Dealing with small grain volume

Hi all,

I'm rather new to the fine art of brewing. My first batch went quite well, though that's hardly an accomplishment granted that it's a beer-in-a-can. I've been reading up on pretty much as much as I can regarding this hobby, and I've got my idea for a second batch ready:

4.370kg Amber LME
230g Wheat malt (for head retention)

I don't want to jump into AG brewing as I lack both the experience and the equipment, so I'd like to ease into it slowly with smaller volumes and partial mashes.

However, my volume here is quite low. Most measurements are in full kg's, and I'm worried that when I use 3L/kg here, my water will constantly be cooling off quickly.

Was planning to mash this single infusion with a mash out at 60m, then sparge for 20 minutes, bring to boil, add LME/hops, etc.

I'm taking most of my instructions from DeathBrewer's guide (awesome, by the way, thanks), but he also uses bigger volumes than what I'm planning.

Thoughts?

If you use a smaller pot that gets at least half full when mashing then you should be fine following deathbrewer's guide. I also put my pot in an oven that has been pre-heated to around 150 F to prevent heat loss.

Thanks down. I'll give it a shot. I saw another guide here where a towel was used to insulate the pot. I'll probably be doing that as I don't have an oven (I live in a country where ovens are practically never used for cooking)

When you're mashing that small amount of grain, don't get too concerned about the mash temp. Just keep it between 145 and 160 and it'll be fine.

Your sparge will take about 20 seconds, not 20 minutes.

Haha really? That's really helpful to know! I guess I'll sparge for a minute just to be sure.

Well think about it - you'll have about 2-3 cups of grains... it's not going to take 20 minutes to send water through that. Basically, you could just dunk the grain in the rest of the water after mashing. Then add your extract and get to boilin'

yep, the extract is going to determine most of the body of the beer, so if the small amount of mashed grains is a little too cool or warm, the resulting more fermentable or less fermentable wort won't be swayed too much.

Well, awesome, thanks guys.