First partial mash, first high OG beer

[mojotele]

Figured I'd share my experience!

So I brewed my fifth batch of beer ever last night. I took ohiobrewtus's Kiltlifter Wee Heavy recipe and converted it to an extract recipe. Then, I realized that Biscuit and Aromatic malts have to be mashed, so I changed it to a partial mash, my first ever. I made some other small changes to the recipe: I cut the amount of peated malt in half simply due to personal taste, had to sub the Black Barley with Roasted Barley (perhaps the same thing?), and had to adjust the hops since I was doing a partial boil (not enough kettle space for a full boil) and had hops with slightly different alpha acids. My OG was supposed to come out a little higher, too, simply due to making my extract measurements easier (1.081 instead of 1.079).

All in all, things went pretty well. I had a bit of a hard time hitting my target mash temperature. Initial infusion only brought it up to 144 degrees, so I added a quart of boiling water and stirred it up. That brought it up to 160 degrees, but some additional stirring brought it down to the desired 154. The temperature stayed pretty constant for the hour long mash after that, and sparging was a breeze. I ended up with 66% mash efficiency, and I'm pretty pleased with that considering it is my first time. My recipe projected 70% efficiency, so I just compensated by adding a little more extract.

Somehow I ended up with a little extra pre-boil wort than I was expecting, so my IBUs are probably a little higher than expected. It's still well within style guidelines, though, and I doubt it'll even be that noticeable. After taking several samples and mixing the wort with my top off water better, my measured OG was dead on - 1.081. Checked the fermenter after 6 hours from the yeast pitch and there was maybe a 1/4 inch of krausen and the blow off tube was bubbling once every 2 seconds. I have it in my thermostat controlled chest freezer to keep it at a solid 67 degrees.

I'm leaving it in the primary for a month based off things I've read around the forum. I've never done that before, but I think this beer is one that could really benefit from the conditioning all that yeast can provide.

I'm really happy with the way things went. I don't think it would have gone as well without all the information this community provides. Thanks so much, guys!

 

[mojotele]

I do have one question that came to me while converting the recipe to a partial mash. The malt charts indicate that Biscuit malt has to be mashed, but I see a lot of recipes that just use it as a steeping grain. What gives? Can Biscuit malt function as a simple steeping malt as well?

 

[bonzombiekitty]

I do have one question that came to me while converting the recipe to a partial mash. The malt charts indicate that Biscuit malt has to be mashed, but I see a lot of recipes that just use it as a steeping grain. What gives? Can Biscuit malt function as a simple steeping malt as well?

I get confused over this as well. Frankly, I just avoid the whole issue by mashing everything unless I'm following a recipe that tells me to do something else.

 

[dcp27]

Pretty much only crystal and roasted malts don't need to be mashed. Steeping the biscuit malt will add color, some flavor (but not the full effect mashing would) and almost no fermentable sugars.