Easy Partial Mash Brewing (with pics) - Page 55

carbon111 · 08-10-2009, 04:35 PM

Thanks, DeathBrewer!

Finally got around to doing a partial mash on my most recent brew over the weekend, loosely based on your method. This will be one kick-ass ESB!

I used two pounds of two row in addition to the regular steeping grains and everything went exactly as planned - I hit my mash temp dead on and kept it there for an hour. Sparge was at exactly the right temp as well. My OG was exactly where I expected and it's furiously bubbling away as I type.

Yeah, it added about an hour and a half to my brew time but I think the end result will make this well worth it!

BTW - I use a stainless "steamer basket" to keep the bag off the bottom of the kettle during the boil (when using it as my "hop bag")...kind of a "poor man's false bottom". (The little do-dad in the center unscrews.) Works great!

knappster · 08-12-2009, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeathBrewer

Thanks, i'm certainly working on the back problem.

my absolute favorite recipes for this method are my dunkelweizens. it can be as simple as:

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

EDIT: i think i'll make this recipe this weekend

I'd like to try partial mash brewing and this looks pretty easy to get my hands on and inexpensive. However, being a first timer, I am pretty overwhelmed by all of the choices in grains when you look for "wheat malt' "munich malt" etc.

For example, midwestsupplies.com for wheat malt has:
pale wheat
cara wheat
chocolate wheat
white wheat
red wheat
dark wheat
unmalted wheat

The different wheats show different usage percentages. I assume you wouldn't want to use cara wheat (recommended usage up to 15%) or chocolate wheat (recommended usage 1-5%) in this case. Even white wheat (usage up to 50%) appears to be insufficient. Or is that okay since you're adding 3 lbs of DME in addition to the grains?

So do you typically stick with a pale wheat since it's up to 80% or do white and red at 50% usage work, too?

Munich gets even more confusing to me because it lists some under the category of color malts and some under the category of caramel (crystal) malts.

Is this a case of no wrong answer or do I need to be pretty careful about what I choose?

**DeathBrewer** · 08-12-2009, 09:29 AM

white malted or red malted wheat is what you want. all the others are specialty grains.

you want straight munich malt...not caramunich or something like that. it needs to be a base malt, not a specialty grain.

that "up to 50%" is BS...as long as it can convert (has diastatic power/is a base malt) than it will work.

barrog · 08-12-2009, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carbon111

BTW - I use a stainless "steamer basket" to keep the bag off the bottom of the kettle during the boil (when using it as my "hop bag")...kind of a "poor man's false bottom". (The little do-dad in the center unscrews.) Works great!

This is a great idea. it would have made mine a bit easyer. Thanks for shareing. I'll be useing this next time for sure.

knappster · 08-13-2009, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeathBrewer

white malted or red malted wheat is what you want. all the others are specialty grains.

you want straight munich malt...not caramunich or something like that. it needs to be a base malt, not a specialty grain.

that "up to 50%" is BS...as long as it can convert (has diastatic power/is a base malt) than it will work.

I don't want to hijack this thread or anything, but I am having trouble finding resources with the information that you provided. Is there somewhere that spells out what is considered base malt vs. specialty grain? As a noob the names Munich 10L, light munich, and dark munich malt don't really mean a whole lot. And they're all listed under color malts just as the wheats I posted were all listed under wheat/rye malts even though some were specialty grains.

Please forgive my ignorance.

**DeathBrewer** · 08-13-2009, 12:40 AM

What website are you looking at? I can tell you what is what.

EDIT: N/M...checking out midwest supplies now...

sd_tom · 08-13-2009, 12:45 AM

Quote:

BTW - I use a stainless "steamer basket" to keep the bag off the bottom of the kettle during the boil (when using it as my "hop bag")...kind of a "poor man's false bottom". (The little do-dad in the center unscrews.) Works great!

I tried this recently as well, but what I didn't account for is water under the false bottom.. so the normal 5.5qts per 4lb (1.375 qts/lb) seemed to have a noticable more density of water/grain above the steamer than when i've had before.. So, next time I use I'm adding the volume under the false bottom to the total liquid... finally understand why that field is important in all the brewing software

So just a tip for beginners playing around with this like me

**DeathBrewer** · 08-13-2009, 12:54 AM

The way they list it is confusing. Stupid, actually.

Look for "diastatic power"...it's basically how much the grains can convert.

Here's a decent explanation of diastatic power (or DP):

Diastatic power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It states that anything about 35° Lintner can self-convert. Higher and it can convert other grains (such as specialty malts or unmalted adjuncts [corn, rice, wheat, etc.].)

As for midwest...they don't really list the diastatic power

Base Malts:
White Wheat
Red Wheat
Pale Wheat (if you look at the product sheet it shows you that the diastatic power is 200)

Specialty (flavor) malts:
Carawheat (product sheet does not even list diastatic power)
Dark Wheat
Chocolate Wheat

Adjuncts (non-malted, not specialty grains):
Unmalted Wheat

The Rye Malt SHOULD be a base malt, but it doesn't mention it in the product sheet, so I don't trust it.

As for the Munich:
Munich 10L is a base malt (it can only convert itself, tho, not much if anything else)

Light Munich is a base malt (doesn't show DP, but does show that it can be used for 100% of the grain bill...this would be a better bet if you are using other grains as it's DP is probably higher.)

Bonlander Munich is a base malt with a DP of 40

Dark Munich is *probably* a specialty malt

Vienna is also very good stuff, similar to Munich, but a little lighter in flavor and more diastatic power.

Use specialty malts as a VERY SMALL portion of your grain bill. Most of my recipes use little to no specialty malts, as the base grains still have tons of character.

Oh, and this thread was made for questions

hijacking is not possible

PaulVB · 08-13-2009, 03:32 PM

After 6 batches of extracts and specialty grains, we've decided to take the plunge to the partial mash.

We stopped at our LHBS and picked up supplies for a Rye IPA. We're going to be brewing it tonight. We only have one large pot, so we're either going to try to find a cooler or just sparge by pouring the water over it. The difference in cost between grain and extract is insane.

The recipe:

2# 6 Row
2# Rye
1# 10L Crystal
1/2# Victory

7# Pale LME

1oz Amarillo (8.6%) 60'
1oz Amarillo 45'
1oz Amarillo 30'
1/2oz Amarillo 15'
1/2oz Amarillo Dry Hop

The profile is:
OG: 1.072
57 IBU (probably will be a little higher since we'll be doing a late extract addition)

**DeathBrewer** · 08-13-2009, 04:25 PM

If you have a couple of smaller pots, you could just heat up water in those and pour it over the bag. You will need a colander or something to hold the bag so you don't burn the **** outta your hands.