Partial Mash First Attempt

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poopyhead

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So me an my buddy tried a partial mash recipe of a yuengling clone last night

i am quite limited with my equiptment in that mostly i dont yet have a propane burner or a big enough pot to boil an entire 5 gallon batch. I hope that my makeshift brew technique will work out well. please let me know if you think it will turn out well. any suggestions or criticism is appreciated.

(BTW I've only done 3 extract brews prior to this, first one turned out decent, second one tasted pretty good just too bitter, 3rd one still in primary)

here is the recipe i tried to compile from a few all grain and extract recipes i found on this forum.

3 lb 2 row pilsner grain
1 lb carapils grain
1 lb caramel grain
1 lb flaked maize


boil

3.3 lb pilsner LME

1 oz chinook - 60 min
.5 oz cascade - 15 min
.5 oz cascade - 5

american lager yeast

so i first tried to make a mash with the grains in my 4 gallon pot using 2 gallons of water. i tried to use deathbrewers technique with the grain bag from one of his posts. I attempted to keep the temperature around 155 F for 1 hour but it turned out to be a lot more dificult than i thought. the temperature ranged from 140 F to 170 F and fluxtuated a lot.

since i didnt have an extra pot to sparge with i filled a sanitized 5 gal bucket up with 2 gallons of 165 F water and i "teabaged" the grains in this bucket for 10 min.

I wasnt sure if id be able to boil the sparged wort with the original wort so i left the sparged wort out of the boil (the wort in the bucket). (I feel like that was a bad decision). Then i realized that there wasnt much wort in the boil, the grains soaked up a lot of the water, so i added 6 cups of water.

I then continued the boil and added LME and hops as regular and pitched the yeast as usual. the OG was 1.040. i checked it this morning and saw signs of fermentation and moved it to the basement were its cooler.

Will it turn out OK? this is really the best i can do for now because of my equipment limitations so maybe i should just stick to extract until i get a propane burner and bigger pot. Suggestions adn critisim appreciated.::mug:
 
You didn't boil the liquid from the sparged grains? Ouch.

The reason you boil the wort is to kill the "stuff" that is on the grains. Grains are loaded with lactobacillus especially. Since it was over 150 degrees, though (was it?) maybe you won't get an infected batch.

Next time, boil every bit of liquid that touches any grains.

Your recipe isn't that good- that's too much crystal (two pounds!) for that batch but I'm more worried about the not-boiled wort.
 
You say you "left it out", referring to the runnings from your sparge. Did you leave it out entirely? Or did you just leave it out of the boil and add it back later?
 
I'm going to have to agree with Yooper that your biggest problem may be the unboiled sparge but you'll have to wait and see.

Keep that lager yeast around 50 for a couple of weeks, rack to a secondary when you hit your FG, and bring it down to 30-40F for a month or so.

For your next brew, boil everything, even if you have to do it in two pots or the same pot twice, or alternatively brew half batches of 2.5 or 3 gallons. Sounds like you could probably do 2.5 gallons all grain if you wanted with your set up. That's still a case of beer.
 
You say you "left it out", referring to the runnings from your sparge. Did you leave it out entirely? Or did you just leave it out of the boil and add it back later?

correct.

Thanks for the advice everyone. i realized this morning that i really should have boiled all of it, im not sure why i thought it would be ok not to last night... I'm definately going to try to redo this the right way and with less crystal grains sometime soon. hopefully the brew isnt ruined
 
Ahhh. Hope you like sour beers, then. And I'm not being a jerk saying that. Lots of folks here go out of their way to brew a good sour. Don't knock it until you get a chance to try it and see how it tastes.

DMS might be another issue though.
 
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