Experimental Brewing

So for awhile Now I have been wanting to brew several small (2-5L) batches and test what flavors and characters come from different ingredients. The first question is about the mash, my idea is that I will do a Base mash of ~10lb two row, and then a couple small mashes with different grains and malts separately. the Idea would then be to combine the base wart and the small wart in different ratios for the boil. Will this result in a different flavor than If I did the mash with the grains together?

I am thinking of getting several glass jugs and rig them up with an In line air lock of some sort, I still have not thought too much about this but will probably just use rubber stoppers and hosing in to a bucket of water, and purge the system with CO2 after pitching. Then transferring to a secondary and bottling in large bottles.

Anyone have experience doing this?

There's no reason I can think as to why your idea would not work. You might want to review what malts you put in the small batches and see which malts needs to be converted and what doesn't.

Sounds as though your making life complicated with the fermenters though. Leave enough head space and rig up a blow off tube or airlock and forget about the CO2.

Sounds as though your making life complicated with the fermenters though. Leave enough head space and rig up a blow off tube or airlock and forget about the CO2.

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Thats a good point, I was thinking about doing it that way in case one blew off it might get in to a separate batch. If i just rig each fermenter with a blow off it will be a lot easier.

I'm heading to a good restaurant supply store to do some searching for the set up. I'll post some pictures if/when I get this set up.

I've been thinking of doing small experimental batches, too. I bought two 1-gallon jugs from Austin to try to make bigger starters but they don't get along with my stirplates very well. I think I will use those as the fermentors for my experimental batches.

I don't know if it will matter or not to mix the small batches with the larger base wort. I think I'm just going to figure out a way to mash a small grain bill with all the grain I want in a batch. That way if there IS an effect of having all the grains together during the mash, recipe scale-up would be a no-brainer. I would hate to find a mixture I really like and then later figure out I'm going to have to make two separate mashes EVERY time I want to make that beer.

If you're planning on making several small mashes, why not just add the base malt in as well? You'll have to mash the "other" grains for every experimental batch anyway. Just my 2 cents.

Bsquared said:

Will this result in a different flavor than If I did the mash with the grains together?

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Slightly. A lot of the specialty grains don't have much if any diastatic power, so they won't convert fully without the base grain, which could lend a "breadier" flavor and possibly some starch haze. Darker specialty grains don't really convert even with base malts, so there may not be much difference at all. Either way the differences will be minimal. You might try mashing the base grain, and just a quick steeping to extract the flavors from the specialty grains. It would be much easier than doing a bunch of tiny mashes.

Bsquared said:

So for awhile Now I have been wanting to brew several small (2-5L) batches and test what flavors and characters come from different ingredients. The first question is about the mash, my idea is that I will do a Base mash of ~10lb two row, and then a couple small mashes with different grains and malts separately. the Idea would then be to combine the base wart and the small wart in different ratios for the boil. Will this result in a different flavor than If I did the mash with the grains together?

I am thinking of getting several glass jugs and rig them up with an In line air lock of some sort, I still have not thought too much about this but will probably just use rubber stoppers and hosing in to a bucket of water, and purge the system with CO2 after pitching. Then transferring to a secondary and bottling in large bottles.

Anyone have experience doing this?

Click to expand...

If the different grains and malts require enzymes to convert them, you will have to add some base grains to supply the enzymes. Otherwise the couple of small mashes won't technically be mashes, you will just be steeping the grains.

-a.

Wow guys blast from the past, I posted that in 2006...