Mini-mashing - your tips

Myself and my brew buddy have decided to try a mini mash for our next brew on account of a clone we are doing. I could be lazy and unadventerous and sub the grain bill with steepable grains but I figured it will give us an insight in to all grain and maybe even push us in to all grain sooner rather than later. If anyone has any tips they would be much appreciated. My main areas of concern Keeping a consistent temperature through the mash and also can I mash my grains with a grain bag effectively?

Just one more, I've 400g of two row that need to be milled, I don't have a mill, is the zip lock and rolling pin the preffered method in this situation? Thanks in advance, and in general for all the advice I've been provided with so far on here.

Graeme

I mini mash on the stove. I add the grains to a large grain bag, big enough bag that the grains can move around well. I keep a thermomter in the pot, with the lid on. I'll check the temp every 10 minutes or so, and if it is dropping off, give it a few seconds of fire.
With about 10 minutes to go, I'll heat my sparge water in another pot. I've used two methods here: one, place the grain bag in a big strainer over the kettle and pour the sparge water over. And 2, pulled the grain bag, let it drain for amoment over the kettle then dunked it completely in the sparge water pot. I'll then pull the grain bag out and dump the sparge water in the kettle.
I prefer the second method, less messy.

i think there is a FAQ/sticky post on one way to do the process. for me though, here is what i did, and am happy I did as it gave me a great feel for all grain process, just on a smaller scale.
I bought a 2g igloo cooler from the supermarket, got a small stainless braid and took off the spigot of the cooler and replaced with a manifold using parts from home depot, and listed in the wiki part of this website.
I'd mash up to 4.5 lbs of grain and do a batch sparge afterwards. Then added more water, boiled, and the extract late in the boil.

When i stepped up to full size all grain i used the same manifold and braid in the bigger cooler and had a great feel for the process.

definately give it a shot.

I used to do this one the stovetop. First turn you oven on the lowest setting. then bring your water to about 10 degrees above your mash temp.....or if you have access to a strike temp. calculator bring the water to the exact temp.....Throw in your grains, stir, and throw the pot into the preheated oven.....Your mini mash should stay at the right temp throughout the mash time.......

Wild Duk said:

I used to do this one the stovetop. First turn you oven on the lowest setting. then bring your water to about 10 degrees above your mash temp.....or if you have access to a strike temp. calculator bring the water to the exact temp.....Throw in your grains, stir, and throw the pot into the preheated oven.....Your mini mash should stay at the right temp throughout the mash time.......

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That sounds closest to the method I had in mind, as I want to keep it simple to start with and would rather wait until I go all grain to buy a cooler of any kind. Wild Duck, is 10 degrees not a little high to compensate for the grains to be added? I'm doing celcius so that's probably it. I'm doing about 2lbs...I was thinking of mashing the grains loose without a grain bag as I've all my ingrediants and am just short a good loose bag, should be ok to do it loose right?

Definitely read Deathbrewers sticky in the Beginners Brewing section...it's a great writeup!

When mashing stick around 1 to 1.5 quarts/lb of grain.

When 'sparging', use as much water as possible and let the grainbag soak at least 10 minutes.

You'll definitely notice a big difference in the quality of your beer using a minimash!

Chips said:

Definitely read Deathbrewers sticky in the Beginners Brewing section...it's a great writeup!

When mashing stick around 1 to 1.5 quarts/lb of grain.

When 'sparging', use as much water as possible and let the grainbag soak at least 10 minutes.

You'll definitely notice a big difference in the quality of your beer using a minimash!

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Thanks for your advice chips, I'll definitely read the sticky too. When you say use as much water as possible during sparging, would you advise the same quantity of water I used in the mini mash or even more? Cheers!

yea, ten degrees c would be too much....If you want, you can download a free trial of beersmith, or buy it, it will come in handy, and it will give you your exact strike temp for your grains and amount of water.........There are also a few mash calculators floating around here somewhere......As far as no bag, you can do it, you just need a way to strain your water from your grains.....A mesh colander would work if you have one....

Wild Duk said:

yea, ten degrees c would be too much....If you want, you can download a free trial of beersmith, or buy it, it will come in handy, and it will give you your exact strike temp for your grains and amount of water.........There are also a few mash calculators floating around here somewhere......As far as no bag, you can do it, you just need a way to strain your water from your grains.....A mesh colander would work if you have one....

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I have a colander indeed, I was just thinking though, with all this in mind it's not going to be possible to do first and second runnings like you could with say using a cooler. Is this going to be an issue, will all the sugars be collected? I'll be using 2 lbs on grain

Heat up some sparge water in another pot to about 180, after you drain your mash, throw the grains in you sparge water, soak for 10 minutes, and drain again....that should be fine...

Thanks allot Wild Duk, very helpful, I just read Deathbrewer's article on mini-mashing which was also very helpful, so think I'm set to go! cheers!

Make sure you have the right grains. Some of your specialty grains that require mashing might not have enough power to convert themselves. Either add 2 lbs of base malt (2-row) or get some enzymes to add.

If you have a small cooler, that will hold your mash temp better, and then you can sparge the bag of grains in your brew kettle and add the rest of the wort from the cooler after the 10-20 min sparge.

Yeah, I'm using two row as a base with just a small amount of Amber Malt.

I unfortunately have neither a grain bag or cooler for this one..I'm reluctant to buy a small cooler as I've limited space, and would rather wait to just buy the large cooler for when I switch to all grain

I just tried Death Brewer's partial mash for the first time yesterday. It's simple and a great way to get into PM. Go with the grain bag if you can to make life easy. Have fun!

Gotta have a grain bag!

TIP - OK - you have pulled your grain bag with 3-5 lbs of grain out of your pot and your arm is about to fall off trying to get that last drop of liquid.

What I do use my wife's BIG bowl and a small colander. Place colander upside down in the bowl and put the full grain bag on top of the upside down colander so that the bag is above the bottom of the bottom sitting on the colander.

Then do all of your normal boiling stuff. 15 minutes later the gain will be completely dripped out in the bottom of the bow; You will get a couple of cups of wort extra.


I use the oven technique an it works great - heat to 170 and turn it off. bingo. I do full boils after that.

Beard said:

I just tried Death Brewer's partial mash for the first time yesterday. It's simple and a great way to get into PM. Go with the grain bag if you can to make life easy. Have fun!

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It will make life much easier, I think I decided sometime today that I'm going to get my hands on a grain bag, Death Brewer's partial mash is really comprehensive and seems the way to go, how did it go for you Beard, and what quantity of grain were you using? I'm using 2 lbs, I'm looking forward to trying it

Graeme said:

When you say use as much water as possible during sparging, would you advise the same quantity of water I used in the mini mash or even more? Cheers!

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I would use as much water as you can afford in your pot...even more than the mash if possible! As I understand it, all of the converting has been done and you're now 'mashing out' (usually around 175F). The purpose of this step is to get whatever residual sugars you can out of the grain. I seem to have the best efficiency when I use a larger sparge volume (more than mash)!

I used about 4.5 lbs of grain. The method is super simple and was a good way for me to get into PM. Now lets hope my IPA turns out great.