I am past my 4th kit now. what is partial mash? what is all grain? why sparge?(spelling?) My last kit was/is brewers best IPA that had me steep some grains,,upon tasting the wort I could see that there was a profound advantage over malt extract only beers. what should I try next?
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rancidcrabtree
Well-Known Member
Partial mash would be a great place to start, if you can steep grains it's really not that much more to do a PM. Plus it will open up a much wider variety of styles that you can do. Sparging is basically rinsing the grains you used to mash with water at approx. 170 degrees f. to get any residual sugars off of them and into your wort. Good luck!
lowtones84
Well-Known Member
Hello Spam,
Agreed with the partial mash. You'll need two decent sized kettles if you don't have a cooler to mash in. There's a great thread on an easy partial mash technique here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/
It's a pretty large thread but it's worth reading through what you can. I found it pretty easy with the right equipment, and it gives you some idea of how an all grain process might go. The recipes section here has some good ideas for martial mash recipes, as does Papazian's book. Have fun!
Agreed with the partial mash. You'll need two decent sized kettles if you don't have a cooler to mash in. There's a great thread on an easy partial mash technique here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/
It's a pretty large thread but it's worth reading through what you can. I found it pretty easy with the right equipment, and it gives you some idea of how an all grain process might go. The recipes section here has some good ideas for martial mash recipes, as does Papazian's book. Have fun!
Might I recommend reading How to Brew by John Palmer. It's available for free here if you don't want to spend a few bucks on the book. http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html
Steelers77
Vendor
You can also partial mash in a 2 gallon igloo cooler. BYO had a write up on this a while back.
BigTerp
Well-Known Member
I'd do whatever your comfortable with or want to give a try. If thats BIAB go for it, if it's all grain do it. If it's kits or recipes from here, either or all is fine. The biggest thing to focus on is getting your process down. Focus on being able to repeat and be consistent with the variables you can control (Fermentation temp., yeast pitching rates etc.) I just recently moved to all grain and have done a few extract recipes that I found on here. But to date my best tasting beer was a Kalamazoo IPA extract kit from AHS. I atrribute the great results to having a sound process and controling the things I can. Not because it was an all grain, or wasn't a kit.
Do a lot of reading here. I was in that boat pre-HBT. Kits. Kits. Kits.
Beer was ok, but once I read here about processes, techniques, tips and tricks I made leaps in improvements.
I moved to putting extract brews together from tried-and-true recipes, then extract and grain, and this past summer I started AG. It's all good, but I would say that lots of reading is one of your key moves.
B
Beer was ok, but once I read here about processes, techniques, tips and tricks I made leaps in improvements.
I moved to putting extract brews together from tried-and-true recipes, then extract and grain, and this past summer I started AG. It's all good, but I would say that lots of reading is one of your key moves.
B
What I would suggest is to do more quality kits. Brewer's Best are "ok" but definitely not as good as some of the high quality kits at some of the large online retailers. My favorite for kits is austinhomebrew.com. They have hundreds (thousands?) of kits available. They crush the grain when you order it, and send fresh extract (nothing out of a can), so the taste is great because of the freshness.
You could be a "clone" kit of a commercial beer you like (I think my first clone from them was "Pete's Wicked Ale), or any style you like. http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_452&osCsid=b743ed848802087e3ba864b5e4345c4c
They have really good instructions, too, so you can go step by step.
You can choose extract (which has steeping grains and a grain bag) or a partial mash kit (which needs some grain bags and things- but it tells you on the site what you need to buy). Just stay away from anything that says "lager" or "all grain" at this point!
You could be a "clone" kit of a commercial beer you like (I think my first clone from them was "Pete's Wicked Ale), or any style you like. http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_452&osCsid=b743ed848802087e3ba864b5e4345c4c
They have really good instructions, too, so you can go step by step.
You can choose extract (which has steeping grains and a grain bag) or a partial mash kit (which needs some grain bags and things- but it tells you on the site what you need to buy). Just stay away from anything that says "lager" or "all grain" at this point!
I agree with yooper. Do more of the retailer kits (I drool over the Northern Brewer kits in every issue of their catalogue).
Read up on the other styles of brewing while you do it. Once you get the concept down, PM or BIB or even AG are not that hard.
The problem with the kits is that I have a hard time paying that much compared to what I spend on AG and buying bulk.
Oh, and picking just one or two to brew...
Read up on the other styles of brewing while you do it. Once you get the concept down, PM or BIB or even AG are not that hard.
The problem with the kits is that I have a hard time paying that much compared to what I spend on AG and buying bulk.
Oh, and picking just one or two to brew...
I'm still thinking of going partial mash for some of my beers like pale ales. One in particular where an old can of LME came out really good,but color/some flavors like a Salavtor doppel bock,which is still brewed as an ale. Just mid gravity in my case. I don't believe that some of these ales have to be high gravity to be close to the same,flavor-wise. But some.like wee heavies,or Burton ales do to get the higher FG that lends that bit of sweetness they're known for.
I'm hoping that,even using a couple pounds of grains might be cheaper than all this extract when brewing some of my ales that may not need the flavor complexities of some of my more ambitious ones. It'd take a while to duplicate precisely what I get from 2 or 3 extract malt combos in a partial mash.
But If had to think of some kind of starting point,partial mash would be the next logical step,imo. Also,since I bought a nested set of 4 ss stock pots,the 5G being my main BK,I could use the slightly smaller 4G one to heat water in,or do the partial mash in. Since PM uses only 1-1.5QT of water per pound of grain,the 4G should be ok for that. Then strain/sparge into the right amount of water in the 5G BK to finish with some 3 to 3.5 gallons. Then do hop additions,add remaining malts,etc. Then just top off as usual. That's what I understand up to this point. Feel free to correct me if I'm off a bit...
I'm hoping that,even using a couple pounds of grains might be cheaper than all this extract when brewing some of my ales that may not need the flavor complexities of some of my more ambitious ones. It'd take a while to duplicate precisely what I get from 2 or 3 extract malt combos in a partial mash.
But If had to think of some kind of starting point,partial mash would be the next logical step,imo. Also,since I bought a nested set of 4 ss stock pots,the 5G being my main BK,I could use the slightly smaller 4G one to heat water in,or do the partial mash in. Since PM uses only 1-1.5QT of water per pound of grain,the 4G should be ok for that. Then strain/sparge into the right amount of water in the 5G BK to finish with some 3 to 3.5 gallons. Then do hop additions,add remaining malts,etc. Then just top off as usual. That's what I understand up to this point. Feel free to correct me if I'm off a bit...
lowtones84
Well-Known Member
thanks to all. maybe I will try one of the austin kits while I read about P/m brewing. thanks
Sounds like a great plan to me! It really does pay to do some research and make fairly certain that you're sure of your process before you do it, so don't rush it. Have fun!
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