Partial mash

Ok so im going to do my first partial mash. Going to use the oven. It has a 170 setting. I have read to heat it to 170, put the pot in and turn the oven off and sit for an hour. 2 things.

Is this method good?
Should i heat the pot and water to 160 before putting in oven?

Thanks

I'm confused? Are you baking? Let me know if that method works.

The water should be hot enough to get your mash to the right temperature within a few minutes of doughing in. Use the strike temp calculator here to get you in the ball park. It's usually better to go a little high than low. If you're high, you can stir for a few minutes and the temp will drop a few degrees. You can add hot or cold water if needed to raise or lower the temp, but that's going to mess with your thickness a little bit. Messing with it a little bit isn't bad if it's necessary, though.

Use the oven to keep the temp steady at where you want to mash. I think 170 is a bit too high.

Ideally, you'd preheat the oven to 170 and then turn it OFF! You don't want your mash to get above 160.

What I'd do is heat my water to 163-165, and then add the grains. Stir well, stir some more, and then again. check the temperature and it should be at 150-155. Either cover it with a blanket (or just with a lid) or I guess you could be it in the oven as long as it's turned off. You want to keep the mash at 152-155 for the hour, and it's pretty easy to do right on the stove instead of opening the oven, opening the lid, and checking the temperature. But of course that's up to you.

I do a BIAB oven mash and here is how I do it. I use 2 pots in my process.

Heat strike water to 163-170 depending on target mash temp. Place oven on low for me 175.
Dough in and adjust temp as needed till target is acquired.
Turn off oven, cover pot and place in oven. Mash for desired time.
With about 15 mins left in mash I heat my mash out water in a second sparge pot to 184 or so.
Remove mash from oven, lift and drain bag over pot, then transfer bag to sparge pot stir and verify temp of 168-170. Place in oven for 10 minutes while putting initial pot on heat, after 10 minutes pull pot and add wort to 1st pot on heat, hold bag over pot and squeeze(careful HOT gloves are nice here.)
Proceed to boil

This is my current process in a nut shell. I do partials with about a 6lb grain bill. It took me a few tries to get my process down but it now smooth and works well for me. YMMV!

Good luck and have fun.

I highly endorse turning the oven off before putting the pot in. I've done it and left the oven on "warm" - there was a towel wrapped around the pot. Yup. Small kitchen fire. Short story - no damage and the Kitchen Fire Cream ALe came out great.

prpromin said:

no damage and the Kitchen Fire Cream ALe came out great.

Click to expand...

Oh crap. That's one of the best beer names I've ever heard. Especially given the context.