How much should I mash?

[PundyBrews]

Hi everybody

I want to make an special beer for a friends 10th wedding anniversary, an abbey clone, put i would like to make it a partial mash.

I have found lots of info on converting some of the grains but cant find out how much base grain I need to mash in order to properly convert all the specialty grains.

Its the Bernardus Abt clone I heard on the Jamil Show. He has 3.5 lbs of specialty grains which he says to steep:

1lb Aromatic
1lb Cara Munich
1lb Special B
.5 lb Melenodin

Aren't these grains supposed to be mashed? Anyway I thought my beer would be better served if I mashed those grains but do not have a mash tun yet, so how much gain do I need to mash and conversely should I just steep and stick to the extract?

 

[david_42]

The simplest approach is to add all of the specialty grains together and use the same amount of 2-row. With a total of 7 lbs, you can use the brew-in-a-bag method of mashing.

 

[Oldsock]

The simplest approach is to add all of the specialty grains together and use the same amount of 2-row. With a total of 7 lbs, you can use the brew-in-a-bag method of mashing.

If you don't have enough room for 7 lbs of grain, you can mash the aromatic and melanoidin (which should be mashed) with an equal amount of pils/pale. You can then steep the caramunich and special b separately since they are already converted during the malting process.

 

[PundyBrews]

I guess since the special b and caramunich can be steeped that there is no need to mash then or do you get something by mashing them? I assume all grain brewers mash specialty grains because it is easier to just add them to your mash