mashing less grain

I'm thinking of brewing a braggot, getting ~50% of my fermentables from honey. I'd like to only hit an OG in the 1.050-1.060 range, so I only need to get about 25-30 points from my grain. This means I'll only need about half as much grain as I would normally use.

My MLT is a converted 5 gallon cooler.

Will it be possible to run a small mash with my standard equipment and process? Anything I need to be concerned about?

My other option would be to increase the amount of grain and run a no-sparge mash. I just hate to "waste" the grain by not taking the second runnings.

What is your grain bill? what about a no sparge for your braggot and then make a partigyle session from the second runnings. 10 gallons from 1 brew session. you might have to up your grain a little.

Slainte-brew said:

What is your grain bill? what about a no sparge for your braggot and then make a partigyle session from the second runnings. 10 gallons from 1 brew session. you might have to up your grain a little.

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I don't have the grain bill set yet - still working on a recipe.

as for the no sparge: I don't think there will be enough grain for a whole beer from the 2nd runnings. If I plan on getting 25-30 points from the 1st runnings, how much could I expect to get from the 2nd runnings? I can't imagine it is enough to make even a mild.

So you will be mashing 5-6 lbs of grain in a 5 gallon cooler? No problem, i run 10lbs of grain in my 13 gallon keg mashtun for my 5 gallon experimental batches. I just wouldnt run a full volume sparge through that much grain, might extract tannins and what not.

I would put it into recipe software and see what it says. Should be able to do a small mash and rather than sparge with all of the remaining water, just use some for one small batch sparge and add the rest to the kettle.

Yes you are right, you might have to up your grain bill. I wrote that backwards also last night. Use your first runnings for a different beer and second for the braggot. If you go for around 40-50 for your bill, and do a 50-50 split you would get around a 60 point from first and 30 point from second running. I read that you have a 5 gal MLT, you could fit 8-10 lbs depending on your qt to lb ratio

I agree with previous posters about not a full sparge. 1 i dont think you will need it and 2 you might get stuff you dont want.

JLem said:

as for the no sparge: I don't think there will be enough grain for a whole beer from the 2nd runnings. If I plan on getting 25-30 points from the 1st runnings, how much could I expect to get from the 2nd runnings? I can't imagine it is enough to make even a mild.

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why not do the reverse and use 2nd runnings to make the braggot?

I think SlainteBrew is saying to do a full mash, make a beer from that, and then take 2nd runnings and add to the extract for the original beer the OP was talking about.

Slainte-brew said:

Yes you are right, you might have to up your grain bill. I wrote that backwards also last night. Use your first runnings for a different beer and second for the braggot. If you go for around 40-50 for your bill, and do a 50-50 split you would get around a 60 point from first and 30 point from second running. I read that you have a 5 gal MLT, you could fit 8-10 lbs depending on your qt to lb ratio

I agree with previous posters about not a full sparge. 1 i dont think you will need it and 2 you might get stuff you dont want.

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Of course!! That makes perfect sense and I think this should work perfectly well on my system. Thanks!