Just opened the first bottle of my American Wheat made via a partial mash. This beer Rocks. I have to say I am now a believer in Partial Mashing as a way to improve the quality of my beer. I am a true noob with only 14 five gallon batches under my belt, with the last two being partial mashes. My extract and steeping grain beer has been quite good in my opinion but the taste of my last two PM batches is significantly better than my prior extract + sg batches to date. The PM batches taste much fresher, are far, far lighter in color, and overall taste excellent. This latest PM batch is an "American Wheat". It has a light, slightly sweet/barely sour, and very smooth taste. I was worried about my ability to do a partial mash prior to doing this but found it really quite easy and the results do seem to be worth it in my opinion. The recipe I used was very simple and I'm sure could easily be improved by the many brewers here who know a ton more than me but here is what I did:
2 lbs White wheat malt
2 lbs 2-row
3.3 lbs Briess Bavarian wheat lme (added at flameout)
Liberty Hops 4.1 AAU .65 oz 30 mins
Safale S-05
Mashed the White wheat malt and 2-row at 151 for 60 mins in my 2 gallon cooler, then batch sparged for 10 mins and used the "first runnings" and the "sparge runnings" (if that is the right term) for the boil. Added LME at flameout, then cooled, topped off and pitched yeast.
I'm not writing this to say this is a great recipe, but rather to say that basic partial mashing was shockingly easy and the results, IMHO, significantly outclassed my prior extract and steeping grain batches in overall taste. I encourage anyone thinking about doing a partial mash to read up on the various ways to do a PM on this site and then just try it.
2 lbs White wheat malt
2 lbs 2-row
3.3 lbs Briess Bavarian wheat lme (added at flameout)
Liberty Hops 4.1 AAU .65 oz 30 mins
Safale S-05
Mashed the White wheat malt and 2-row at 151 for 60 mins in my 2 gallon cooler, then batch sparged for 10 mins and used the "first runnings" and the "sparge runnings" (if that is the right term) for the boil. Added LME at flameout, then cooled, topped off and pitched yeast.
I'm not writing this to say this is a great recipe, but rather to say that basic partial mashing was shockingly easy and the results, IMHO, significantly outclassed my prior extract and steeping grain batches in overall taste. I encourage anyone thinking about doing a partial mash to read up on the various ways to do a PM on this site and then just try it.
