Questions on partial mash brewing

[BillTheSlink]

I got into brewing a few years ago and like everyone else my first few were extract, but after about three I went whole hog into all grain and never did any partial mash. Fast forward to this year and now I am disabled due to a failing back. I can no longer lift full boils or clean up my all grain mess. I am going to do two more extract before winter sets in, but when Spring gets here I am thinking about partial mash with partial boils. My understanding is if you do do a partial mash you can make any style of beer you want, and if you do a late addition of your LME or DME it will taste very good. Is this true? Also how do you control the mouth feel of a partial mash? In all grain I just adjusted my dough in strike water to grist ratio, but since you not mashing that much does this give you control.?

 

[Skyforger]

Well, you certainly can make perfectly good beer with a partial mash. I've never heard anyone say they can tell the difference, really. But you can't replicate quite every style of beer accurately; anything that uses a large amount of an obscure base grain (i.e. brown malt, smoked malt, mild) can't really be replicated exactly. And of course it's not like you can get extract from floor-malted golden promise either.
Few modern-stye recipes really require any of this, though. And a recipe with well-designed quantities of specialty grains can pretty much make up for the lack of, say, maris otter base malt.

Partial mashers generally adjust mouthfeel using maltodextrin in the boil or, if a small adjustment is required, dextrine malt in the mash.

 

[step]

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

 

[Crinkle]

I am disabled too, and because of that I rreally have to be careful of what I try and lift (as I may fall and create a huge mess!) I have partial mashed for over 5 years with a ton of sucess. I used a 2 gallon beverage cooler and would mash around 4 pounds of grains. Usually 1-2 base malt and the rest specialty. I always use DME (almost always light) and usually added at the begining of the boil. I could make a beer as light as I wanter or as dark. You can still play around with your mash temps to help with mouth feel. I very rarely added malto, if fact only once, it's just not neccisary.

BTW, I recently moved and with the new kitchen set up, I started all grain. I use 2 pots on the stove to boil. I have done 3 batches this way, and it seems to work well, and I don't have to lift anymore than I did before. The only difference in a few more dishes and more spent grain. Send me a PM if you have any questions.

 

[UnDeadly]

Using a higher than normal mash temperature should help produce more unfermentables, which in turn should help out with the mouthfeel. When I was doing partial mashes I usually actually did two mashes, one with 3# of base malt @ 160F, removed the bag and refilled with 2-3# of specialty grain, and again held around 160-165F. Made some really tasty brews that way!

 

[BillTheSlink]

Thanks guys. I am actually going to do my extracts indoors for the first time ever too. Right from the start I started outdoors with full boils on a torch type burner. This will be a new experience for me all together. I hope it doesn't get really messy. I am a bit of a slob too, but with seven and ten gallon pots a boil volume of around 3 gallons there shouldn't be any real reason to get really messy.

 

[Crinkle]

I think 7 pots is a little much, you'd better let me take 1 or 2 of those off your hands!

 

[USMCYoder]

I think 7 pots is a little much, you'd better let me take 1 or 2 of those off your hands!

I think he said it as he has 7 & 10 gallong pots. Not 7 pots...

 

[JonK331]

Using a higher than normal mash temperature should help produce more unfermentables, which in turn should help out with the mouthfeel. When I was doing partial mashes I usually actually did two mashes, one with 3# of base malt @ 160F, removed the bag and refilled with 2-3# of specialty grain, and again held around 160-165F. Made some really tasty brews that way!

The specialty grains need to be mashed with the base malt because specialty grains have very little to no diastatic power. 160 is also too high and will produce too much unfermentable sugar which leads to high final gravities and beer that is very sweet and very high in calories.

 

[esocid]

Sorry to hear about your back.

I've only done two brews so far (actually one completed, and the second is in my secondary) but both have been partial mash. I can only speak by comparison to other draughts or bottles, but the IPA was delicious, as was the consensus with my friends who can handle the hops. I love any ales from Red Hook, and this was close in flavor. The only real mess for me was cleaning the brew kettle, and possibly any liquid extract. I hope to one day move up to all-grains, but so far partial mash hasn't let me down. We'll see how my 2nd one does, a Bavarian Hefeweisen kit from Austin Homebrew.