Easy Partial Mash Brewing (with pics)

[Yooper]

Not only that, but I seem to have stolen the second have of your name

Um, yeah. Very ****ing funny.

 

[DeathBrewer]

wondering when you were gonna find that, yoop.

 

[WBC]

Maybe it was an accident and maybe not but I think that "Yooperbrewer" should pick another name and let YooperBrew have her unique idenity.

 

[DeathBrewer]

YBer has not posted since last visiting this thread. don't know what happened...maybe scared off by the one and only true YooperBrew

 

[Yooper]

YBer has not posted since last visiting this thread. don't know what happened...maybe scared off by the one and only true YooperBrew

I hope not! I'm not really scary, am I?

There are some other posts from yesterday, though.

 

[GAX]

I am so glad to have found this, great job! I am keen to move from kit & kilo to partial mash and have been searching the web for a simple guide.

I would love a copy of your hefeweizen recipe to try as my first attempt if possible.

Cheers!

 

[DeathBrewer]

sure! hefeweizens are easy, fun, and always turn out great. perfect beer for a partial mash, too, due to wheat extract.

mine is very simple:

3 lbs Wheat Malt
2 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Wheat DME
0.75 ounces tettnanger, hallertau, or saaz (approx 12 IBUs) for 90 minute boil.

Here it is converted that to kilos. it doesn't have to be exact, so we'll keep it simple:

1.5 kg Wheat Malt
1.0 kg Pilsner Malt
1.5 kg Wheat Dry Malt Extract
20 grams hops - tettnanger, hallertau, or saaz (approx 12 IBUs) for 90 minute boil.

you can use any of the following yeasts (my preference is WLP300)

White Labs:
WLP300 - Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
WLP351 - Bavarian Weizen Yeast
WLP380 - Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast

Wyeast:
3056 - Bavarian Wheat Blend
3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen

 

[GAX]

Thanks for that! I plan to get the necessary implements and do my first partial mash this week. Also very much appreciated measurements in kilos, being an Ausie pounds and ounces are a bit of a mystery to me.

Thanks heaps!!

 

[OLB]

Tried this method tonight for my first PM. Worked great. Trying a different recipe in a couple of days. Thanks again, the pictorial made everything easy to understand and made moving to PM less intimidating.

 

[HotBreakZymurgy]

Learning your way of partial mash was very interesting, I have yet to do a partial mash and this thread pretty much the answer, thanks!

Question, do you compost the grains from the partial mash?

 

[DeathBrewer]

You can! I live in an apartment, so I usually throw them away. We were thinking about starting a pile at my friends house, tho.

 

[brown_dog_us]

I toss mine into my garden as compose or mulch. They work well, but the grains will attract critters.

 

[llazy_llama]

Awesome setup you've got there. It gives hope to those of us (me) who don't have 12 hours to dedicate towards the whole process, or tons of room.

Really though, haircut. Just head to the barber and tell them you want a "high and tight."

 

[jcole]

No - keep the hair.

 

[DeathBrewer]

The hair will be gone when it starts falling out

 

[Shinglejohn]

Nice. Think ill tweek this to fit the equipment i already have for my first PM. Doing it this weekend.

 

[bamadoh]

The hair will be gone when it starts falling out

That is the attitude more of us need to have. Unfortunately I cut mine at the first chance to make a little more money.
Just wanted to say thanks for the great tutorial. I did my first stove top PM last weekend and acheived 78% effeciency. I am boiling my second right now and just wanted to log on and say thanks for all the great advice and help.

 

[RandalG]

So is this method considered a mini-mash and can be used with the kits many HBS sell.

 

[jcole]

Yes, but my experience with HBS mini-mash kits was that they call for a lot more extract than you will need with this method. The difference is between steeping the specialty grains vs. actually mashing them which you will do in this method.

The amount of wort gained from the specialty grains of course depends on what you are using, but I found that my OGs were coming out much to high with the extract in those kids and as a result began reducing the the amount extract needed.

Brewing software seems to help with these calculations and an efficiency setting of about 70%.

 

[DeathBrewer]

Yep, the kits generally use less grain. Just keep that ratio of water/grain (1.25-2.0 qt/lb) and the method works the same.

 

[Danny_P]

I see the light!

I just wish I'd found this before my (hopefully not so) disastrous brew-day friday (milk stout). I *sorta* did this method, but with too much water in the mash. I came down with an OG of 1.040, today I'm down to 1.030

I need to use this forum to the better of my ability now. Ahh well. You live, you learn, eh?

 

[zanemoseley]

Well I tried a pale ale using this method the other day, it was 6lb of grain and 3lb of DME. Everything went well except I dripped some wort when transferring the bag from the mash pot to the sparge pot. Once burnt on it is a bitch to get off a ceramic top stove. I'd hate to see a full boil over. I brewed in a 5.5 gallon clad stainless pot from Walmart which worked really well, with FermcapS I was able to comfortably boil about 5 gallons of wort. I even topped off the wort a few times throughout the boil from fresh boiling water in another pot, this essentially gave me a full boil volume.

For efficiency I got 67% and seemed to hit my mash temp right on however my sparge was way low but I heated it then sparged for 10 minutes. I think my new thermometer is a bit off which may have cost me a few points.

A question for you guys, when calculating efficiency what do you use for the pts/gal on DME? I just used the PPG for the base grain, in this case it was 2 row.

 

[IanIanBoBian]

Thanks for the great write up!!

I'm piecing together parts to go all grain, but this will get me going in that direction. This will be a nice middle step from extract to all grain.

I went to my LHBS yesterday and picked up everything I need for the dunkelweizen recipe you posted on the third page. Hopefully I'll brew it up this weekend! Thanks again.

 

[gingerdawg]

I used this method last Saturday for a 3 gallon all grain with a 7# grain bill. (1st all grain) I don't know how to figure efficiencies, but I got an OG of 1.054. I am really stoked, cuz I used my first cultured yeast (from a Bell's Two Hearted bottle) and it was rockin the airlock the next morning!

 

[zanemoseley]

I used this method last Saturday for a 3 gallon all grain with a 7# grain bill. (1st all grain) I don't know how to figure efficiencies, but I got an OG of 1.054. I am really stoked, cuz I used my first cultured yeast (from a Bell's Two Hearted bottle) and it was rockin the airlock the next morning!

If the grain averages 36 points/gallon then (36*7)/3 = 84 meaning the max OG would be 1.084. So your efficiency would be 54/84 = 64% This will help you adjust your next attempts especially if copying a recipe.

 

[DeafSmith]

I'm a noob at homebrewing, having only done one all extract brew. For my second brew, I decided to go with a mini-mash kit from AHS (SN pale ale clone). I just received my kit today and see that the instructions call for a lot more mash water than what has been recommended here. The grains in the kit are 2.5 lbs 2-row and 10 oz. Crystal 60L, for a total grain bill of 3.13 lbs, with 5 lbs. xpale extract added later. The instructions call for heating 2.5 gallons water to 160 F, then soaking the grains at 155 F for 45 min. followed by rinsing with 1.6 qt (1 qt. per 2 lbs grain) of 170 F water. This means mashing 3.13 lbs grain with 10 qts. water, or 3.2 qts. per pound - approx. double what DB recommends. If its better to use less water, why would AHS recommend the larger amount - maybe just because its easier to keep the temp. constant with more water? Would I be better off to use about 5 qts water at about 168 F instead of the 10 qts. at 160? And then just sparge with whatever I need to get my desired boil amount (I plan on doing about a 4 gallon boil).

 

[killsurfcity]

great how-to! i haven't done a single brew yet, and i just found this and it's really an inspiration. so is it really a bad idea to do this first? it really doesn't seem very complicated. if i plan the whole process out ahead of time and follow instructions carefully is the margin for error really that small?

 

[DeathBrewer]

The only thing you could really do wrong is miss your temp...not that big a deal. The rest of the process is just like extract anyway.

Go for it!

 

[killsurfcity]

Thanks DB! That's what I figured. I'll be working with the assistance of a friend with a bit more experience than me anyway. Thanks again for the helpful how-to.

 

[thedailyaustin]

I've seen this said many many times before in this thread, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it again. I used this method and your dunkelweizen recipe tonight and it was so easy! Thank you for helping me get past doing Brewer's Best kits over and over!