First time partial mash

[tpiton]

I'm going to make this beer on the weekend. My question is about boiling. How much water should I use for the mash and should I cool it rigth away after 60 min? Also, should i boil the DME and the carapills for 60 minutes ?


Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.3 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (45 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

 

[JediJoel]

To answer your question about mini-mashing: typically a mash is done at 1.25qt per pound. Keep the mix at your desired temp for 60 min, rinse the grains with 170 water, and discard them before starting the boil. Do not boil any of the grain.

For a recipe with only a pound or so of gain it's it usually preferable to make them steeping grains. Bring about a gallon of water up to around 160, put the grains in a bag and steep them in the water. The whole mixture should be around 150 after adding the grains. After 20-30 mins remove the grains, rinse the grains into the pot with 170 water if desired, add more water, and bring it up to a boil.

For this specific recipe, it is unusual to have 1 lb of carapils. Typically carapils should be 5% of the total grain bill. With a pound you will have a lot of proteins and a lot of unconverted sugars. Your OG will go up and your yeast will most likely not be able to ferment these sugars leading to a high final gravity as well. This could make your beer too sweet.

 

[Shade]

Backing up the above, a partial mash is when you mash a significant amount of base malt (probably with speciality malts tossed in) and supplement with extract to get the right gravity.

My boil pot is 10L/2.5gal so I can fit 2.3kg/5lb of grain in it with 5.75L/1.5gal of water to fill it. I do it all on the stovetop.

After I have mashed/sparged, it all goes back in the pot for the boil for 60 mins. At the end of the boil I add my extract (I use LME and get 1.7kg tins) to get up to the right gravity.

 

[Calder]

You cannot mash Carapils on it's own, it needs a base malt. You are wasting your time mashing it.

You are wasting your time and money having carapils as the only grain in a steep.

I don't know what carapils contributes in a steep, maybe it helps with head (or not), but all you need is 0.25 lbs. And ALL extracts already have a small amount of carapils in them already to help with head stabilization.

 

[RM-MN]

Many kit recipes contain carapils but your extract probably does too. Carapils adds body and promotes better heading on your beer but I don't think I would include it in this beer. Your malt extract will provide all you need.

As mentioned above, you use a mini-mash to provide more fermenable sugars by converting the starches in some of the malted grains to sugars. Many of the grains you would use in your beer do not have the enzymes necessary to do the converting as the grains have been kilned at too high of temperature which destroys the enzymes. To do a mini-mash you need a base malt like pilsner malt, pale malt, Vienna, or Munich. The amount of enzymes in these will vary so that some will have excess that can be used to convert the starches in other grains while some will barely have enough to convert themselves.

 

[chickypad]

That's the Centennial blonde extract version looks like. I don't know why BierMuncher leavs out the C-10 from the extract version, that is the one grain in the all grain recipe that makes the most sense for steeping. I agree with the others, not sure what the utility of steeping carapils is when already using extract. I would forget the carapils and steep a lb of crystal 10 instead for a little flavor. When steeping the amount of water doesn't really matter, you can use just steep in the water you plan for the boil - say 30 min at 150-160 degrees. After that take out the grain bag and start your boil, you need to boil at least 45 min because that is your first hop addition. I would add about 1 lb per gallon of DME to the boil then add the rest at flameout.