all grain brewing borrowing some mini mash methods

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

chainsawbrewing

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
1,185
Reaction score
40
Location
Indianapolis,IN
i started a new thread because i thought these questions warranted a new thread, and could probably help others in my situation.

so is it possible then to do an actual "all grain" brewing session, using only grain but following the "mini mash" method as described in this article here http://***********/feature/1536.html where you basically just heat some water, put it into the cooler, add the grains, close the lid, let it sit for an hour or so, open the lid, drain some of the wort out, pour it back on top of the grains a couple times untill it runs "clear" , then drain it all out into my brew kettle, then do what i believe is reffered to as "batch sparging" where you just pour a bunch of hot water into the cooler on top of the grains, close the lid, let it sit for about 10-15 more minutes, which is the "sparging" then drain that into the brew kettle untill i get around 6 or so gallons of "wort" then just boil, add hops, and thats it?

i think i can handle that, i just don't want to have to buy a hot liquor tank, a fly sparge thing, i already have a bigger brew kettle, and a turkey fryer, so i'm thinking if i can do all grain brewing, and full boils without a hot liquor tank, and fly sparge and stuff, all i will need to get is a 5gallon cooler and do the ball valve/stainless steel tube set up on the inside of the cooler. the only other question is the part of an all grain brewing session that does the thing where it "shuts off" the conversion of starches to sugars, and prevents tannins from being made. in the BYO article i linked to at the top of the page it says to boil 1/2 a gallon of water in your brew kettle, then after sparging, drain the wort into the brew kettle with the boiling water, and that will "shut off" or "stop" the conversion i think they call it "mash out".

i also understand the concern of a 5gallon mash tun for all grain brewing, as in running out of room for higher gravity beers, etc. that really doesn't concern me because A. i don't like those beers, and B. if i do like them, i'll just add a bit of extract to make up the gravity.


also, i wouldn't use a grain bag like he does in the BYO article, i would actually make the ball valve spigot, with the SS braided hose on the inside of the cooler, and put all the grain directly into the cooler.


i THINK at worst case scenario, i will be able to at least do BIG partial mashes with this kind of a set up, and procedure, such as maybe only have to add a pound or two of extract to the boil to "fill out" my fermentable sugars needed. and i'm fine with that, if that's all i can do, i'm just wanting to get to where i'm able to use less and less EXPENSIVE malt extract, and use more and more CHEAP grains, but i don't have the money, patience, or room for a "complicated" fly sparging, hot liquor tank, big bad setup.

lastly, part of what got me to this point, was me driving to about 6 different stores trying to find a 3 gallong cooler (because i wanted to be able to mash at least 5-7 lbs of grain and i thought a 2 gallon cooler would be too small for that) and all i could find was about a million 2 gallon, and 5 gallon coolers.

sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for the help!

brian
 
This sounds exactly like batch sparging to me. That how I am currently doing all grain beers. My 5 gal cooler is good for medium sized beers and larger ones become partial mashes with the addition of some extract. My AG setup cost $30 ($20 for the cooler and $10 for the braid, stopper and other parts for conversion.
Go for it!
Craig
 
Most batch spargers collect wort in two batches of roughly equal amounts.

You can do a mash-out with the first batch by adding boiling or near-boiling water to bring the mash temp up. Stir, let rest ca 10 minutes, recirculate, then drain.

Then add enough additional sparge water to the grains to hit your target wort collection, stir, let rest ca 10 minutes, recirculate, then drain.

The only hitch on the equipment is that you need some sort of makeshift HLT to hold the sparge water for batch #2 while batch #1 is draining into the kettle.

(Or, alternatively, you can drain the first batch of wort into some other vessel while heating the sparge water for batch #2 in the kettle.)
 
awesome! thanks. now, one issue i thought of, without a good brewing software, can i just do the all grain batch sparging method, then take a hydro reading, and if my gravity is too low, just add in some malt extract to raise it, when the wort is still hot, and stir it in, or is it neccesarry to actually boil the extract i add for sterilization purposes? i'm completely new to doing my own recipe's "on the fly" and i've heard that 12 pounds of grain is a good amount for rule of thumb for a 5 gallon batch, but i know that the efficiency of the mash will affect how much gravity the wort has. also is there a generic rule of thumb amount of water to add to the mash, and a generic rule of thumb amount of water to use as sparge water for the batch sparge? i've heard different numbers.

brian
 
You can start bringing your wort to a boil, and if the s.g. is too low (remember to correct for temperature!), you can add the extract then or even do a late extract addition.

12 pounds of grain is ok for a 5 gallon batch- you'll be making a pretty big beer, then. I use about that much for beers in the 1.066-1.070 range, with 70-75% efficiency. I doubt you'll need to add extract unless your efficiency is terrible.

As for water, I generally use 1.25 qts/pound, but that's because I want a fuller body and I read that mashing thick helps that. You can go up to 2 qts/lb. Maybe go thicker at first- so if you miss your temperature you can add hot or cold water to get you to your temp.

For batch sparging, I would follow what cweston said. Heat up about 4 gallons of sparge water but plan on using less. Do the mash out, and then sparge to get your volume.

Do you have a recipe you're thinking about? that will help you decide temperatures for your mash.
 
One small but important thing is missing from your description:
When mixing the grain and water, stir well. You want to get the grain and water really well mixed. I find it easiest to make small additions of grain and water, stir till it's all mixed, and then repeat.
Then when sparging, after adding the sparge water, you need to stir again, and if you stir, you will need to recirculate a few quarts before draining into the kettle.

Most people don't bother with a mash out when batch sparging. They heat the first batch of sparge water to a higher temperature. I use the technique mentioned by cweston simply because it raises the mash temp to about 170 (which is good for sparging) and allows me to use the same temperature for both batches of the sparge.

Hope this helps

-a.
 
Yooper Chick said:
Do you have a recipe you're thinking about? that will help you decide temperatures for your mash.


not really, i thought that the mash temperatures were pretty much constant. like around 154-168 degrees or something like that. i guess i didn't realize that different reicpes require mashing at different temperatures.

this might help some, most likely every beer i make will be a german wheat variety such as a hefeweizen, belgian wit, or some american pilsners, or ESB's. i'm not into porters, stouts, IPA's or really hoppy or dark beers.

right now i have the ingredients to make a red hook ESB clone, and a recipe the LHBS made up for me for a warsteiner dunkel clone. each recipe called for 6lbs of light DME i only had enough money to buy 6lbs of DME, which is what prompted me to the possiblility of doing a partial mash for each brew and only using half of the DME the recipes called for, and making up the othe half of the required sugars through base grains in partial mashing.

after reading some, and realizing how cheap it is to make a small mash tun from a cooler, and that i could do a batch sparge with no more equipment, i thought it sounded do-able. but then after reading MORE, i kind of got confused, because there seems to be MANY conflicting opinions on various methods, sizes of coolers, partial mash versus all grain, etc. i already bought all the neccesary supplies for converting a cooler with the ball valve, nipples, SS braided hose, everything minus the cooler. (can't find a 3gallon anywhere). i'm basically just looking for the cheapest, easiest way to make the beer i want. i had only bought kits in the past, and after buying seperate ingredients, i realized all the money is in the DME/LME


thanks everyone for the help! i love the quick responses i always get on this forum, and everyones willingness to help out!

brian
 
Back
Top