Mini Mash help - pointers

Bought the summer ale kit from Austin last week. Tomorrow I'm going to brew, but since it's my first partial grain - making the jump from all extract - I want to ask a few stoopid questions.

I have a 2 galllon Igloo cooler. Grains are going to go in a bag, hot water will go into the cooler. I was told by my Jedi Brewmaster buddy to keep the bag open and give them a stir to break up that dough balls and ensure proper grain saturation.

Did a dry run last night. Preheated the cooler with hot water. Dumped 1.25 gallons of 160' water in. It gave up 17' over an hour. It came with instructions, but I've never been one for mediocre. Here's my questions:

1) - I have 3lbs of grain. What should the strike temp be? What's too high? How much can I lose in the 45-60 minutes it has to soak?

B) - I plan to sparge with 1.25 gallons of water. 170' is my target temp. Any gotchas I should be aware of? Gonna rinse, and let the grain bag sit in a strainer for 10 minutes.

I know all this sounds overly anal, but this is a special brew I plan on handing out at Father's Day. The brothers will all raise a glass to honor the old man who passed 4 years ago - I don't wanna mess this up...

Mahalo,
-DaG

Good news - I nailed it! Wasn't as hard as I thought. Just time consuming. Filled the grain bag with 3lbs of grain and 1.25 Gallons of 161' water. Nailed it at 155 and only gave up 4' over 60 minutes. Sparged with 1.25 gal of 172' water and hit the the target SG.

Looking to make a nice summer ale - light in body. Any suggestions?

Mahalo,
-DaG

I tend to like things that are a little hoppy in the summer. A light ale somewhere between a blond and an IPA has me thinking...

Congrats on the first mash! You'll never go back...

I've been making some nice blonde ales with about 8-9 lbs base grain and whatever hops/yeast I have easily available. Depending on the mash temp and yeast, it can come out sweet and malty or dry and fruity, or anywhere in between. At 3.5-4% ABV they're light and easy drinking summer session beers.

With a mini-mash setup you could do the same using a 3 pound mash of base grain and the most fermentable DME available. Or, upgrade the 2 gallon Igloo to a 5 gallon water cooler and you'll have plenty of space to mash 8-10 pounds of grain. You can also make larger partial-mash batches by adding 2-4 pounds of DME and getting a nice 1.050 -1.060 beer.

DaGbyte said:

Good news - I nailed it! Wasn't as hard as I thought. Just time consuming. Filled the grain bag with 3lbs of grain and 1.25 Gallons of 161' water. Nailed it at 155 and only gave up 4' over 60 minutes. Sparged with 1.25 gal of 172' water and hit the the target SG.

Looking to make a nice summer ale - light in body. Any suggestions?

Mahalo,
-DaG

Click to expand...

I just brewed a partial mash Kolsch. Good all around summer brew that most mass-produced fans will even like, and a great homebrew to make since you can't get it as readily as you can an IPA in a store.