Ready to try a partial mash, looking for recipe advise

I've done a few extract brews with steeped grain and I'm thinking of having a go at a partial mash next. I'm under the impression a partial mash is similar to steeping grains except soak time, temp and use of base malts. Have I got that right?

I've seen the monster sticky Easy Partial Mash Brewing but with 1247 posts I wouldn't know where to jump in to find recipe ideas. So I'm after some basic ideas for the grain part of the recipe, like what grains to use and quantities. I like APAs and have some simcoe hops that I want to use up. I don't have a very large pot, 12L (about 3gal).

*bump* sounds like you and I are at about the same place. My buddy did an Oatmeal Stout partial mash and it came out really good... can't help ya with the kit/recipe/advice, though, so I hope someone else will field this one. You might try searching the forums for "first partial-mash" and see what other threads address this. I'm still on my 1st cup of coffee so I'm not ready for searching/copying/pasting this morning.

I did my first partial mash last weekend and used a kit from Midwest. I used the BIAB (boil in a bag) method which I got off this site.

I used a 3 gallon pot for the mashing and had a second pot to heat the sparge water. My method was awkward but since I have only one large boil pot it was my best option. I am sure it would be better to use larger volumes of water, but for me it is about the cooling down of the wort.

1. Heated about 2.5 gallons of water to 168 degrees, added the grains in the bag turned off the heat covered and let sit for 30 minutes. At the end my temp was 153

2. Removed the grain bag and placed in a strainer. Transferred my liquid to a 3rd brew pot (8.5 gallons). And then sparged the grain bag with 1.5 gallons of 170 degree water.

3. Added 1.3 of my LME and boiled for 1 hour adding the remaining LME with about 2 minutes left in the boil.


One tip I got here was to add the extract part at the beginning and the remainder at the end. I used LME and I added 1/3 in the beginning of the boil and the rest at the end, making sure that the LME gets totally dissolved before I went to the ice bath. I think if you are using DME, then adding half at the beginning is recommended. By adding the extract at the end, the finished product seemed to be much better than my previous batches, but this noob won't really know for 5 more weeks.

Here is a link to give you some ideas on the partial mash kit, should you decide to go that route.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=partial+mash

I also suggest looking at some kits and maybe doing one -- Midwest's Cascade Pale Ale is fantastic and simple (I've been drinking a LOT of that recently). One complaint I'd have about their kits (and many other kits when you get to AG/PM) is that the base malt seems to often be domestic 2-row, even on styles where you could probably do better with something else. Nonetheless, their kits seem to be a nice balance in terms of having a meaningfully sized grain bill while still not being overwhelming. Northern Brewer has some good kits too, including some Surly clones.

This was my FIRST partial mash ever. Very detailed instructions in my post, and it came out very good. Check it out if you like Belgian whites.