First BIAB advice

[Scott Phillips]

Hello all,

Did my first BIAB all grain brew last weekend. It is a clone of Pot Kettle Black. Big shout out to Karl from allgrain.co.nz for great service.

One issue I'm having is with a heck of a lot of sediment. I conducted the mash as normal in the bag, Koppafloc as a 15 minute boil addition, then sparged the grain bag with about 9L of water. Cooled using a copper coil immersion chiller then straight into the fermenter. Yield of 22L but at the bottom of the fermenter there is about 4L of sediment.

A couple of things I have thought of to reduce sediment:

1. Use two grain bags so there is two layers.

2. When transferring the cooled wort into the fermenter pour it through another sanitised grain bag.

3. Cold crashing - the recipe calls for it to be bottled Sunday coming. Should I siphon off into another fermenter, leaving behind the trub, then cold crash? For how long? And will there still be enough yeast in there if I do this to carbonate the beer sufficiently once its in the bottle??

Any thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Scott.

[Peter Smith]

Koppafloc

I do BIAB and find that if you use too much it creates mushroom looking little clouds in the bottom 1/6 of the kettle, vs the right amount it looks more like a fine sediment look at the bottom 1/10 of kettle,   1/4 teaspoon is right for me for a 20L batch.   if in doubt use less.    Also i chill then whirlpool then leave for 45mins to settle.

what did your sediment look like, little clouds or a layer on bottom of clear wort?

[Scott Phillips]

Cheers Peter,

In the kettle it looked pretty cloudy. In the fermenter its a clear layer on the bottom. I didn't let it settle at all before cooling and adding to the fermenter. Maybe that's something else to try on my next batch.

Tell me about whirlpooling. Is that just stirring in a circular motion whilst still in the kettle to encourage any debris to sink to the middle?

[Peter Smith]

yes but i have never really honestly noticed any difference in my kettle.....  I get more effect from a 45-60 min stand still after chill, but biggest lesson is not too much koppafloc

[Scott Phillips]

Fantastic, thanks.

Watch how much Koppafloc I use and let it stand after chilling. Cheers.

[Grant R Baker]

Was Carafa malt used...? Recipes with a fair amount of Carafa malt have a lot of cloudy residue which seems to slip past anything bigger than a 500micron filter. 99% of that will settle at the bottom of your primary anyway.

[Scott Phillips]

No carafa malt used this time

[Grant R Baker]

ho well... just a guess.

I use BIAB for all my test brews (single bag) and that malt is about the only one that causes a similar issue.

[Scott Phillips]

Thanks tho Grant.

Got a few ideas to try for my next batch so we'll see how we go. It was my first ever all-grain batch so onwards an upwards from here.

[Peter Church]

Had exactly the same issue with that brew. Racked to secondary after four days using syphon trub was twice the depth of the outlet tap.. Trub like miso soup in bottom 1/4 of the boil pot. Didnt notice till after id transfered to fermenter. Good news is its an awesome tasting brew. Would only be a 1/4 teaspoon of coppafloc I used. 

[David Malpas]

It's definitely the koppafloc, I was getting the same thing when I started BIAB - it seemed much worse than when I was brewing with extract.

I've since stopped using it, I'm brewing ales and find they will clear fine if you leave them long enough.

I now manage to get almost every last drop of precious wort out of the kettle, and the beer tastes good - that's the important thing, right?

[Peter Smith]

how long do you leave them?

[David Malpas]

I leave most brews for 3 weeks in the fermenter before bottling - not particularly scientific but it works for me.

I also try and leave 'em in the bottle for 4-6 weeks before I drink 'em - but that's sometimes easier said than done.