Easy Partial Mash Brewing (with pics)

[DeathBrewer]

The colander I used was way too small to hold 13 pounds of wet grain. It would kinda spill over on the sides.

The most effective way to drain it was to just rest it on a baking tray about 3" deep. Just drain the puddle of wort repeatedly while you set up the sparge water.

This is cool that you can do all-grain with just a $29 kettle, a $5 bag, and ingredients. It would make things much quicker to have another $29 kettle however.

yeah, i often just set it in a small kettle after my sparge and let it drain, then add the little extra wort in there when i dump the grains.

 

[andreiz]

awesome. you can't go wrong with that brew!

Just an update: I bottled the Dunkelweizen after about 16 days in the primary, carbonating it to about 3.2 volumes (according to BYO article weizens should have higher carbonation). Tasted it after 2 weeks in the bottle and it was damn good! Since then I brought some to a party and everyone loved it.

 

[HoppyDaze]

Great write up!

Question: How is it a five gallon batch when you used 2 gallons of water for mashing, then 2 gallons as sparge water. with evaporation and water lost to grains it seems like you would end up with more like 3 gallons of wort. Did I miss something?

 

[DeathBrewer]

Great write up!

Question: How is it a five gallon batch when you used 2 gallons of water for mashing, then 2 gallons as sparge water. with evaporation and water lost to grains it seems like you would end up with more like 3 gallons of wort. Did I miss something?

yep, you missed this part:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/#post787505

where it says:

i split this 5 gallon batch into two 3 gallon fermenters and topped off with tap water. You may not be able to use your tap water to top off...you can either boil and cool some h20 or use bottled water if you'd like.

i no longer recommend unfiltered tap water without testing. i always use bottled water now and i recently bought a new filter.

 

[HoppyDaze]

so essentially you put one and a half gallons of wort into each of the three gallon carboys (assuming 3 gallons of boiled wort) then top the carboys off with water?

That sure sounds like a 6 gallon batch to me (two three gallon fermenters). Still very confused how this is a five gallon batch.

???

 

[DeathBrewer]

i put 1.5 gallons into each container and topped off with 1 gallon each. thats 2 x 2.5 = 5 gallons

CARBOYS MUST ALWAYS HAVE HEADSPACE. i didn't top off all the way.

i've also used this method another way. i would boil down to about 2.5 gallons and put that in one 3 gallon carboy. then i would let that ferment as a strong ale. at kegging time, i would add 2 gallons of distilled water and dilute it down to a regular beer. it worked really well with some of the dark beers, not so well with my kolsch. it was a space-saving experiment

hope this helps let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[HoppyDaze]

I should have known that...duh.

Thanks!

 

[ninety3oc]

im yet to start all grain brewing.. i do have a 10 gallon pot tho. would it be possible for me to start with 7 gal of water.. do the 154 deg mash.. then pull the grains and heat the pot to 185 and put the grains back in for the 170 deg? that should leave me with 6 gal to boil down to 5 or so right? if not then im not sure i yet understand.

sorry for my noobism

 

[DeathBrewer]

it would be best to use two pots.

your first pot is for your mash, where you will get the majority of your sugars.

your second pot is for the sparge, where you will extract FURTHER sugars from the grains.

if you leave it in the same pot, you will get worse efficiency.

BUT, if you wanted to start with 7 gallons of water and do a no-sparge BIAB (brew in a bag) it will work. just have extract on hand to make up for your effiency.

if you search "BIAB" or "no sparge" you may find some alternate methods. i call this my "tea-bag" method and it varies from most others i've seen.

 

[magnj]

Any tips for using the teabag method for a 2.5 gallon batch? 2 gallons in the Mash pot and 1 in the sparge pot and hop it boils down a bit?

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[andreiz]

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.

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[andreiz]

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..

 

[DeathBrewer]

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?

 

[andreiz]

you don't need to worry about evaporation...sugar doesn't evaporate.

I know it doesn't. I meant the evaporation when I was heating up the sparge water, before I transferred the grains.

what was the recipe?

The second one on this page:

Untitled

 

[DeathBrewer]

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?

 

[andreiz]

I used 2 gallons of sparge water. I had 6.5lbs of grains.

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[andreiz]

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.

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.

I let it drain for about a minute.

 

[jimba009]

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

How does morebeer store their grain?

 

[bernerbrau]

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...

I think if I'm doing a group day again I'll have to build a mash tun. And scale back the extract!!

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[bernerbrau]

you read the refactometer wrong. refractometers do not read specific gravity. i'm assuming you got 15 brix?

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?

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.

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.

 

[andreiz]

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 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?

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[jcole]

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.

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.

 

[NewBrew75]

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.

 

[DeathBrewer]

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.