Hercules Rockefeller

Recipes 

Hey everybody, I'm new to partial mashes and was wondering what a typical effieciency for a partial mash is, so I can convert my extract recipes to PM. I've been using the rule of thumb 1lb grains = .75 lbs LME, but I'm wondering if I'm overstating the amount of fermentables I'm extracting from the grain. All I'm doing is throwing a few pounds of pale malt into the brewpot along with my specialty grains, in a big nylon grain bag. I steep in about 2 gallons of water for 45 min at 150 degrees, sparge with a quart of 170 degree water. Is it safe to assume I'll get roughly a certain amount of fermentables out of this or do I need to get a hydrometer and start calculating my brewhouse efficiency? I'm not particularly concerned with exact figures, I just want the beer to taste good

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"let me be the first to welcome our new insectile overlords"

On deck: Breakfast stout
Primary: Empty
Secondary: American Pale Ale
Conditioning: None
Kegged: Imperial red ale, Breakfast stout, Chipotle Irish red ale, Biermuncher's C3C cream ale

boothbrew

Recipes 

I don't know the answer to that but I like your pug.
I have two pugs at home.
One is the troublemaker and the other is the smart, good, obedient dog....

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Keg 1: -- BierMucher's Newcastle clone
Keg 2: -- Kolsch
Keg 3: -- Witbier w/ Witbier yeast
Bottled: -- Robust Porter
Up Next: --
Primary Fermenter 1: -- APA
Primary Fermenter 2: -- Witbier w/ Saison yeast
Primary Fermenter 3: -- Haus Lager
Secondary Fermenter 2:

Orfy

Recipes 

You can estimate what you should get out but the only way to know is with the hydrometer.

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Have a beer on me.

Beerrific

Recipes 

I would assume 60-65% then take a sample before you start the boil and add the amount of DME exactly needed. This is what I did on my first and only PM and it worked very well.

Hercules Rockefeller

Recipes 

He's both the trouble maker and the obedient dog. He'll take a crap on the carpet just for making him take bath, but he's great with my son. When he was an infant I could leave him on the sofa (breifly) and Hercules would sit at his feat and watch over him patiently.


anyway, thanks for the replies. I'll just assume about 60%. I swore off hydrometers a while ago, but if I'm going to get more into PM I might have to get a bit more precise...

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"let me be the first to welcome our new insectile overlords"

On deck: Breakfast stout
Primary: Empty
Secondary: American Pale Ale
Conditioning: None
Kegged: Imperial red ale, Breakfast stout, Chipotle Irish red ale, Biermuncher's C3C cream ale

malkore

Recipes 

Honestly, I wouldn't worry as much about efficiency in PM, since more than 50% of your fermentables typically come from extract.

I'd assume an efficiency of 65%, so you're not at the low-low end of things, but not pushing any upper envelops either.

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Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

shunoshi

Recipes 

Along the same lines as this, I'm curious as to how one calculates brewhouse efficiency with a partial mash and partial boil. Is there a formula you can use to determine how much sugar you've pulled from your grains even though you've added DME to the wort?

Or can you just take a sample of the mash itself and plug it into some formula before adding DME (and later top-off water)? Such as x grain + y water "should" = z gravity compared to the actual gravity of your finished mash....does that make sense?

This is a bit confusing to me. I'm hoping there is a simple answer to it. Sorry for the semi-thread hijack, but it's sorta related.

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8-Bit Brewing
Brewing: On Temporary Hiatus