Saving time and ?'s about hop utilization

I'm trying to save some time tonight since I'm having to brew on a weekday evenning. I'm doing a partial mash and plan to start the boil (3 gallons) with all my sugars in at the same time that I start the grain mashing (2 gallons, with sparge water). Then I'll add the mashed grains to the wort for the final 15 minutes of the boil.

Problem is I don't know what that will do to the hop utilization other than change it a lot, and I don't know how to calculate that with BeerSmith. If I do it all sequencially with a five gallon boil, it comes out to 78.2 IBU.

Here's a recipe:

Mashed Grain-
.5 lb Crystal 60
.33 lb Honey Malt
155* for 45 in 1.25 gallons, sparged with .75 gallons

Boil Schedule- (3 gallons)
4 lb x-light DME (60 min)
3 lb amber DME (60 min)
2 oz galena (30 min)
Mash (15 min)
1 oz galena (5 min)
1 oz amarillo (5 min)

Top off to five gallons.

If anyone can tell me what the IBU will work out to or how to figure it out or even just give me a rough estimate, I'll be forever indebted to you.

I think you're doing that the wrong way around. You don't really need to boil extract, because it's already been boiled as part of the production process, so just heating it up to kill any bacteria will do the trick. But you do want to boil any wort you create directly from your own mash. The boil does all sorts of good things, driving off unwanted flavors and helping to break down unwanted proteins. I'd be very wary of going straight from mash to fermentation without a good boil in between.

That said, an easy way to calculate the effects of this in a software package is to temporarily adjust your quantities, and turn the amount of grains in your mash down to zero. That will give you some idea how much the removal of this malt will affect your hop utilization. Of course you won't see quite such a big change if you boil for 15 minutes, but if you can see both the effect of a full boil and leaving this wort out entirely, it'll be easy to approximate what utilization a 15 minute boil would produce.

Yes, that's exactly backwards. Extract doesn't have to be boiled for more than 15 minutes.

but the wort from the mashed grain DOES. if you don't, you'll end up with DMS in your finished beer...which is an off flavor similar to cooked cabbage - hardly a desirable trait.

ThriceIn5Minutes said:

...partial mash...the boil (3 gallons)...the hop utilization...

Mashed Grain-
.5 lb Crystal 60
.33 lb Honey Malt

Boil Schedule- (3 gallons)
4 lb x-light DME (60 min)
3 lb amber DME (60 min)
2 oz galena (30 min)
Mash (15 min)
1 oz galena (5 min)
1 oz amarillo (5 min)

Top off to five gallons.

Click to expand...

Right, backwards...

Since you plan on boiling 3 gals of water you should use about 3 lbs in the boil. Since grain wort (.83 lb grain is about .5 lb DME) you need to add in about 2.5 lbs XLDME and your hops.

What's the AAs of the Galena hops?

Boil for 45 mins and remove the pot from the flame.

Add in the remaining malt 1 lb at a time and dissolve each lb before adding the next one in until it's all in there.

Steep for 10 mins then add in the remaining hops. Steep another 5 mins.

Put a net on your bucket to filter out the hops and pour wort into primary.

If you chill first then use your technique.

Add top off water, take measurements, etc.

You'll get most of the flavors from those two grains without mashing and the quantities are small. I'd just heat the water to 160F, steep the grains for 15 minutes and go.

Thanks for the responses y'all. I was only considering it to save time, so I guess I'll just do this the long way. Steeping the grain for 15 minutes doesn't sound like a bad idea instead of mashing for 45, but I'll have to consult my fellow nascent brewers on that one.

Thanks again for saving me from making a cabbage-flavored IPA.

david_42 said:

You'll get most of the flavors from those two grains without mashing and the quantities are small. I'd just heat the water to 160F, steep the grains for 15 minutes and go.

Click to expand...

excellent suggestion.