Belgian Strong

[Reviled]

Hey guys, im piecing together a Belgian Rye recipe which is gonna be my next brew after another Pale Ale, but im not really sure about the hopping cos I never do Belgians :o( I know theyre not supposed to be very bitter, so what sort of IBU/OG ratio would I be looking at here? What hops are good? Ive got some Super Alpha??

This is what im considering for my grist, would love some feedback on it also :o) pretty simple really..

4kg NZ Pils
2kg Rye
500g-1kg Munich??? Not sure how much
500g Brown Sugar
Wyeast 3787
Beer recipator gives me a rough OG of about 1079?? But that may be wrong cos its pretty shit (but free) online software

[Reviled]

Fair enough, ill bug the crap out of you when youre home :o) Share the love :oP lol

[Reviled]

My dilemma :o(

Got my grain crushed last night, and I think ive been jst a wee bit "shell be right" with trying to fit 7.1kg of grain in my 30litre pot.. The grain crushed is taking up about 12 litres in a fermenter at the moment, which means if I wanted to do a full BIAB mash, I could only use about 17/18 litres of water to mash it with... Can you say 40% efficiency? Or worse?? :o(

So im thinking of doing a split mash, which is going to be a pain in the ass and would go something like this

Mash half the grain, remove grain bag, transfer unboiled wort to another pot/bucket/container, then proceed to start the second mash with fresh water etc etc.... I can see this being like an 8 hour brew day lol

Does anyone else have any other suggestions??

[jt]

Buy an esky and brew conventionally ;-)

[Reviled]

lol, apart from that... Something I can do on saturday which will cost absolutely zero dollars :oP

Im gonna have to split the mash aint I :o(

[denimglen]

I second JT :-P

Actually I'm doing my first BIAB this weekend - 12L batch with a 20L pot and like 4kg of grain. Mash in water was given at something like 23L, ok? Awesome?

So I just fuxed around with it in beersmith, and I'm just gonna wing it on brew day. I'm gonna pull the grain bag out and into another container then just dump whatever water I couldn't fit in to that container and do a 'sparge'.

[Reviled]

Eskys suck :oP lol

Yeh I definately add a sparge step pretty much like what youre going to do Glen, gives me a few extra points..

I was pm'ing Joking and ive decided im gonna try and do a traditional esky type 2.5:1 ratio in my kettle, and sparge the shit out of it.. Sounds better than splitting the mash and taking hours...

[studio1]

or you could borrow my 40-50l pot if you can be bothered getting it - though i'm using it tomorrow avo. I paid about $75 for it in mt albert.

[Reviled]

Hey studio cheers for the offer mate, but I think ill give the thick LGR a go if only for experimentation purposes.. I think it will be interesting what sort of figures I can get away with here.. Could also mean for you that you could do double batches if I can make this work

Mike, appreciate the suggestion, I think you may be onto something with the caremelization but I dont have a mash tun as such, so no 'first runnings', I mash in my kettle, so if im mashing, I cant be boiling :o(

After talking to Joking a 2.5:1 ratio is what he uses in a mash tun, when sparging, so if you guys can do it, why cant I? Lets find out ;o)

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah but do you rinse the grain when you biab? If so then pull the bag out and boil that. Rinse the grains and use that as your new strike water? Im only guessing that you rinse the grain or sparge them

[Reviled]

Yeah I do rinse the grains, so you reckon mash the second lot of grain with the first lot of liquor??? Thats an interesting concept, have you done this before?

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah I done it for my Smoked Imp Stout. It works I didnt boil the first runnings as long as I wanted to becuase my gas was getting low and I didnt want to run out of gas half way through a boil. I think I started a thread on it on to lazy to look for it though. Im going to do it for my next Dubbel to caramilze the shit out of it.

[Reviled]

Hmmm, the plot thickens..