Easy Partial Mash Brewing (with pics)

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.
i just did this doing a full 5 gallon batch and using a 3 gallon carboy.

basically, i would

1. mash with 2 gallons
2. sparge with 2 gallons (which leaves about 3.5)
3. add extract (puts it up just above 4)
4. Vigorously boil for 90 minutes to get down to 2.5 gallons
5. ferment in carboy (1-2 packs of yeast or 2 vials minimum)
6. dilute down with ~2-3 gallons of distilled water at kegging

This works great for darker beers. i've had excellent luck with my dunkelweizens and stouts...didn't turn out so well with the cream ale or kolsch.

or you could do a 2.5 gallon batch the same way, just use less extract.
 
So encouraged by my success with a dunkelweizen using DB's method, I tried for a Scottish 60/- Ale. Given that the total amount of grains for this was about 6.5lbs, you could call it "all-grain on a stove" method. :) Anyway, my efficiency this time was way low, about 58%. I'm trying to rack my brain and figure out where I went wrong, but as far as I can tell I followed the same procedure as before: used 1.25qts of water per 1lb of grain, strike temp was 170, mash temp was around 156-158°, left it there for an hour, then heated up sparge water to 185° and put the grain bag into that kettle for another 10-12 mins while stirring.
 
did you get the grains from a different location? crush and product can definitely effect efficiency.

how much sparge water did you use? what was the temp of the sparge after you added the grains? i'm guessing you may have used a smaller amount of water than is necessary for all-grain (even on that small a scale)

i have got low efficiency doing this method all-grain and it's always been due to a low sparge volume or hurried mash.
 
I got all the grains from the same location, Morebeer. I used 2gl of sparge water, heated it up to 185° then transferred the grain bag to it. After transfer and stirring I saw that the temp was about 164°, so I applied some heat to get it to 170°, but it took a bit of time.

Maybe some of the sparge water evaporated while it was heating up, but I doubt it'd be that much..
 
you don't need to worry about evaporation...sugar doesn't evaporate.

odd...morebeer should have a pretty consistent crush (although i don't like how they store their grains.)

what was the recipe?
 
oh, for the low volume, gotcha. it still wouldn't be much unless you are boiling, and even then it would take time.

how much water did you use for your sparge, anyway?
 
so you had 2 gallons mash and 2 gallons sparge. you probably would have done much better with a 4-5 gallon sparge. to do a true all-grain with a full-volume boil requires about 7.5+ gallons of water. even with the smaller amount of grains you were using, you'll get higher effiency if you use more water.

you'll notice if you read my stovetop all-grain thread, that i often get around 60% efficiency when doing all-grain with a partial boil.

one more thing, did you let the bag drain out before moving to the sparge, or did you simply move the bag over quickly to the sparge water without letting it drain? that's important as well.
 
DeathBrewer said:
so you had 2 gallons mash and 2 gallons sparge. you probably would have done much better with a 4-5 gallon sparge. to do a true all-grain with a full-volume boil requires about 7.5+ gallons of water. even with the smaller amount of grains you were using, you'll get higher effiency if you use more water.
Click to expand...

Yes, I realize that, but I can't do full boils on my apartment's electric stove, so I was shooting for 3.5gl pre-boil (which I got).

one more thing, did you let the bag drain out before moving to the sparge, or did you simply move the bag over quickly to the sparge water without letting it drain? that's important as well.
Click to expand...

I let it drain for about a minute.
 
So I just had my first major failure using this method after a lot of success. It was a group brew day so I didn't have access to an oven and instead I was mooching propane.

First, I brought my strike temperature up to 159 instead of 169 before adding the grains, which dropped my mash temperature down to about 142 or so. No problem, I figure I'll just bring the temp up to 160 with the burner. Well, using the turkey thermometer it appears to shoot up to 170 rapidly, and even starts bubbling so I bring it off, and the thermometer drops back down to 145. I do this on-off-on-off thing until I can get a solid 159 off the burner, then I figure I'll fire it for 30 seconds every 10 minutes to keep temp up. Managed to drop it below 145 three or four times during the 1-hour rest. After sparging and bringing up to full boil volume I read a gravity of 1.0015 with aekdbbop's refractometer. The color was way darker than I expected, and the flavor was pretty weak, and this was using 3.5 pounds of grain.

I then added 6 pounds of dry extra-light extract and boiled down 1.5 gallons which brought the gravity up to 1.081so I think I really messed up the numbers on this batch (I ran the numbers in StrangeBrew which said it was within style guidelines). It was supposed to be an oktober-style amber ale but ended up being a barley wine... :drunk:

I think if I'm doing a group day again I'll have to build a mash tun. And scale back the extract!!
 
you read the refactometer wrong. refractometers do not read specific gravity. i'm assuming you got 15 brix? that's around 1.060 for pre-boil. of course, that wouldn't make much sense with 6 lbs of DME being added. not sure what happened there, or why you were trying to mash so high? i generally mash in the 148-155°F range, rarely over.

hitting within your temperature range is pretty essential. If you don't hit it right away, trying to adjust can be painful. your thermometer gets different readings because of the heat coming from the burner and the uneven mix of the mash. even i still screw up sometimes, but i've gotten pretty good at hitting my temp at the beginning.

i don't understand why everyone loses temp so easily. i've never used an oven. i have wrapped mash tuns in blankets and towels for extra insulation. i've had mashes with lots of headspace drop from 154°F to 140°F during the hour mash with no ill effects. i guess i don't worry about it as much as some.

one thing you could do is use promash to calculate your temperatures. it will even tell you what volume you need to boil to bring to the next temperature if you are using infusion.

using a true mash tun or a bag, you will always have the same problems. you still need to hit your temp in the same way.

also remember that even temperature-correcting refractometers need to be within a certain temperature range (i think <90°F?) to work properly.
 
you read the refactometer wrong. refractometers do not read specific gravity. i'm assuming you got 15 brix?
Click to expand...

He did the conversion after reading the refractometer. My hydro gave a similar result.

that wouldn't make much sense with 6 lbs of DME being added. not sure what happened there, or why you were trying to mash so high?
Click to expand...

Well, the 3lbs of grain + 6lbs of extract gave me a target gravity of 1.055, but looking at StrangeBrew again I realize that it wanted me to shoot for a post boil of 6.24 gallons, assuming I would lose .2 gallons to shrinkage and a full gallon to trub and kettle. I suppose I could toss a gallon in there after fermentation dies down, but that would screw up my FG reading :(

EDIT: DUH, you were asking about temp, not gravity. I was shooting for 149-159 to average out at 156.

one thing you could do is use promash to calculate your temperatures. it will even tell you what volume you need to boil to bring to the next temperature if you are using infusion.
Click to expand...

Been calculating using StrangeBrew which hasn't steered me wrong, on temp at least. Things like not bringing my grain to room temperature and heating to 10F below strike temperature because I temporarily forget how to read a meat thermometer (!!) screw me up. My first two partials went off without a hitch using SB.
 
DeathBrewer said:
hitting within your temperature range is pretty essential. If you don't hit it right away, trying to adjust can be painful. your thermometer gets different readings because of the heat coming from the burner and the uneven mix of the mash. even i still screw up sometimes, but i've gotten pretty good at hitting my temp at the beginning.
Click to expand...

I don't heat up my mash after I add the grains. I found though that what happens is that I dough in, stir the mash, check the temp (155° let's say), leave thermometer in there, put a lid and wrap it in a towel, and leave it for a while. Then I come back and check the thermometer and it's showing something like 163°, so I have to stir the mash again and check. Have you run into this?
 
do you leave it on the burner? i generally take it off the burner when i hit temp or it will continue to rise in temp because of the residual heat under a covered pot.

but, yes, the best way is to properly calculate from the getgo, raise your water to the right temp, add your grains and stir well, then drop in a thermometer and check after 5-10 minutes.
 
Interesting. I've had good luck with this method so far - yet with a few temp related challenges during mashing.

I can hit pretty close to my target temp in the beginning, but it seems to drop over the course of the hour. I've tried putting the burner on simmer and bringing it back up, but one has to be careful doing that as it can then swing above the target and it gets to be a tightrope walking game.

I'm interested in hearing what others are doing who are not having this problem.
 
here are a few ways to avoid losses in temp:

1. minimize head space (use the appropriate container for the right mash size)
2. cover and insulate top with pillow or other item
3. insulate sides with towels/blankets and bungee chords
4. preheat mash tun, especially if using cooler (just spray for a few minutes with scalding water from the shower right before mash-in)
5. use oven to maintain mash temp (my oven doesn't stay down at 152°F, so i've never tried this)
6. reheat half-way through mash (problems can occur and overheating is common)
7. don't worry about a slight temp drop (often it is due to thermometer being in a cold/hot spot and temp drop over the hour isn't that big of a deal anyway)

feel free to add.
 
If this question has already been answered in this thread I apologize. I did a quick skim over the pages, but I didn't see it addressed. I'm a noob, and have only used extract so far. Anyway, is there an equation for how much grain you need for trying to hit a target OG? This is where your efficiency comes in, right? I'm assuming this is one of the first things AG brewers learn, but I'm not sure how it's done.
 
the easiest way is to get promash or beersmith. they will calculate your original gravity based on the grains you enter and your projected efficiency. there are free programs as well but those you can get for a 30 day trial and they're only about $20-30.
 
Maybe it was an accident and maybe not but I think that "Yooperbrewer" should pick another name and let YooperBrew have her unique idenity.
 
I am so glad to have found this, great job! I am keen to move from kit & kilo to partial mash and have been searching the web for a simple guide.

I would love a copy of your hefeweizen recipe to try as my first attempt if possible.

Cheers!
 
sure! hefeweizens are easy, fun, and always turn out great. perfect beer for a partial mash, too, due to wheat extract.

mine is very simple:

3 lbs Wheat Malt
2 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Wheat DME
0.75 ounces tettnanger, hallertau, or saaz (approx 12 IBUs) for 90 minute boil.

Here it is converted that to kilos. it doesn't have to be exact, so we'll keep it simple:

1.5 kg Wheat Malt
1.0 kg Pilsner Malt
1.5 kg Wheat Dry Malt Extract
20 grams hops - tettnanger, hallertau, or saaz (approx 12 IBUs) for 90 minute boil.

you can use any of the following yeasts (my preference is WLP300)

White Labs:
WLP300 - Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
WLP351 - Bavarian Weizen Yeast
WLP380 - Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast

Wyeast:
3056 - Bavarian Wheat Blend
3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen
 
Thanks for that! I plan to get the necessary implements and do my first partial mash this week. Also very much appreciated measurements in kilos, being an Ausie pounds and ounces are a bit of a mystery to me.

Thanks heaps!!
 
Tried this method tonight for my first PM. Worked great. Trying a different recipe in a couple of days. Thanks again, the pictorial made everything easy to understand and made moving to PM less intimidating.
 
Learning your way of partial mash was very interesting, I have yet to do a partial mash and this thread pretty much the answer, thanks!

Question, do you compost the grains from the partial mash?
 
Awesome setup you've got there. It gives hope to those of us (me) who don't have 12 hours to dedicate towards the whole process, or tons of room.

Really though, haircut. Just head to the barber and tell them you want a "high and tight." ;)
 
DeathBrewer said:
The hair will be gone when it starts falling out ;)
Click to expand...

That is the attitude more of us need to have. Unfortunately I cut mine at the first chance to make a little more money.
Just wanted to say thanks for the great tutorial. I did my first stove top PM last weekend and acheived 78% effeciency. I am boiling my second right now and just wanted to log on and say thanks for all the great advice and help.
 
Yes, but my experience with HBS mini-mash kits was that they call for a lot more extract than you will need with this method. The difference is between steeping the specialty grains vs. actually mashing them which you will do in this method.

The amount of wort gained from the specialty grains of course depends on what you are using, but I found that my OGs were coming out much to high with the extract in those kids and as a result began reducing the the amount extract needed.

Brewing software seems to help with these calculations and an efficiency setting of about 70%.
 

Similar threads

D
First Recipe: 1 Gallon Maris Otter / Goldings SMaSH (Comments, suggestions?)
Replies
6
Views
382
Northern_Brewer
Northern_Brewer
P
Steep to convert - Steeping grains
Replies
5
Views
367
hottpeper13
H
P
Anvil Foundry 5.5 Gallon Kettle Brewing 5 gallons of beer
Replies
3
Views
427
PashMaddle
PashMaddle
alutis05
Brewing ALL-GRAIN dark beer (lager).
Replies
9
Views
536
AlexKay
A
Elmo Peach
Using DME in partial mash
Replies
6
Views
512
BrewnWKopperKat
BrewnWKopperKat

Latest posts

Back
Top