Mini Mash with a very small amount of grain OK...

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J187

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When doing a mini-mash for an extract recipe that requires only a small amount of grain, is it ok to continue with a water to grain of 1.5Q/Lb? Basically, even if that means you ended up mashing in 1.5q because you've only got one lb of grain?
 
depends on the size of what your mashing in. You want all the grains to be covered, and if it were me i would just go ahead and add more water.

can you post the recipe? i don't see how you could have a mini-mash recipe with only 1 lb of grain. if they are all specialty grains then you are really just steeping, not mashing, and if you have 1 or less pounds of base grain, then you might as well just add a bit more extract because it isn't going to change the flavor since it makes up a very small amount of your fermentables.
 
Just started partial-mashing myself. From my understanding, you don't want too much water because it could affect your efficiency. Ive also heard 1.25 gal / 1 pound grain, and thats what I used.
Some would argue that if your only doing 1 pound, then you might as well just steep them than bother with mashing, but its certainly do-able. I don't necessarily think it can be 'too little' of an amount, but like Wakadaka says, make sure you compensate with enough malt extract to get the style you're shooting for. I've heard the sugars in 1 lb mashed grain are roughly equivalent to .75 lbs LME and .6 lbs DME.
Also agree with Wakadaka that the other important thing here is that your grain has diastatic power (that is, contains the enzymes needed to self-convert the starch). Many specialty grain don't, and would thus require the presence of other grains (like 2-row) in order to convert. Some grains, like crystal malts have already been pre-converted and thus wouldn't need to be mashed, only steeped.
 
You can easily go up to 2 quarts of water per pound of grain without having to worry about conversion issues, but I've never heard of doing a one-pound partial-mash. That's a "why bother?" amount.

You can use the specialty grains together with the base grains, and still use 2 quarts per pound, if you have more than a pound of grain total.
 
If you want to do a mini-mash, please post the recipe and someone will gladly help you translate it into a more conventional ratio. Controlling the temp on such a low volume is going to be challenging.
 
It was more of a hypothetical question... thinking about the water to grain ratio, I became curious as to whether there was a low limit with such a thing - I guess it never occurred to me that it would be so rare to have a recipe that included say, 1lb of munich and very little other specialty grains - maybe 1/4lb of crystal or something... So what would the minimum be to have an effective mini mash? What about one gallon of water in the mash, so 2lbs of grain, and then 2 gallons of sparge water @ 175 poured over the mash in a colander to give you an effective 3 gallon boil?
 
It isn't rare to have minimal specialty grains. When you do, the recipe usually just calls for mashing some base grain with them. That gets you up to a reasonable volume. eg 1lb munich +1/4 crystal + 2lb 2-row.
 
It isn't rare to have minimal specialty grains. When you do, the recipe usually just calls for mashing some base grain with them. That gets you up to a reasonable volume. eg 1lb munich +1/4 crystal + 2lb 2-row.

I see... so typically if the situation was that the only grains you had in the recipe that required mashing to convert, say 1lb of vienna or munich, then you would actually substitute some of the extract for grain, like 2 row, even if the grain you were using WAS self convertible, just to get a reasonable mash volume?
 
You don't want to use too much water in the mash,something about PH staying in an exceptable range. I used 1.5 gallons of water to mash 5lbs of grain. Sparged with 1.5G of water at 155F. Don't sparge with water over 170F,or you can start extracting tannins from the grain hulls.
 
It was more of a hypothetical question... thinking about the water to grain ratio, I became curious as to whether there was a low limit with such a thing - I guess it never occurred to me that it would be so rare to have a recipe that included say, 1lb of munich and very little other specialty grains - maybe 1/4lb of crystal or something... So what would the minimum be to have an effective mini mash? What about one gallon of water in the mash, so 2lbs of grain, and then 2 gallons of sparge water @ 175 poured over the mash in a colander to give you an effective 3 gallon boil?

What's your primary concern here? Boil size or grain bill? Not quite sure what you're going for, so not sure which way to point you...

I mean, if you're trying to mash with one gallon of water, you could easily mash 2 or 3lbs of grain in that volume, then sparge with few quarts or what have you (the full 2 gallons may be overkill), then top off your volume to 3 gallons and bring it up to a boil from there.

If you were dead set on mashing just 1lb (you're really not going to get a whole lot of fermentables or enzymes from just 1lb, but we'll go with it for purposes of the example), you could still do so with 1/2 gallon of water, sparge with another couple quarts, and still then top that off with enough water to reach your 3 gallon boil.

But it'd really help to know what you're trying to get out of this thought experiment.
 
What's your primary concern here? Boil size or grain bill? Not quite sure what you're going for, so not sure which way to point you...

I mean, if you're trying to mash with one gallon of water, you could easily mash 2 or 3lbs of grain in that volume, then sparge with few quarts or what have you (the full 2 gallons may be overkill), then top off your volume to 3 gallons and bring it up to a boil from there.

If you were dead set on mashing just 1lb (you're really not going to get a whole lot of fermentables or enzymes from just 1lb, but we'll go with it for purposes of the example), you could still do so with 1/2 gallon of water, sparge with another couple quarts, and still then top that off with enough water to reach your 3 gallon boil.

But it'd really help to know what you're trying to get out of this thought experiment.

Your confusion is warranted, because I'm not dealing in terms of a practical recipe. However, I was thinking about the whole mini mash process and was trying to understand it better - including parameters and such. I was thinking that I always see people mashing 5lbs, 6lbs of grain in a mini, but was wondering if there was ever a reason to mash much less and also, if from a logistic standpoint, it was a viable option. I was thinking about someone perhaps taking an extract brew that they may just want to add something to it that wouldn't steep - for example oats in a stout - you can steep oats for mouthfeel, but if you had an extract recipe and just wanted to get a little bit of the conversation from say a lb of oats.
 
Gotcha - but if you wanted that, you'd in turn also need to add some base malt to get the enzymes to do the conversion. And if you're going to do a mini-mash anyway, why not just do a 4 or 5lb grain bill? Sure, you could do it with only a pound or two, but it seems like you'd be potentially making it harder on yourself working in smaller increments.
 
Gotcha - but if you wanted that, you'd in turn also need to add some base malt to get the enzymes to do the conversion. And if you're going to do a mini-mash anyway, why not just do a 4 or 5lb grain bill? Sure, you could do it with only a pound or two, but it seems like you'd be potentially making it harder on yourself working in smaller increments.

That makes a lot of sense.
 
There is a lower limit to the amount of strike water you can use while mashing. If you go much below 1 qt water per lb grain, you won't have sufficient water to wet the grains thoroughly and the mash will probably not convert properly. I would suggest somewhere between 1.25 and 2 qts per lb because with a thick mash, it is more difficult to break up the dough balls.

-a.
 
There is a lower limit to the amount of strike water you can use while mashing. If you go much below 1 qt water per lb grain, you won't have sufficient water to wet the grains thoroughly and the mash will probably not convert properly. I would suggest somewhere between 1.25 and 2 qts per lb because with a thick mash, it is more difficult to break up the dough balls.

-a.

Thanks for the reply- I think you've confused the question a bit. I fully understand the limitations regarding the lower grain to water ratios... what I was questioning is the lowest amount of grain that can be used, so that there isn't a pitiful amount of water in the pan - since there is such little grain.
 
You could do one ounce if you wanted to. If you keep the ratio the same, you'll always have enough water in the mash whether you're doing 1 lb or 1000.
 
Thanks for the reply- I think you've confused the question a bit. I fully understand the limitations regarding the lower grain to water ratios... what I was questioning is the lowest amount of grain that can be used, so that there isn't a pitiful amount of water in the pan - since there is such little grain.

I know that you believe you understand what you asked, but I'm not sure you realize that what you believe you asked is not actually what you meant. :D
(apologies to Robert McCloskey)
See http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i_know_that_you_believe_you_understand_what_you/14623.html

I was answering your question in post 6
"thinking about the water to grain ratio, I became curious as to whether there was a low limit with such a thing"

-a.
 
Another way to ask is, what is the max amount of water you can effectively use per pound of grain? Would you loose or gain from water amounts over 1.25qt per pound?
 
Another way to ask is, what is the max amount of water you can effectively use per pound of grain? Would you loose or gain from water amounts over 1.25qt per pound?

The question was more about the grain than the water. I was asking if it was normal to mash only one lb of grain - since that would leave you with a small amount of water. Ultimately, I ended up mashing 3lbs that time and 5 lbs each subsequent time.
 
Another way to ask is, what is the max amount of water you can effectively use per pound of grain? Would you loose or gain from water amounts over 1.25qt per pound?

I think the typical range is somewhere between 1 and 1.5qts, so you can go at least a bit beyond 1.25 without any trouble. I couldn't really tell you where the effective limit is, though I believe Yooper suggested earlier in this thread that as much as 2 gallons per pound would work also - not sure if that'd start to eat into your efficiency at that point though, which I guess goes to your question.
 
I think the typical range is somewhere between 1 and 1.5qts, so you can go at least a bit beyond 1.25 without any trouble. I couldn't really tell you where the effective limit is, though I believe Yooper suggested earlier in this thread that as much as 2 gallons per pound would work also - not sure if that'd start to eat into your efficiency at that point though, which I guess goes to your question.

I know you mean quarts here, but just to clarify for the newer folks that read this :)

I think I've heard some of the BIAB folks go as high as 3 quarts/lb for full boils - 7.5 gallon boil on 10lbs of grain. That to me seems REALLY thin, but they do it in Australia a lot I gues.
 
I think the typical range is somewhere between 1 and 1.5qts, so you can go at least a bit beyond 1.25 without any trouble. I couldn't really tell you where the effective limit is, though I believe Yooper suggested earlier in this thread that as much as 2 gallons per pound would work also - not sure if that'd start to eat into your efficiency at that point though, which I guess goes to your question.

Traditionally, mashing uses 1.25- 2 quarts of water per pound of grain. But there are some BIABers who use a much higher ratio. I never have, but I have used 2 quarts of water per pound when I had a smaller mash.

I remember someone (John Palmer?) saying that in general you want to use no more than about 3 quarts of water per pound of grain total, including the sparge. I've kept that in the back of my mind for years- but of course the BIAB folks have successfully been doing that or thinner.

Still, for traditional mini-mashes, I'd keep the 2 quarts of water per pound of grain as a max until I had more experience with thinner mashes.
 
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