Mini-Mash, Partial Mash and Steeping Specialty Grains

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Daparish

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I've heard all three of these phrases tossed about on forums and in books, and I'm wondering if there is a difference between these.

I understand that one can make an "All-extract" batch and add some steeped grains, but is a "mini-mash" or "partial mash" different from this?

Could someone explain?
 
Mini-mash and partial mash are synonymous. Mashing involves converting the starch in the grains into fermentable sugar. There are some grains that must be mashed that contribute different characteristics to the beer than the base grains (which pale/light malt extract is derived from) would, hence the need to at least to a partial mash.

Steeping grains have undergone a process in which the starch has already been converted or undergone some other process where there is no longer any potential to extract fermentable sugars. These grains contribute color, flavor, body, and/or head retention.

When mashing, things like water volume, time, and temperature are more critical, whereas steeping grains can be steeped for a generic ~30 minutes at 150-170 degrees-F.
 
Well I can tell you that a partial mash is a beer that is made with about half extract and half grain. The extract is a "back-up" if you will, in case you do not get good efficiency. I believe it is a good way to get into all grain.

Specialty Grains is an all extract brew with 1 to 2 pounds of grains that you steep at 155 F water for 30 mins or so to extract color and flavor more than fermentable sugars. The extract is the only source of fermentable sugars (of course SOMETHIGN will come out of those grains, but it is so minimal it doesn't matter).

I believe that a mini-mash is bascially an all-grain brew on a smaller scale. Not positive on that so someone else may need to chime in here.
 
Ok, then what is the difference between steeping the grains in a grain bag at 155 for 30 minutes in all-extract and "mashing" (single infusion) the grains in a grain bag at 155 for 30-45, then "sparging" by rinsing the bag with a few liters of water in the mini-mash recipe? Anything?
 
The major difference between steeping and mashing is converting grains with diastatic potential (i.e. 2-row, pilsner, etc..). Here is an excellent explanation from John Palmer:

Steeping differs from mashing in that there is no enzyme activity taking place to convert grain or adjunct starches to sugars. Steeping specialty grains is entirely a leaching and dissolution process of sugars into the wort. If grain with enzyme diastatic potential is steeped, that is mashing.
 
Big, so am I correct in stating that the difference between steeping and mashing is the type of malt/adjunct that you are soaking and not the method of the soaking per se? Is this over-simplifying?
 
In very simple terms, you are correct. The process is very similar. The major differences is the grain being used and sometimes just the amount. Otherwise, you want to be more stable in your temps for a partial mash (mini-mash) and you will use less extract (whether it be LME or DME) than you would with a comparable extract recipe.

btw, on a side note, I noticed you used the term per se. Attorney, law student, or close relation one?

Edit: Read How to Brew, it is an excellent resource and completely free.
 
In very simple terms, you are correct. The process is very similar. The major differences is the grain being used and sometimes just the amount. Otherwise, you want to be more stable in your temps for a partial mash (mini-mash) and you will use less extract (whether it be LME or DME) than you would with a comparable extract recipe.

btw, on a side note, I noticed you used the term per se. Attorney, law student, or close relation one?

Edit: Read How to Brew, it is an excellent resource and completely free.

Very perceptive Big. I'm an attorney in Knoxville, TN. Been practicing for a little under 2 years.

As for "How to Brew", I've read it cover to cover. Great book, and I find myself going back and reading the more technical chapters again and again to try and retain the info.
 
Very perceptive Big. I'm an attorney in Knoxville, TN. Been practicing for a little under 2 years.

As for "How to Brew", I've read it cover to cover. Great book, and I find myself going back and reading the more technical chapters again and again to try and retain the info.

Great! Good luck in your practice! I was just curious, because most people in general society don't casually mix Latin in conversations like attorneys do. Recognize my avatar? That guy wrote my all time favorite quotable in American jurisprudence. (Buck v. Bell)
 
btw, on a side note, I noticed you used the term per se. Attorney, law student, or close relation one?

It drives me crazy when people type "per say". I'm not a lawyer or anything close, but I took 4 years of Latin in high school. :p
 
So then how would I go about converting oatmeal in an extract brew?

If you are doing an extract recipe, you are not concerned about any conversion of fermentable sugars because the extract (whether it be LME or DME) is all of the fermentable sugars you need. The oatmeal in an extract recipe (and for the most part any recipe) is used to enhance body/mouthfeel. You will still get the benefit of the oatmeal in an extract recipe at steeping temps.
 
So are you the fermentables available in the oatmeal will be derived at steeping temp. or that I would only be using oatmeal for flavor and body charactaristics. If the second is true then how would go about making a partial mash using oatmeal and possibly othe adjuncts?
 
The second is true. Oats are, like you said, an "adjunct." As such, they are used to provide certain flavor, body, aroma, color, or some other specialty aspect to the finished beer. Anytime you steep, you are not looking to get fermentables, just a particular characteristic. If you were looking to convert an extract recipe to a partial mash recipe, you would add a base malt and reduce the extract amount. However, when you add that base malt you will need to do a mash - hence the term partial mash. The mash is necessary to get the fermentable sugars out of the base malt (usually 2 row, or pilsner, or 6 row, or marris otter, or wheat, etc). If you peruse the recipe database, you will see that base malts are never used in extract recipes... that is because they wouldn't provide anything. Here is a good comparison:


Three ways to do EdWort'sBee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale:

All Grain:
8 lbs. 2-Row Pale Malt
2 lbs. Vienna Malt
0.5 lb. Crystal 10L Malt

Partial Mash:
5 lb light DME
2 lbs Vienna
.5 Crystal 10L

Extract:
6.5# Extra Pale LME (Essentially Light DME)
1.5# Munich LME
8 oz. Crystal 10L (steep)

Now if you look at the difference between these three versions, in the all grain you are getting nearly all of your fermentables from the 2 row and the vienna with a bunch of flavor and body from from the Crystal malt. Now compared to the extract version, the 2 row and the vienna are replaced by the LME but the Crystal is still there for flavor and body. Now the mini mash version, in contrast, gets most of the fermentables from the extra pale. But the vienna is now mashed to get the rest of the fermentables. However, notice that the crystal malt is still there for flavor and body.

Extract is nothing more than a manufacturer mashing the base malt for you then condensing it into either a syrup (LME) form or powder form (DME). So in reality, all of these recipes are the same... it just depends on who does the mashing. The advantage of doing the mash yourself versus the manufacturer is that you get ultimate control and freshness of the finished product.

Ed Wort's Bee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale is available in the recipe database.
 
i still dont quite know which way im brewing now
my first brew

6lb lme
1lb 2row
.5lb cara pils
 
In JP's book, he has a page on typical malt yields
How to Brew - By John Palmer - Table of Typical Malt Yields
If you steep a specialty grain, especially a caramel/crystal for example, you'll get some fermentable sugars, but you can tell from the chart, many grains don't yield any fermentable sugar from steeping (though they may add flavor, color, et al).

Ok guys, sorry to make this my first post on the forum. I skipped my intro post, bad form (sorry.) Thank you so much to BigB for all the clarification. I got an "extract kit" similar to nealizm which also has 6lb LME, 1lb 2row and 1lb crystal. The directions said to steep @ 150 for 30 min then rinse with hot water. At that point, I'm pretty much mashing and sparging, right?

Maybe I'm just being OCD, but to clarify the differences in the chart that you linked... Isn't mashing basically just steeping at a specified time and temp? I didn't see in the chart where he specifies what time/temp he was using for the mash results vs the "steep" results.
 
\ Isn't mashing basically just steeping at a specified time and temp? I didn't see in the chart where he specifies what time/temp he was using for the mash results vs the "steep" results.

Mashing is more than just steeping at a specified time and temp...but they are very similar. Mashing is the process in which you are specifically looking to obtain fermentable sugars from a base malt. You do this by maintaining a "steep" at a temperature necessary for particular enzymes to do the conversion and it takes those enzymes a period of time to do this job. In steeping, you are not looking for fermentable sugars from a base malt, you are looking to get something else, like color, body, flavor, etc, from a specialty malt.
 
I believe the key here is the process applied to make the malts/specialty grains. Just like adjusting your mash can change the profile of your beer, adjusting the malting process will change the profile of the grains. The base malts we all use have been malted with a process that focuses on making the most available fermentable sugars, while the specialty malts/grains have been processed to bring out a certain flavor. Some of the specialty grains start out with the same grain the base malts do, but through adjusting the malting process, (moisture levels, schedules, roasting temperatures,) it yields a less fermentable but more flavorful malt. So, steeping would usually be the term applied to the process of soaking specialty malts (usually low available sugar content) in hot water to extract flavors. Of course you get a little bit of sugar as well, but negligible comparatively. Mashing is then a more precise control of the soaking-in-hot-water process that uses grains with lots of available sugar.

I just realized how much i was writing so this is my synopsis...

STEEPING, temp and time not so important.
use Specialty Grain (Lots of Flavor, little bit of sugar)

MASHING, temp and time precise for best sugar extraction.
use Base malts (Not so much flavor, lots of sugar)
 
Also that steeping can use more water,whereas mashing uses more precise water to grain ratios.

Was going to echo this point. Mashing is a pretty precise (not to be read as difficult) method of converting grains to sugars.

I like to partial mash since I dont have capacity for 5 gallon batch sized mashing, and it gives me the ability to get more out of the specialty grains, and to add a twist of my own if I want. I also think it improves the batch to add some freshly mashed wort.

I will also use the method to 'beef up' some less expensive kits (like Austin home brews $22 budget kits) and make them more flavorfull beers. Take their budget porter, and add pound of 2row and a pound of oats and bam, oatmeal porter. I made their Lemon Wheat and meant to buy a lb of honey malt to add to the mash, but forgot..that woulda been good :mad:

Also, they make their kits available as Extract / Partial / AG on their site, so you can just buy it that way too.
 
Also that steeping can use more water,whereas mashing uses more precise water to grain ratios.
Plenty of guy's doing no-sparge AG with full volume mash. There may be some pH issues, but nothing that can't be worked around. Mash thickness is not as critical as once thought.
 
Plenty of guy's doing no-sparge AG with full volume mash. There may be some pH issues, but nothing that can't be worked around. Mash thickness is not as critical as once thought.

A full volume mash would be AG to my thinking,& that's 10-13lbs of grains. So a lot of water is needed. I just use what I know works for my partial mashes at this point. It is cool though to adjust flavor/aroma complexities!:mug:
 
STEEPING, temp and time not so important.
use Specialty Grain (Lots of Flavor, little bit of sugar)

MASHING, temp and time precise for best sugar extraction.
use Base malts (Not so much flavor, lots of sugar)

Well, not exactly. You get lots of flavor from base malts, and that's what makes up the vast majority of wort.
 
Well, not exactly. You get lots of flavor from base malts, and that's what makes up the vast majority of wort.
Exactly. I've seen recipes that steep base malts for 10 minutes at 160-170 degrees. They're not expecting any conversion, just a little added fresh grain flavor.

Just because a recipe contains a base malt that doesn't mean you're mashing. You also need the time and temperature for conversion.

Edit:
Mashing is a form of steeping, but steeping isn't always mashing.
It's really pretty simple.
Conversion = Mashing
No Conversion = Not Mashing
 
Three ways to do EdWort'sBee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale:

All Grain:
...
0.5 lb. Crystal 10L Malt

Partial Mash:
...
.5 Crystal 10L

Extract:
...
8 oz. Crystal 10L (steep)

Now if you look at the difference between these three versions, in the all grain you are getting ... a bunch of flavor and body from from the Crystal malt. ... However, notice that the crystal malt is still there for flavor and body.

Okay, dumb question. But in the extract you are just steeping the specialty grains but in the mashes you are including them in the mash (you are, aren't you?) and thus you are processing these specialty grains differently. Does this actually make any difference?

I figure the answer is either:
No, you can "mash" em for an hour or you can steep them for 20 minutes, the effect is the same-- The flavor seeps out and is in your wort.
Yes, but there's nothing (practical) you can do about it cause your aren't doing any mashing.
Or somewhere in between but mostly no.

(It is no, isn't it? Once the flavors out, it's out?)
(Needless to say I haven't done all-grain yet. I've read up on it and ... will have to see it done before I can claim to have a grasp on it.)
 
Some recipes steep crystal and dark grains on the side to avoid astringency. Not necessary to include them in the mash.
 
(It is no, isn't it? Once the flavors out, it's out?)
(Needless to say I haven't done all-grain yet. I've read up on it and ... will have to see it done before I can claim to have a grasp on it.)

Yes, it's "no". You can throw all your grains in the mash. But crystal malt will give color and flavor (and a few gravity points) whether or not it's in a mash or in just water.


Some recipes steep crystal and dark grains on the side to avoid astringency. Not necessary to include them in the mash.

Right. It's not necessary, but I always throw them in the mash as it's more convenient to put all the grains together and treat them the same way. You don't have to- but many do. It really truly doesn't matter.
 
I'm kind of at the point where moving from extract+steeped grains to partial mash is seeming like a good idea. I do have one other question on top of what has already been presented. Going back to the pale ale recipe, if you took the extract+steeping version with just the pale LME and the Crystal 10L, and kept the Vienna (say 1/2 lb.) to steep instead of switching to Munich LME, would you still get an appreciable color/aroma/taste from it, or would there not be enough to be worth it? I'm not talking fermentables...I realize you'd have to add some additional LME to compensate for the lack of the Munich.
 
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