Using Grains

[tipsymonkey]

Yesterday I went off to the brew store to get me some new ingreedients for a new brew. Ended up with the ingreedients for a Down Town Brown clone. Brewed it up and its sitting in my primary fermentor right now doing its magic.

The thing is that I got the ingreedients, all grains, and it was the first time that I used [edit]powdered[edit] malt as well instead of the syrup stuff. I was wondering how people handle the grains. To be honest, I don't know the difference between parcial mash/full mash/

What i did as instructions from another brew store was the put the grains in a cheese cloth and seep them in a bot that had been heat up to about 150F and let them seep for about 45 mins.

Anyone else doing it this way? Am I missing something?

 

[Janx]

What I'm guessing you're really doing is not a partial mash, but using grains as flavor adjuncts to an extract brew. That is, none of your grains are contributing fermentables to any large degree, but rather just flavor elements. I imagine you used something like crystal/caramel malt? That will contribute maltiness and an unfermentable sweetness. But it doesn't need to be mashed/sparged per se, so your approach is right on.

If your grain bill includes the likes of 2-row malt to contribute fermentables, then you really need to sparge it properly, which means making a mash tun. Then you might as well go all-grain entirely.

Why don't you post the recipe.

BTW, Downtown Brown is one of our local breweries. I love their IPA - Indica

Janx

 

[uglygoat]

i have made three batches with grain and malt extract, just like you have there. i basically throw the grains in a sack into cold water and slowly bring the temp up to about 155 and hold it there for 1/2 hour to forty five minutes then i let it drip dry and squeeze out what's left, just like a teabag.

i'm interested in going all grain asap, but think i need to get some more time/experience under my belt and do some more reading on grains etc.