Here’s my insomnia-driven attempt to adapt keptinis (How to brew keptinis | Larsblog) to my preferred small-batch BIAB set-up.
For 1.5 gallons into the fermenter:
3.5# pilsner malt
4.5g magnum (30m)
S-04
Mash at 149F for 60min.
Remove the bag and transfer the grain to a baking dish with as much wort as will fit into a baking dish.
Bake at 400F until really crispy on top – I’m guessing an hour or so. Garshol reports a much higher over temp, but I’m working with a much smaller mass of grain. The heat will penetrate father faster into 3.5# of grain than 50kg.
Return baked grains to bag in wort and mix thoroughly. This is the bit that I’m least certain on. The article has you lauter at this point, but I don’t sparge or lauter…
Remove and drain grain bag thoroughly.
Add hops and boil 30 minutes. This should give about 20 IBUs. I’m guessing here because the article has a total of 170g in a hop tea added to the mash which not boiled.
Cool and pitch S-04.
Ferment at normal ale temps. Bottle with one carb drop each.
I am considering doing a partial pilsner malt “baked mash” as described by Lars, then add that baked mash to the main BIAB mash toward the end as a rinse. Proceed to boil and then hop as usual. I’m not trying to brew a Keptinis, just trying to pull some color and malty depth without going overboard. Baby steps first.
Thanks for bumping this thread. I don’t know if I have much of an interest in brewing this as-is as a raw ale, but the malt profile on this sounds right up my alley. I could see myself brewing this as a lager (shooting for something in the Märzen/Dunkel range) or with a flavorful English yeast as a bitter.
I bet your house smells amazing as this is baking, too!
This is the correct process. When I brewed one I used my cooler mashtun and transferred the mash to baking pans and then returned it to the mashtun to lauter and sparge.
You should keep an eye on the mash so you don’t burn it (it will get a dry-ish crust on top). It will bubble up so use a pan larger than you think you need and consider using a larger pan or foil underneath to avoid a mess. I didn’t realize this would happen and ended up with a huge mess in my oven. It’s way harder to clean than boilover on a stovetop.
I made a keptinis last year, and was a little puzzled that the top of my bake turned dark brown but never black, like Lars’ picture, even after several hours baking. I finally realized that the different sugars in the mash caramelize/burn at different temperatures, so to get a very dark roast the oven would have to be a lot hotter than 400° F.
With that said, though, it was an interesting beer. Mine turned out very caramelly initially, but over time it turned slightly sour - probably because of some lactobacillus that survived because I didn’t boil it. It was still good, though, and a number of friends and relatives said they liked it.