity pale ale fit the bill. Also pale ales have flown under my radar for a while, so why not give them some love! 

Now that the style was determined, I checked out the BJCP style guidelines to see what gravity, ABV, IBU, and SRM constitute a pale ale. On the malt side of flavor, mouthfeel, and appearance I ended up looking for a malt extract that would lend some light amber color, clean bready taste, and an easily drinkable feel. Light and extra light malt extracts (comparable to pale 2-row malt) seemed to be a bit too light and wouldn't lend as much flavor as I would like, so they were out. I didn't want to add in any specialty malts for sake of simplicity, so a more complex malt was desired. Someone on the recipe forums suggested using Maris Otter to give some bready complexity without any additional malts, so it's now in! For a 5 gallon batch I've got 6 lbs of Maris Otter liquid malt extract and 1 lb of corn sugar to give a small gravity boost to the beer. With just these two fermentables the original gravity comes in at 1.052. 

For the hop schedule a friend of mine had been pushing me to us UK Fuggles in a beer since I started (he's a homebrewer as well) and I decided now was the time. Maris Otter and Fuggles seem to make a great pair on paper, with the Fuggles hops are commonly used in English ales and carry a mild aroma and flavor that won't strip enamel of teeth or overpower the malt like more aggressive American hops might. To keep it simple only Fuggles hops will be used, with 1oz added for bittering at 60 minutes, 1 oz at 20 minutes, and 2 oz at flameout for a burst of aroma and flavor. Fuggles is not an incredibly strong hop at only 4.5% alpha acid (AA) so the total IBUs only come in at around 25. Perfect for throwing back on a warm spring day!

To complete the recipe a dry pack of Nottingham yeast was selected to fit the theme of subtle English flavors. Altogether the beer is planned to sit in at 1.052 OG, 1.012 FG, 5.3% ABV, and ~25 IBU. The color looks to be decently light at 4.4 SRM. 

Also to be used with this beer is a half tablet of Whirlfloc, a clarifying agent that will be thrown in with 15 minutes left on the boil. I've not used these before, but hopefully the beer will come out clear and refreshing. 

Here's the final recipe:
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MO Fuggle MO Problems
Style Name: Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.3%
IBU (tinseth): 24.51
SRM (morey): 4.44

FERMENTABLES:
6 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Maris Otter (85.7%)
1 lb - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (14.3%)

HOPS:
1 oz - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 12.23
1 oz - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 20 min, IBU: 7.41
2 oz - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 4.88

YEAST:
Danstar - Nottingham Ale Yeast
Starter: No
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The goal of these beer is to be simple and tasty, and the name "MO Fuggles MO Problems" reflects that attitude. Feel free to comment and critique this, it is my first recipe after all. Here's to a successful brewday coming up soon, I'll follow up with a brew day post and a tasting just as soon as there's beer to drink. Cheers!