Alder Wood Smoked Porter

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Daddymem

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I got me a great birthday present! An Alder Wood Smoked Porter kit from "The Brewmeister" at:

http://www.folsombrewmeister.com/servlet/-strse-210/Alder-Wood-Smoked-Porter/Detail

I a BIAB convert from extract, never done partial mash. I am confused by this kit.

There are 7# LME and 4.25# grains (alder smoked 2-row, crystal 120, chocolate and black patent malts). I can't figure if this is supposed to be mini-mash or just a very large amount of steeping grains. The instructions say:
"Heat about 3 gallons of water to 160F in your brew pot and remove from heat. Put grains in grain bags, and steep in hot water for 20-30 minutes. Rinse/sparge grains with about 2 quarts of water. Stir in malt until dissolved." (no sparge water temp) Then it goes on with normal boil instructions.

160F...is that extracting any fermentables? The OG listed in the recipe, supposedly from ProMash, is 1.069. If I assume the grains are mashed, Qbrew gives me 1.067. If I assume the grains are steeping, Qbrew gives me 1.060. All OGs are at 75% efficiency. I emailed the shop and they said it was steeping, not mini-mash. :confused:

I'm thinking BIAB, full boil, late extract addition. My plan, please let me know if I am off on this:

6.5 gallons of water in the pot heated to 158F to get me to 152-155F for a mash @90 minutes (my normal BIAB mash time, gives good efficiency for me).

1.5 Goldings for 60 min.
7# Alexander Pale LME for 15 minutes
.5 Goldings @ flameout.

S-04 came with the kit, they say 68-70F, I like 62F for my ales but haven't used S-04. Which is best temperature?

Any idea if a long mash with smoked grains is a bad idea?
Or should I just follow the instructions exactly?
Or use full water volume for the steeping portion and follow instructions after that?

Thanks for listening and thanks for any input.
 
It looks like a partal mash to me. Grab your self a 2 gallon cooler from wally world (8-10 bucks) that has a spigit, then hop on byo.com and read there counter top partial mash artical. its how i brew now and it makes a huge difference from all extract.
 
Ok, I'll back pedal some too. It looks like somebody was having a bad day and wasn't reading through the emails when I sent them...didn't scroll down to see responses actually, he thought they would be up on top. Everyone deserves a break now and then.

Anyways, another person from the company contacted me and gave sound, reasonable advice. They still need to get things together and get instructions that are clearer and match the ingredients.

I'm going ahead with a procedure similar to above.

Danke.
 
This is an extract with steeping grains. The 2-row is just the carrier for the alder wood smoke.

I also discovered the issue with the ProMash print out. I hadn't noticed the printout was based on 5 gallons of wort and 12# of grain/LME while the instructions are for 5.5 gallons of wort and 11.25# of grain/LME. Making the adjustments, I got a lot closer to the ProMash printout.

I also did a lot of research on here about the difference between mini-mash and steeping. Not to stir up anymore heated debates but....How do you go about figuring out gravity points for steeping grains? I use Qbrew and it has the option for mashing or steeping on the grains and it clearly adjusts the gravity as you switch between the two. So it dawned on me, that if there are grains with enzymes in them, conversion should occur. Is it just the same calculations as mashing but with a much lower efficiency due to lower time?
 
OG 1.072 10/5/09
FG 1.026 11/6/09

Tasted great! Looked Beautiful! Smelled really good!
P1070693-1.jpg
 
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