Austin Home brew

[Beer Snob]

Has anyone picked up one of there "Mini Mashes"? With my new AG/PG equipment I want to make sure I'm buying the right thing... dont want to get steeping stuff in the mail on its way to me.

This is what they sent me in a reply:
"Yes, you are correct. Ou rextract kits have about a pound of specialty
grain and extract. Our mini-mash kits have less extract and about 3 lbs.
of grain."

 

[AleJoe]

Local store for me. Mini-mash kit is more grain for extended steeping and liquid malt extract. I guess I pretty much repeated what they said :cross: Any other questions let me know

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Our mini-mash kits have less extract and about 3 lbs.
of grain."

The fact that they say 3lbs of grain and less extract would indicate to me that it is definitley a partial mash, i.e., a portion of your gravity points will come from mashing the 3lbs of grain.

 

[AleJoe]

It is a partial mash

 

[KopyKat]

Has anyone picked up one of there "Mini Mashes"? With my new AG/PG equipment I want to make sure I'm buying the right thing... dont want to get steeping stuff in the mail on its way to me.

I have done 3 Mini Mash kits from Austin Homebrew. As mentioned above they are partial mashes which are "steeped" longer to add some fermentables from grain. I believe this is typical of all partial grain kits. It is not "mashing" in the sense of the word that you use a mash/lauder tun like you would in All Grain.

My last batch was an altered Mini Mash kit that I replaced more of the extract and added a couple of more pounds of grain. This gave me a total of 5 lbs of grain which was enough to do in a mash/lauder tun I made from a igloo cooler. I called this a "Partial Extract" as a step toward doing my first all grain. ( I suspect this is more what you had in mind for your new equipment)

In theory you could "mash" a Mini Mash or Partial Mash kit by making a mash/lauder tun with a smaller cooler. It would need to be smaller in diameter to get to an effective grain depth but that would seem to be a lot of work and my solution was to add enough grains to do a "partial mash" on my way to all grain.

I will be doing my first all grain next.

All that said, the above information is my opinion with much of it based on what I have read and some by experience. It is worth ever penny you have just paid for it.

edit: By the way, my first Mini Mash I did from AHS was a recipe for Southern Brown Ale and it is fantastic. If you like any of the brown ales, this is a great one. It is in there own recipe section.

 

[david_42]

The mini-mashes run 3-5 pounds of grain, which is enough to get the full flavor impact without the volume of AG. Their mini-mash Roque Mocha Porter is perfect. I brewed it once and my friend Tom has done is twice. Dead-on all three times (OG/SG and flavor). I have two more of their mini-mashes (a brown and a red) that I'll brew once the garage is done.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

So how does the mini mash work? Do you do it like your specialty grains, but just let it steep longer?

 

[Beer Snob]

So it sounds like the kits are good, but I should add some more grain to the bill to do more of a partial mash with the Rubbermaid turn I made. My thought was that the prices looked pretty good for the kits..... you guys generally agree with this? I thought that being I had not done this before, it would be great if I got a "kit" for the first time to get my hands wet a bit.

 

[AleJoe]

edit: By the way, my first Mini Mash I did from AHS was a recipe for Southern Brown Ale and it is fantastic. If you like any of the brown ales, this is a great one. It is in there own recipe section.

I tried the southern ale that a friend brewed, very good. I brewed the northern brown and it was excellent as well