I was wondering in a partial mash how much grain I can get away with to mash in a 5 ga kettle? I would like to start using as much grain and as little extract as possible. I can boil about 3.5 ga on my stove.
partial mash - how much grain in 5 ga kettle?
- Thread starter mfraier
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You could likely do AG, at 1.25 qt/lb you can fit 12 lbs. At 1.00 qt/lb you could fit 15 lbs. W/ that much grain i would think you could collect 4 gallons of pretty high gravity wort and dilute to 5 gallons...or do smaller batches. Maybe mash in the pot w/ a big grain bag and then sparge or dunk and rinse in a bucket or cooler. You will need some way to heat sparge water, or cold sparge. Once at rest temperature, i would suggest sticking the mash pot in a warm oven to maintain temp.
You could likely do AG, at 1.25 qt/lb you can fit 12 lbs. At 1.00 qt/lb you could fit 15 lbs. W/ that much grain i would think you could collect 4 gallons of pretty high gravity wort and dilute to 5 gallons...or do smaller batches. Maybe mash in the pot w/ a big grain bag and then sparge or dunk and rinse in a bucket or cooler. You will need some way to heat sparge water, or cold sparge. Once at rest temperature, i would suggest sticking the mash pot in a warm oven to maintain temp.
The partial mash recipes I have done so far had about 5# of grain and 5# LME. The mash temp holds very steady in my pot, and its easy to add a small amount of warmer water every 20 min or so to hold the right temp. I just wasn't sure how much grain I could use before I'm overrflowing the pot. I don't have the money or time for true all grain, but would like to improve the beer and cut costs by using less extract.
Use that calculator he linked and scroll down to the "Can I Mash It?" section. That will tell you.
I kind of have a similar question though. I have two 9 gal pots so it seems like I could mash 15+ lbs of grain pretty easily but I still don't get how to end up with a reasonable amount of boil volume after sparge and mash water have been combined.
You can really just choose the amount of sparge volume so that when you combine it with the mash volume you have the amount you need. If you don't have enough room, do 2 batch sparges and you'll be fine. Sparging with different volumes may affect your efficiency but the beer will still taste good.
The thing to keep in mind if you create recipes for partial mashing is to make sure that you have adequate diastatic power. This info is available all over the net and in several books.
The thing to keep in mind if you create recipes for partial mashing is to make sure that you have adequate diastatic power. This info is available all over the net and in several books.
