Easy Partial Mash Brewing (with pics) - Page 59

**DeathBrewer** · 09-23-2009, 02:34 PM

That will work fine. If you have two smaller pots, you could use a pour-over sparge of more than just two gallons (heat up water in each pot to ~180°F and pour over grains.) A colander that fit over your 5 gallon pot would be useful.

However, I misunderstood earlier...I thought you already had a 7.5 gallon pot. You will need a bigger pot if you intend to do all-grain. You just will not be able to hold enough water in the 5 gallon pot to do a proper sparge (pour-over or dunking) and you will get low efficiency.

Personally, I think squeezing the bag could result in tannin extraction (many would disagree with me) and is altogether unnecessary if you can use enough water.

switters · 09-23-2009, 02:37 PM

I need to buy a 7.5 gallon pot but I'm trying to limit my expenses, so if I can do the mashing, sparging and boiling in that one pot (using two smaller pots I already have to heat water for the sparge) then that means I only have to buy one pot right now. That's the idea, at least.

**DeathBrewer** · 09-23-2009, 04:00 PM

You will still need to use extract, I think. Think about it like this:

13 quart mash = 3.25 gallons
10.75 * .125 = ~1.25 gallons absorption
3.25 - 1.25 gallons = 2 gallons remaining

You want at most 4.5 gallons in your pot, so that means you can use 2.5 gallons of sparge water. I don't think that will be enough to get great efficiency (probably around 60-65% if you're lucky) so you will still need to do an extract addition. You would need to do a late extract addition, as you will not have enough headspace to add it at the beginning.

What size pots do you have? You may be able to split your boil. You could use one pot for the initial sparge, and then scoop some of the wort out and boil in that pot, then do the same for the other pot. Sounds complicated, but not really a big deal...you only need to add your hops to the big pot and carefully monitor for boil-offs. Or split evenly, like I did here:

Brewing 08/08/08

Of course, I did this because it was difficult to get a full boil on my stovetop. I actually started using my cooler before I used the bag method.

switters · 09-23-2009, 06:27 PM

Sorry, I think I got a bit confused.

The recipe I'm doing is a partial mash (maybe I didn't make that clear), so of the 10.75 lbs. I mentioned earlier 6 lbs. is extract. That means I'll only be mashing 4.75 lbs. of grain, which requires 1.86 gallons of space. So would a 3 gallon pot be enough for mashing the grains?

I get that I'd still need a larger pot for boiling the wort, but if I do a partial boil I wouldn't need anything larger than a 5 gallon pot, right? I could take the wort from the mash (5 quarts after mashing?) and add maybe another 1.5 gallons of water to the boiling pot along with the extract, and then add enough water to the carboy to bring it up to 5.5 gallons?

If that's true then I could probably get by with the 5 gallon pot I have now.

**DeathBrewer** · 09-23-2009, 06:48 PM

Ahh, perfect! Yes, a 3 gallon pot would work great with that.

I would go with 1.50 qt/lb (7 quarts) for the mash. That will give you more headspace and make for great efficiency than the thicker mash.

And yes, a partial boil will work fine.

So you're looking at:

7 quarts (1.75 gal) - ~.75 (absorption) = 1 gallon

Use a 2 gallon sparge and you should be able to add your extract at the beginning of the boil without any problems.

It'll cut it close with the extract, but that's pretty much the method I originally posted here. You could even go with the standard 2 gal mash/2 gal sparge if you wanted.

Have fun and let me know if you need anything else.

**flagman** · 10-01-2009, 09:35 PM

Thanks for the great info, I am going to do a PM tomorrow. I to am going to do a Pumkin ale. I just wanted to clear up a couple things first.

1. I have 3.5 pounds of grain and 3.5 pounds of pumpkin that I want to mash together. Do I need to figure additional water for the pumkin? I was thinking 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain, so roughly 1.5 gallons? So would you also add 1.5 gallons for the pumpkin?

2. My brew kettles are 4 gallons and 7 gallons. Whatever water I use in the mash kettle can I use the remainder of the five gallons in the 7 gallon kettle for sparging and to do a full boil so that I do not have to top off. My kettle from doing extract kits loses apprx. .6 gallons in one hour.

Thanks

Dirt101 · 10-02-2009, 08:21 PM

Great post, I cant get my head around the numbers though. If I wanted to do this recipe in two 4 gallon pots what would it look like?, Its a version of Edworts Haus Pale Ale..

Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: Partial Mash

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size:
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 7.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 32.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 67.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 65.79 %
2.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 26.32 %
0.60 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 7.89 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 25.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (45 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 1.3 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 0.5 IBU

**DeathBrewer** · 10-02-2009, 08:34 PM

2.6 lbs of malt x 1.5 quarts/lb = ~1 gallon of water

I would sparge with 1.5 gallons of water, add your extract, and top off as needed afterward.

That's not your only option, tho...you could use up to 6.5 pounds of grain in a 4 gallon pot, according to the "can I mash it" calculator:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Of course, the more you mash, the more you need to sparge and boiling in a 4 gallon pot means you don't want more than 3-3.5 gallons in there, including mash water, sparge water and displacement from the extract.

knappster · 10-02-2009, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeathBrewer

Of course, the more you mash, the more you need to sparge and boiling in a 4 gallon pot means you don't want more than 3-3.5 gallons in there, including mash water, sparge water and displacement from the extract.

How much water can you count on losing on account of the grain soaking it up? I was expecting to lose a little bit more than I did when I tried this method using your Dunkelweizen recipe. I had about 3.999 gallons in my 4 gallon brewpot and miraculously avoided boilover.

That was 2 gallons of mash water, 5.25 pounds of grain, & 2 gallons of sparge water. I haven't figured out how I am going to improve this for next time....

**DeathBrewer** · 10-02-2009, 09:06 PM

The general consensus is 0.125 gallons per pound of grain.

You could use 7 quarts of water for mash and sparge, instead of 8. That'll save you a little space, but might lower your efficiency.

Or you could split the boil between your two pots. Or buy some new pots