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**unionrdr** · 10-09-2012, 05:54 PM

Well,I'm off on that PM cascade pale ale kit I got from midwest about a month ago. Had to crush the grains in an old,small food processor (2.5-3C size) at 3 pulses of about 3 seconds each. What bugs me is their instructions said o quart water per pound of grain. Ok. But then it says 1 gallon total. From what I've read here,I made it about 5.25 gallons,since there's a total of 5 lbs of grain.
156F temp to start on the mash water,add grains,& it's supposed to go down to 151-153F. No more than 155F in bold print. I'm heating the mash water now with a floating thermometer hung on the side with 3-4 twist ties made into a hangman's noose. Works well. Ihope my amount of water works ok. I used distilled water with no chemicals added. I thought it'd be ok this time?...

BamaRooster · 10-09-2012, 05:57 PM

I use 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain

zeg · 10-09-2012, 05:59 PM

5.25 gallons is going to be a very, very thin mash. Typical mash quantities would be about 1.25 quarts per pound, so about 6.25 quarts or just over 1.5 gallons for 5 pounds of grain. You'd then normally sparge with something like twice the amount of mash water, if you follow the usual rules, or whatever you feel like (in my particular case, I usually just sparge with whatever I need to reach my boil size).

I think you may have trouble if you use such a thin mash, so if you haven't already added the grain, you may want to dump some of that water.

**unionrdr** · 10-09-2012, 06:05 PM

OOps,typo,my bad. I dumped in 1.5 gallons of the distilled water. Too many numbers bouncin around my head trying to remember what I've been reading on here. So 1.5G should be right on the money?
What I questioned of their instructions was 5 lbs of grain,check. 1 quart of water per pound? Ok,but not the amounts folks use on here. They said to use 4G. Made it 1.5 gallons for 5lbs of grain. I think the sparge amount was 1.5G vs the 4qt they said to mash with. I may go for 1G sparge. How's that sound?

BamaRooster · 10-09-2012, 06:11 PM

Yep 1.5 gallons is right on the money. I personally would go with the 1.5 gallon sparge. I am assuming your going to add some extract since it is a partial mash.

**unionrdr** · 10-09-2012, 06:22 PM

Yeah,they gave me this lil ol' 3lb milk jug lookin thing with breisse gold LME. I was going to follow my usual proceedure insomuch as using only half the LME in the boil,maybe 1/3. All three hop additions are cascade,1oz each. It's supposed to be as good as or better than SNPA. It just struck me as odd that they 1st say to use 1qt water per pound,then say use 1G of water with the 5lbs of grain. I can't believe they missed that in the space of 2 sentences. Gotta go check my temps again...
* Mash water temp shot up to 170F while on here. Turned temp on stove from 5 down to 2. Down to 150,added grains,went down to 146F. Turnwed heat up to 3.5,will check in a few minutes to see if I get the 151-154F needed. 1 hour mash.

zeg · 10-09-2012, 07:25 PM

Glad to hear the 5.5 gallons was a typo!

I've been doing PM for a while now. I like to have a 3.5 gallon boil, so I calculate things out for that. Remember that you'll lose a lot of the water to the grain, I got about 3.3 gallons out of 4 gallons mash+sparge last weekend. In my case, I had 7.5 lbs of grain, so that was about 2.5 gallons mash / 1.5 sparge for about 1.33 qt/lb. No doubt more sparge would have done some good, but I'm doing BIAB and this is the best I can manage. Got so-so efficiency (still working out what it was...)

For these, I boil using only the mashed wort, and then I do all my extract with 15-20 minutes left. Adding extract is annoying, so I like to do it only once!

**unionrdr** · 10-09-2012, 07:33 PM

I'm havin trouble maintaining the 155F mash temp. Wants to shoot up to 160,so I turned it down & I had 156F last I checked a few minutes ago. Iwas going to ad 1/3 to 1/2 the 3lbs of gold LME when it boils after hot break. Now idk..maybe all late addition? They say to add it all at boil,but I don't do that with LME.

bobbrews · 10-09-2012, 07:35 PM

The biggest issue here is not the high mash temp or the off mash ratio... it's that you used 100% distilled water with no chemicals added for a beer with a decent amount of mashing grains in it. I would be wary of low mineral content aside from what's already in the portion of extract. The body and flavor might come out very flat/lifeless.

**NordeastBrewer77** · 10-09-2012, 07:37 PM

Congrats for takin' the dive, man! Honestly, if all you're looking at is that one 3.3# jug of LME, I'd add it at knockout. No need to muss and fuss with 1/2 and 1/2. Should be a good beer, that's a good kit!