Partial Mash Clarification

[Monghetti]

Hey Everyone, I'm getting ready to start my next batch and it will be my first partial mash. I've been reading up on the technique and just wanted to make sure I had everything in line.

I'm planning on putting my grain (2.25 2-row, .5 crystal) into a bag and adding it to 4 gallons of 155 degree water and steeping(?) it for 1 hour. During that time I will heat 5 gallons of water to 175 degrees and, after the hour is up, pour that water over my grain bag.

Does this sound right? I'm not sure if the amount of water is correct. This recipes calls for 2.75 lbs of grain. Approximately how many gallons of wort do you end up with doing a partial mash? Any help/advice is appreciated! Thanks

Christian

 

[Fat Guy Brewing]

You want to mash in 1-2 quarts per pound of grain, so in your case use between 2.75 and 4.125 quarts of water. Then you only need to sparge with 1-1.5 gallons of water. After that, if you can get 5 gallons to boil, add whatever is necessary so you reach a 5 gallon boil. Actually, if you want 5 gallons of wort after boiling, you need to boil about 6 gallons. Let us know what your cooking set up is like.

 

[Monghetti]

THanks for the reply. Big difference between quarts and gallons My cooking set up is weak. I'm yet to be kicked out of the kitchen so that is where I remain. I have a regular old 4 burner electric stove. I typically boil 2.5-3 gallons of wort at the most.

 

[Fat Guy Brewing]

I think you got it. It sounds like you can get a rolling boil with at most 10 quarts (2.5 gallons). So you have plenty of room to work with on your mash and sparge volumes. I hope you have read the thread below, its posted at the top of this forum. I can't recall off-hand the effect of mashing with a lower vs. higher volume of water (i.e. 2.75 qts vs 4.125 qts), so search the thread and this site, I am sure its been answered somewhere before.

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

 

[impatient]

Hey Everyone, I'm getting ready to start my next batch and it will be my first partial mash. I've been reading up on the technique and just wanted to make sure I had everything in line.

I'm planning on putting my grain (2.25 2-row, .5 crystal) into a bag and adding it to 4 gallons of 155 degree water and steeping(?) it for 1 hour. During that time I will heat 5 gallons of water to 175 degrees and, after the hour is up, pour that water over my grain bag.

Does this sound right? I'm not sure if the amount of water is correct. This recipes calls for 2.75 lbs of grain. Approximately how many gallons of wort do you end up with doing a partial mash? Any help/advice is appreciated! Thanks

Christian

You won't get very good conversion like that. Heat 5 quarts of water to 167 degrees and let the grains sit in that for an hour. You need to use an insulated container to keep the heat constant. You should be around 150 after adding the grains.

If you are not planning on extracting any fermentables from the grain, only color and body, and then hitting your OG with extracts, disregard this a proceed as planned.

The reason you want to use less water is so the enzymes concentration is dense enough for conversion.

edit: rinse the grains in the same amount of water heated to 168. You will end up with a little less than 2.5 gallons.

 

[Monghetti]

Thank you Impatient and Fat Guy... I'm going to keep reading up on this and am really looking forward to moving away from just extract and steeping grains.