Thanks for the tips. Brewed my second mini mash last night and everything worked great. It actually went so well, I think I am going to hold off on the MLT until I get into AG or bigger PM.
One question as usual: Early in the thread you spoke of efficiency...how is that determined and what affects the efficiency?
Also, following your procedure my starting gravities have been a little higher than expected, is that a problem or a benefit from PM?
Having a higher starting gravity means you got better efficiency than you had expected. I use promash to determine my efficiency. Basically, you plug in your recipe and, based on your starting gravity, you determine your efficiency.
About to try this out this weekend using my variation of your dunkelweizen...I have about 5.5lbs of grist and I have a kettle that can hold over 6 gal of water...
How much water should I be boiling with the grains and how much water in the sparge container?
Just trying to get everything mapped out to make this weekend smooth...
Ingredients:
1.0 lb Carawheat®
2.0 lb Dark Wheat Malt
2.0 lb Munich 10L Malt
.5 lb Pale Chocolate Malt
3.0 lb Dry Wheat
1.0 oz Hallertau (3.8%) - added during boil, boiled 50.0 min
.5 oz Hallertau Tradition (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5.0 min
.5 oz Hallertau Tradition (6.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
.25 oz Orange Peel (dried) - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 ea White Labs WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale
Notes
This recipe was derived from Deathbrewer on homebrewtalk.com. Thanks to him for giving me a great recipe to build off of! Here is a copy of the original recipe
Grains:
3 lbs Wheat Malt
2 lbs Munich Malt
¼ lbs Chocolate Malt (pale chocolate is wonderful in this recipe)
Extract: 3 lbs Wheat Dry Malt Extract
Hops: 0.75 oz Tettnanger, hallertau or saaz (at ~4% AA)
Yeast: WLP 300
ferment in the mid 60s if you can
Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3
The ABV is a little lower then what I was looking for do you think it would be okay to bump the dark wheat malt up to 3lbs in beer tools it keeps me within style boundaries but bumps the abv up above 5% which is a little closer to what I wanted to see. There is also the option of doing 1.5lbs of carawheat and 2.5 lbs of dark wheat malt which gets me a little darker color (good thing) and the higher abv...I just dont want this to end up OVERLY sweet!
any tips?
Last edited by FuelshopMcgee; 06-10-2009 at 09:37 AM.
Does that dark wheat have any diastatic power? It may not have any enzymes and, if not, you will not get good conversion from your grains...
Just looked it up, and it appears to have only 10% diastatic power, which is not enough to convert even itself. I would replace some of your munich with pale malt to ensure you get proper conversion.
That being said, this recipe works perfect with my 2 gallon mash, 2 gallon sparge. Your sparge could go up to 4 gallons, depending on your pot size. Don't "boil" any of it, of course, just make sure your mash is at about 148-154°F after you add you grains. Use this calculator, it really helps:
okay apparently I need to take a step back and re-think my situation because that just went way over my head ....I know you replied to try and help but I think I just got even more lost...I dont have any pale malt on hand I guess I could order some and wait for it to show up (im in germany and have to wait on the mail) Here is what I have on hand as far as ingredients...if you see any work arounds in here let me know otherwise I will order the pale malt (crisp) probably 1 or 2 lbs. If you dont mind answer a few questions what would be the purpose of the sparge being 4 gallons if my mash pot can hold 4 gallons? If I stick with your tried and true method of 2 gal mash and 2 gal sparge do you just add another gallon or two when you go to the regular boil portion?
all of my ingredients on hand are
3 lbs of cara wheat
2 lbs munich 10L
3 lbs Dark wheat
1/2 lb of Pale Choc
and
3 lbs plain wheat DME
edit: okay so Ive figured out that diastatic power is basically the grains ability to break down starches into sugars...what your saying is that since im using all of these Dark malt grains im not going to be able to effectively convert the starches into enough sugar and will end up with a very weak beer. Why would I replace some of the munich 10L with pale malt and not some of the dark wheat? Im guessing because of the style of beer? Im also not seeing how you found the 10% diastatic power here is a link to the grain I ordered....
Yeah, you could replace some of the dark wheat with regular malted wheat or replace some of the munich with pale malt, but I would keep your barley/wheat ratio where it's at.
I'd probably replace half of the dark wheat with malted wheat, actually. 3 lbs is a little much anyway.
The carawheat is a crystal malt, too, so don't use too much of that. 1 lb is probably as high as I would go.
so what about subbing .5 lb from each the munich and the dark wheat and then adding in 1 lb of the pale malt?
or as an alternative subbing 1 lb from each the munich and dark wheat and respectively adding 1lb of White Wheat (Rahr)- 1 lb for the dark wheat and 1 lb of pale malt to sub for the munich 10L? Its cheap stuff so I really dont mind buying a few more I just want to make sure this comes out right.
Im going to make a new post to get some info without cluttering up your post. I dont want to threadjack
What does the water to grain ratio affect? Is it okay to use more water so it's easier to cover the grains? I'm not sure how Beer Smith comes up with the recommended numbers, but it's telling me that 2 qts of sparge (versus 3.5 qts mash) is sufficient for 2.5 lbs of grain.
I would use at least 3 quarts of water for your mash. The enzymes work best at a certain temperature and volumes, and the common thought is that 1.25-2 quarts per pound of grain is best.
I used to ALWAYS use 1.25qt/lb when I mashed. Lately I've been using a higher ratio (1.5-1.6 qt/lb) of water and I've gotten better efficiency and a smoother mash.
so what about subbing .5 lb from each the munich and the dark wheat and then adding in 1 lb of the pale malt?
or as an alternative subbing 1 lb from each the munich and dark wheat and respectively adding 1lb of White Wheat (Rahr)- 1 lb for the dark wheat and 1 lb of pale malt to sub for the munich 10L? Its cheap stuff so I really dont mind buying a few more I just want to make sure this comes out right.
Im going to make a new post to get some info without cluttering up your post. I dont want to threadjack
Either of those would work. Your second example would absolutely ENSURE that you have enough enzymes to tackle the job.
And now worries about the threadjack. This thread was made strictly for the purpose of asking and answering questions on easy partial mashing.
....I know you replied to try and help but I think I just got even more lost...I dont have any pale malt on hand I guess I could order some and wait for it to show up (im in germany and have to wait on the mail) Here is what I have on hand as far as ingredients...if you see any work arounds in here let me know otherwise I will order the pale malt (crisp) probably 1 or 2 lbs. If you dont mind answer a few questions what would be the purpose of the sparge being 4 gallons if my mash pot can hold 4 gallons? If I stick with your tried and true method of 2 gal mash and 2 gal sparge do you just add another gallon or two when you go to the regular boil portion?
Linear Mode
