Flame Alert- Anyone Mash Grain To Add To Kit Beer?

[Barley Belly]

It is with great trepidation I pose this question. (FLAME SUIT ON)

Has anyone mashed grain to add as the sugar addition for a kit beer???

I know this is EXTREME sacralige but just wondering if it had been done and if so how would one go about it.

 

[manticle]

It is with great trepidation I pose this question. (FLAME SUIT ON)

Has anyone mashed grain to add as the sugar addition for a kit beer???

I know this is EXTREME sacralige but just wondering if it had been done and if so how would one go about it.

Not that different to kits and bits or extract/specialty as far as I can see. Rather than sacrilege, consider it a way of improving a kit.

 

[Pennywise]

I do it alot, IMO it gets rid of that kit twang that most kits have, along with a decent yeast and extra hops. What I do is mash 1.5 - 2kg base malt with specs and then topping up in the fermenter to a volume where you have your target OG. That way if your efficiency is other than expected you can just get the OG based on the volume of the wort.

 

[pint of lager]

I did this alot when I was using kits. A partial mash over a kit is one way you can improve your beer flavour. As the kit is already bittered, you don't have to work out your bittering hops. If you are adding any sort of bittering hops, be very careful of the high alphas. A small amount goes a long way and you will need to understand IBU's and use a calculator.

It is a great vehicle to add some flavour and aroma additions as these add minimal amounts of bittering.

Do make sure you boil your wort for sixty minutes. There are alot of complex reactions that occur during the boil. Small amounts of wort from specialty malts only need a 10 minute boil when only doing kits and bits.

Do not try and work out your efficiency. The combination of small amounts, cobbled together equipment and new brewer mean that extraction is only about 50%. Trying to stack your efficiency up against the ag brewers figures will make you feel foolish. It is all about getting some fresh malt flavours into your brews, not about efficiency.

Try and mash about 2 kg of base malt to replace your usual 1kg baggy. This can easily be sparged in any kitchen with a large pot and a bit of cheesecloth pegged over the saucepan.

Do taste every part of the process. At the start of the mash, it will be a bit floury and grainy. At the end, after the enzymes have done their fantastic work, the mash is sweet.

Be warned, mashing is addictive.

 

[petesbrew]

Be warned, mashing is addictive.

+1.

My first mashing attempts tasted like crap as I didn't know what I was doing (I still don't have much of a clue), however the experience was great.

Don't be afraid to post your recipe for comments & criticism. It really helps to have some feedback on recipe building.

 

[Hefty]

Do make sure you boil your wort for sixty minutes. (emphasis mine) There are alot of complex reactions that occur during the boil. Small amounts of wort from specialty malts only need a 10 minute boil when only doing kits and bits.

Be warned, mashing is addictive.(emphasis mine)

+2

My first partial was a mash, a kit (hopped can) and a flavour addition.
When I first planned it it seemed like a great way to save time not having to do a full length boil for bittering but between planning and doing I did a lot of reading and spoke to a lot of people in the know and leanred about the need for a good hot break as well as the boiling off of some unwanted flavour compounds etc.

I still think it's a great idea, especially if you want to learn about flavours produced by real mashed grain (Ie you can just use the IBUs from the can as a benchmark and remove hops as a variable), it just doesn't save as much time as I originally thought. Even so, I keep looking for opportunities to do more partials and move up to AG. It really is addictive!

Jono.

 

[Bribie G]

I have made about ten "Bribie Bitter" brews using 1kg or 1.25kg pale malt mashed and boiled with an aroma hop and the wort added to a can of Coopers Lager (or recently I've been using Morgans Aussie Lager or Morgans Canadian lite) and a kilo of dex, then fermented with a better yeast such as Nottingham or US-05.



I used to mash in a Decor food container from Woolies in a water bath in my esky but since going mostly all- grain I now do a full batch and split it between four small cubes which I store away and use as required



However I have gone through all my cubes from the last batch and now find it's so easy to crank out an all grain beer I don't think I'll be doing another one in the forseeable future.

Go ahead and do it, it's a great apprenticeship in Mashing, sparging, boiling, hop additions etc and if you eventually go all grain you'll be saying "Hey, I know all this stuff "

Edit: the above recipe turns out well over 5% so for a less inebriating brew cut your dex back accordingly or as Pint of Lager suggests, go a 2k mash and no dex. That decor container will handle 2k, at its limit.