Experimenting - Mini Mashing & Yeast

[jdlev]

I'm looking to create some unique flavors in the brews I produce, and discover new combinations of grains and yeast to brew with. Obviously, 5g batches for this purpose are out.

I went over to the homebrew store yesterday and got about 20 different specialty grains and a 55# sack of marris otter. I plan on trying to produce mini mashes of 1/2-1g in some small cooler/thermoses I have, and then fermenting in some 2L bottles or growlers.

I know one of the things to look out for is to make sure there's enough diastatic power to convert the sugars in the specialty grains. Here are the steps I plan on taking. Please add any advice or tips you feel would help the process of experimenting with the different grains and yeast strains.

1) Determine proper specialty grain to base grain mixture (I assume that would probably be about a 10% specialty 90% base mixture, though need to research that based on the Specialty grain)
2) I'm going to shoot for a SG of 1.050 as this seems to be the average for many brews
3) Crack the grains and add to my thermos. Add the water at 150 degrees for a 60 minute mash. Strain the grains through a hop net and collander and add to sanitized bottle or growler.
4) Experiment with 1 yeast strain at a time. Wait 2 weeks to ferment, then bottle carb in slip top bottles.

What else would you guys recommend?

 

[sumbrewindude]

Yay 1Gal brewing and SCIENCE.

That said, if I was going to attempt what you're after, I'd want to keep my base grain as constant as possible - so I'd probably go the route of DME and steeping as it would be difficult to maintain a constant, consistent mash temp to convert your base grain at the same interval for all the batches. As you're not concerned about the base grain (which you could learn about from a SMaSH) and more about the yeast/specialty/adjuncts I want to remove as many variables as I could.

That way you could have a consistent SG point, control volumes easily, use less time, etc.

I like the 2L bottle idea, that'd net you essentially 5 12oz bottles after losses - but most importantly it offers you the ability to force carb with a carbonator cap so you can cut down on your turn around time for conditioning. It also removes issues from bottle condition practices (sugar concentrations, Co2 concentrations, etc).

Plan is sound - go for it!