My First Partial Ag Mash

[Voosher]

1. During initial sparging. Once you have cleared up the wort do you completely drain the wort from the grain bed before adding the sparge water or do you just add the sparge water over the grain bed with the initial mash water??

Some Problems I had

1. My 30lt Stockpot has no tap in it to transfer the heated water.

2. I currently have no way of measuring the wort from the Mash tun into the Stock pot so had to make estimates although they were pretty well educated estimates.

3. Partial Mash what a shame to add LME to such a nice tasting and smelling wort

I will hopefully be able to rectify these problems in the near future

Cheers
Archie
h34r:

Archie,
When sparging I maintain the level of the sparge water at or just above the grain bed. Seems to aid temperature and flow control.

If your pot's aluminium you could probably drill and fit a tap easily yourself. I have the same problem but as it's stainless no tap for me either. I have a lauter tun with a tap so after the mash I just transfer to the lauter tun and go from there.
Get yourself a dipstick to judge the volume to the kettle. All that "pi r squared" stuff from school will finally come in handy!!!
Ditto re partial mashes as well here. At least you've go a large enough kettle for a normal size brew. I spend most Sundays labouring all day for about 12l. But it's still worth it!!!
Well done on a great day's "work".
:beerbang:

 

[matti]

:beer:
Well done Archie.
It feel great and the sence of achievement stays with you and one feels one want to do it again...soon.
Only a month ago I completed my own first partial, after reading a lot of ag literature and asked millions of question on the net.
I use six-pack esky for mashtun a large sieve and 18 liter stockpot.
Though I used decoction method to increase effieciency I must admit its a rather busy schedule and I would have pulled a few hairs out if some had tried to converse with me during mashing.
As a previous post mentioned Temp control through mashing is essential for for great efficiency.
Now the wait for it to ferment out........ :blink:
happy brewing
Matti

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Archie

A warning about using over 4kg of grain in a partial. You then decide that you might as well go all grain because you are using so much in a partial, then the obsession starts and you end up owning a lot of brewing related gear which outgrows what you can do in the kitchen. Eventually you end up owning a microbrewery.

I know, it happened to me

And the best bit of advice for a new brewer starting on partials - relax, it will turn out just fine.

Cheers
Pedro

 

[pint of lager]

What Pedro said. Relax, it will be fine.

Archie, if you have the funds, a refractometer is a great tool, but don't be misled. You can brew fantastic beer without one. Just be careful using the hydrometer temperature adjustment charts, they can be very innacurate as you try and measure hot wort. Better to grab a sample, place it in a plastic bag, crash chill in an ice bath and then do your reading.

There are many shiny bits of gear that often a brewer feels they need before they can really brew. This is not true. They often make the day easier or quicker, but not essential. There was a thread going round that actually belonged in the humour section as it was started tongue in cheek about how many March pumps, refractometers, pH meters, kegs, taps and other paraphenalia that it took to be a real brewer. The correct answer to the question would be that a real brewer is always thinking and researching about how to improve their next brew, talking to more experienced brewers and taking on board their comments and helping out newer brewers. This applies to all levels of brewing, from kit and kilo to microbrewery size.

The most important bit of kit is a decent accurate thermometer, and then learning to use it correctly.

 

[matti]

Hydrometer, thermometers and a ph strip and fishnet stocking
plus regular kitchen appliances.
Bycarbon soda, salt and citric acid gypsum and basic knowledge of chemistry gets me along way
Until I set my laboratory up. LOL
If there is a will there is away.
Matti

 

[Archie]

Hey everyone thanks for all the encouragement and info,
The thermometer i use is actually a temp probe on my multimeter it seemded to work a treat anyone else use this methodd or any others.
Well my partial mash was a complete success.
My estimated OG from Promash was 1.047
My Actual OG was 1.045So my eficiency for my mash ws %61
I am completely happy with this as its my first Mash

I am going all Grain this weekend
an all grain German Pilsner

5kg of German Pilsner Grain
100gms of tettnanger hops
and some time haha

Cant wait until Saturday

Cheers Archie

 

[hupnupnee]

Good on you Archie,

I'm using very similar equipment to yours and have not had any trouble with AG. My Tun is about 20l and if you batch sparge there is no probs, just adjust the size of the batches to match your tun volume. Forget about all the detail I reckon at the moment. Seems that if you get your Mash temperature right the rest seems to happen (no pun intended). The thing is if you don;t get things spot on you still make great beer, it just might not be exactly the body you were after or the OG might be a bit up or down on what you wanted. Amazingly it just seems to work with out you needing to be an industrial chemist.

Hope your AG goes well for you on the week end. ALl yo have to do know is the really hard bit. Waiting for the bottles to condition. But man is it worth it.

Floculator

Tim

 

[Trough Lolly]

...I am going all Grain this weekend
an all grain German Pilsner

5kg of German Pilsner Grain
100gms of tettnanger hops
and some time haha

Cant wait until Saturday

Cheers Archie

Good work Archie! What's the first thing you should do after brewing a beer? Make another one!
Welcome down the rabbit hole... B)
Cheers,
TL