KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid; I plan a fermentable grain/malt extract combo brew for the weekend and need advice. The main question is do I need two different brew pots? Palmer says about grains "The mash should be held at the saccharification temperature for about an hour". But I understand brewing to include a real rolling boil and a "hot break" when the hops are added. So can I mash the flaked rice & corn for 1 hour at 140F-150F then remove the actual grains, add the malt extract and reach a real boil? Or do I keep them separate until sparge time? {All assistance appreciated, thankx in advance!}
You can easily do this in one pot (but you need another pot to heat up water for the sparge- the rinsing of the grain). You mash the rice and corn (and you need some base malt along with it, like 2-row) for one hour for a nice steady temperature- try to get it at 150, or even a bit higher, rather than lower. So, keep it steady at 150-153. I would just turn off the heat, and put a lid on the pot. You can occasionally go lift and dunk and stir the grains up. You want to make sure all of the grains are wetted thoroughly and you can check the temperature at that time. If it gets lower than 150, turn the heat on again gently.
You should do this mash at the rate of about 1.25-1.5 quarts per pound of grain. And the base grain (two row) should equal the rice and corn. What I mean is- say you have a pound of rice and a pound of corn. You'd also want 2 pounds of 2-row, so they'd equal out. So, 4 pounds of grain total. The amount of water you'd use would be 1.5 quarts per pound- times 4- so you'd mash in 6 quarts of water.
After the mash, you would remove the grains. I like to use a grain bag, and lift them up and put them in a spaghetti strainer over the brewpot, so that it drips back into the brewpot. Then, you gently pour 170 degree water (that was heating in a different pot) over the grains in the strainer, so that it rinses the sugars out of the grain. You can do this with up to .5 gallons of water per pound of grain, so in this case, you'd use 2 gallons of water. That should bring you up to your boil volume, if you're boiling 2.5 gallons of wort. Then, you'd bring that to a boil, remove from heat, add your extract and bring back to a boil and start your hops additions.
Deathbrewer has an awesome thread on this process- with pictures. It sounds like many steps, but it really isn't!
Edit- I remembered that you are not using barley so my adding 2-row is no help to you. I know that corn and rice will NOT convert themselves, so you need something in there to help them convert. What are you using that has the diastatic power to convert? Or is this not a gluten free brew, and you're able to use barley?
