1st PM with the Mini-Mash System

2nd Batch – “Belgium Holiday” Christmas Ale

Recipe

This is my first Mini-Mash; I am using RichBrewer’s Mini-Mash system that he was kind enough to help me out with.

First let me say that mash temps confuse the hell out of me, and I could not seem to set it up the way I wanted in BTP. So in the end I just did the same thing that Rich did.

First things first: Last night my 4 year old daughter and I milled all the grain with my Corona Mill. I got it set for what I thought was a good crush, and then ran it through twice. 2.5 kg of grain took me about 30 to finish, but most of that time was due to the “help” of my little brew buddy.

Today: The wife and child are gone for now, so I thought I would get started. Gathered all my stuff and set off to make sure that had my BTP session ready to go. Also downloaded the brew timer from Yuri (cold not use it, missing file or something) so I down loaded a different timer that will track the mash, boil, hops additions, and Irish moss.

So I heated up 1.75 gal of water for the strike, the remembered that I was using tap water and not the bottled water, so scrapped that and started over again. Pre heated the cooler mash tun with hot tap water, while the strike water was heating (again). Over shot the 175F I wanted, but no big deal. Dumped the strike water into the cooler and let it cool to 170F, hit it with the grain, and it settled out at about 155/156 hard to tell with a dial. I then started my timer, and typed this up. More to follow.

With about 15 min left in the mash, I heated ½ gal of water to boil, and then let it cool to about 205F for a infusion to raise the temp for a mash out. At the same time I heated 2 gal of water to 170 for the sparge. After about 10 min the mash out only made it up to 160, real low, I collected my first running, after recalculating. I collected almost 2 gallons of the 2.25 gallons in the tun. I then added 1.5 gal of sparge water at 185F stirred well and collected. The sparge runnings were at 160, damn low again.

Well after it was all said and done my wort pre boil, pre DME was at 1.042, does this seem right? The Eff calc. said I hit 133%. Any way we are off for the boil.

Boil went well, no boil over and I hit my time hacks as needed. First hops in at 60, 2nd hops in at 30, late addition DME in at 20, Irish moss in at 15, molasses in at 5, and all spices except for vanilla beans in at flame out. I did add ¼ tsp of vanilla extract in at flame out as well.


It took about 35 min to get the wort cooled in an ice bath to about 90F. I lost a lot to evaporation this time. My first batch, I kept the kettle covered to prevent this, but later found that this is not a good idea. While I was waiting for the cold break, I re-hydrated my Safale 05 yeast. I topped off to 5 gallons, took a gravity sample. 1.050 – hmmm should have been 1.060. Re mixed the wort and pulled a new sample 1.058 much better.

So she is down in the basement in an water bath to help keep the temps down, with a blow-off hose rigged from the body of a 3 piece airlock, my bottling hose, and a Tupperware filled with sanitized water.

Fermentation clock started at 3:15 pm.

I had a lot more trouble this time around (missed temps) but also had a lot more fun. Worst case scenario . . . I MADE BEER!

so any help on ways to make this go better next time are extreamly welcomed.

Thanks for reading

Tim

PM efficiencies are tricky to calculate. Since you hit your target gravity at the end, I'd say you are officially a Masher.

Mashing temperatures are critical, but mash-out and sparging temperatures, not so much. I tend to shoot on the high side for sparging (better extraction), but I use pH 5.2 to avoid tannin leaching.

You can combine your first sparge and the mash-out water, if you drain the first runnings before mash-out. Lots of ways of doing PM and they all work.

OK, I know I brewed this last week, but the numbers for my efficiency have been bothering me. I get about 63%. Using the 1.042 gravity of my wort ( 2 gallons) this is the first runnings, and the collected sparge.

IS this the right way to do it? If not when and what should I be sampling to get my efficiency.

Tim

Took a sample today 1.0012. Looks good to me, I will check again tomorrow and if it is still on gravity I will rack to my secondary for some down time, maybe 3 weeks, then into the bottles until December, or until I try one....

Tim

Well, this went into the bottle last night. Sample tasted pretty good, has settled down in the secondary, still needs to drop the cinnamon edge in the finish, but other than, I think it is a winner.

Tim