partial mash brewing.

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jonbomb

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Ok I understand the concept I read the sticky at the top but I still have a few questions.

If you are still sparging and steaping the grains why do u need extract. Is that because the grains you use for the wort still isnt enough for that type of beer?? Cause I noticed he used 6lbs of grains and prolly another 6 or so lbs of dme.

How much better do your beers come out with partial mash?
 
I assume you're comparing to extract only? Personally by beers turned out alot better, I think using a partial mash gives your beer the chance to have more character than extract brewing. I'm not sure which malts are used in making the basic DME, but by using a few lbs. of actual grains I feel I get more into actual brewing. If I had the time and space, I'd be all grain but for now I'm brewing beers that I like and I get to be a bit more creative than just steeping some flavor/color grains and adding extract.
 
Yes that's exactly it. In partial mash brewing, the grains by themselves do not supply enough sugars so you need to supplement them with extract.

Doing a partial mash vs extract batch just gives you a bit more flexibility in terms of what you can do with the beer. If you are using quality ingredients, I think for some styles you can do very well with extract + steeping grains to the point where it is impossible to tell the difference in quality vs partial mash or AG.

The place where PM vs extract really shines IMO is for example when you've got some old LME sitting in your closet from 2 years ago...just brewing the LME by itself is probably not going to come out really well, even with steeping grains. But in a PM batch you can pretty much eliminate that old twangy LME flavor and still use it to make a quality beer.

The other place is where it comes in handy is when you want to add something like oats, flaked wheat, or other adjuncts to your beer, which really bring out a fullness of flavor and mouthfeel in some styles (e.g. stouts, witbiers, etc).
 
jonbomb,

I would say it's a bit more than color as you will get some character out of the grains as well as color. I've been using the sticky thread for PM brewing for my last couple of brews and I've been adding less than 3 LBS of DME to hit the OG. I have yet to crack open any of these beers but I'd have to say they were a lot more fun to brew than extract with a few steeping grains.

Cheers:mug:
 
So the grains I use for steeping are literally just for color??

No, not at all. You will get color, flavor, and additional sugars out of them. Crystal malts will add a malty caramel sweetness to your beer, roasted malts will tend to add biscuit, coffee, chocolate, etc. flavors depending upon what malts you use and how much.
 
I am not an expert, so bear with me, but this is what I've gathered. A beer recipe will have a variety of fermentable components. The biggest component will be your base malt, which is the foundation for your beer style. Malt extracts, liquid or dry, will mostly take the place of your base malt in the recipe.

But most recipes aren't just made up of the base malt. There are other components, most of which don't come in malt extract form. Some of these components have been processed in such a way (kilned or roasted, for example) so that the starches have already been broken down, so all you need is a steep to extract the sugars, flavor, and color into your wort. This is the reason for a recipe that has extract plus steeping grains.

There are some recipes however that include components that have not had the starches converted to sugars, so they must be mashed in order to get out of it what you need. This would require a partial mash, where you use malt extract for your base, but for those components where you cannot replicate the style through the use of malt extracts, you have to use the actual grain and mash it for it to contribute the desired character.

I know this is simplified, and I probably got a few things wonky, but that's my stab at an explanation.
 
The reason to partial mash is basically because it gives you many of the options that all grain does, but that it's much less of a hassle. As the other posters have noted, doing pure extract batches limits you to base malts and specialty grains, but takes a lot of other grains that require a mash out of the mix. Example: I like a lot of beers that use white wheat, but white wheat requires a mash to be used.

Partial mashing is easier than all grain primarily because you don't need to have a full all grain set up to do it. As the Stovetop PM thread shows, you really just need a big mesh bag and a medium sized pot. I brew this way, and I've been happy with the initial results, though I'm not very far in at this point.

As you guessed, the reason why many PM brewers don't just go all grain is because it would take more grain than we can reasonably mash given our setups. (Incidentally, many brewers also use extract in their high gravity brews for much the same reason, it makes it less inconvenient to brew).

Basically, at some point if you're feeling limited by the limits of the available specialty grains and extracts, then you might want to look into using PM as a happy middle ground. I am a happy PM brewer. I would ideally like to have an all grain setup, but in my apartment it's simply not an option. PM gives me a lot more control over my brews than going extract+steeping would, and it's not really any harder than doing extract only brews.
 
If you are still sparging and steaping the grains why do u need extract. Is that because the grains you use for the wort still isnt enough for that type of beer?? Cause I noticed he used 6lbs of grains and prolly another 6 or so lbs of dme.

Simply because if you are doing a partial mash it means that you do not (or choose not) to use or have the gear to mash enough grains for a full batch. Stovetop brewing only allows so much grain to be mashed. Some recipes for example use, lets say, 10 pounds of grain. I can only mash in the kitchen 6 or 7. So I need to make up that extra few pounds. Dropping extract in at the end adds enough malt too get the recipe where it needs to be.

Partial mashing allows you to convert any all grain recipe pretty easily into something that is workable on a stovetop. Since most recipes call for a majority of pale malt, all you have to do is mash some pale malt with the rest of the recipe and then add the rest of the pale malt in extract form to finish the recipe..
 
I tried the stovetop PM method once and totally screwed it up. I couldn't maintain a consistent temperature around 155 degrees, and I didn't get the conversion I needed.

Since then I bought a 3 gallon cooler to maintain my mash temps and I've nailed them every time. My PM beers have come out amazing.
 
This is deffinetly something I am going to try after I have a few more adventures with extract. I'm only on my third extract brew. I just made my first beer outside of buying kits and having a few problems. We will see in the outcome.
 
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