quick partial mash question. (in a hurry!)

size said:

Doing my first partial mash tonight , just had a question.

My LHBS guy was explaining to me what to do with AG, before we realized i didn't have the equipment or the willingness to spend money on the equipment to go straight AG, so he suggested PM.

But he told me, with AG, I should warm up my water, pour it into the vessel over my grains, and let it sit with the grains for an hour.

Now i'm reading my PM instructions, and it doesn't say anything about letting it sit for an hour. Should I? Or should I just pour it over the grains, gather, repeat immediately?

I'm using a large grain bag and a 2gallon cooler.

Click to expand...

YooperBrew said:

Heat the water to about 166 degrees, and pour it over the grains and stir well. (It should equalize around 153 or so) Wait 45 minutes to an hour, then drain. "Rinse" with 170 degree water, and add that "rinse water" (sparge water) to the runnings that you already drained. That will be your wort for the boil.

Click to expand...

ifishsum said:

If you use a grain bag that wouldn't be necessary. The wort will be a little cloudy but it's no problem, you just don't want pieces of grain in the boil. The bag makes it easier to move the grain to your sparge water and pretty much eliminates the need to vorlauf.

After the 45-60 minute mash, lift the bag out of the cooler and into your preheated 170* sparge water (I sparge directly in the boil kettle). Move your grain bag up and down in the water a few times a minute, and give it about 5 minutes total sparge time. Then lift out and let it drain as much as you can, pour in the wort from the mash cooler and start your boil. Make sure you plan for your boil volume, between the mash water and sparge water. I usually mash with 1.25 quarts per pound of grain, and sparge with however much volume to get me to my boil size. For instance, I can boil 3 gallons (12 quarts), so if I'm using 4 lbs of grain I'll use 5 quarts of water for the mash and 7 quarts for the sparge (actually about 7.5 quarts because the grains will soak up a half quart or so). Then start the boil with that and add your hops per schedule, I usually put my extract in with 10 minutes remaining in the boil (burner off while adding, then bring back to a boil and resume the timer).

Good luck with your brew!

Click to expand...

size said:

Another quick Q! In the Mashing part of the directions, it says boil 90 minutes, meaning (I assume) a 90 minute boil time. But in the next part it says "Add dried malt extract and boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at times indicated."

So do I boil just the foundation of the wort (runoff from the mash) for 30 minutes before adding the dried malt extract, then go for 60? Or ignore the 90 minute boil and start straight from the 60 minute mark?

Click to expand...