Unsure about my first partial (Method)

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rheffera

Well-Known Member
Joined
28/7/13
Messages
180
Reaction score
27
G'day gents. After 20 or so full extract brews i figured it's time to move up to partials on the grand road to being a all-grain'er.

Whilst im 100% confident with extract, despite reading several threads here i am still a little confused and seek advice as i venture into my first partial.

I have played with my stove and can get it to sit at 66*c. I have a ~12 Pot.
I am unsure about mash thickness, i have read varying figure. I am unsure if i can even do a partial with this setup.

Im thinking the following reciepe:

960gm LDME
2KG Ale malt
Cararoma 200gm
Caraared 250gm
Wheat malt 500gm
Roasted Barley 20gm
Northen brewer ~20IBU @ 60

im looking for a mash thickness of 2.5l/kg? that'll fit in the pot for sure.
if i want to mash at 66*c i should heat 7.4L it to strike 73.6? How the hell am i going to sparge this? i guess the grains will soak alot of that water though, so i should have extra room in the pot.

Anyone clear to clarify what this noob should be doing? :D . Im anxious to get started on my voyage to becoming a crown urn BIAB'er, as i feel ive gotten what i can from extract, and i want to focus more on getting a better taste than extract, hence why im shooting for 2kg base malt.
 
rheffera said:
Aww stuff it im just gonna go full Urn BIAB..
yeah im in the same boat. though about going through partials first, then just decided might as well make the larger jump!
 
I went straight from extract to all grain.

If you're going to buy the equipment anyway, why partial mash (using time and equipment that is equivalent to full mash), without the satisfaction and beer of a full mash.

Keep the extract on hand - if you're like most of us, your first BIAB/AG will possibly have efficiency issues and you can top up. It's not going to hurt.
 
I did maybe six or eight partials then decided that if I was going to spend an hour faffing over the mash then sparging, boiling, etc I'd be better off getting an urn.

However the first BIAB went really smoothly because I realised straight away "hey, I know this stuff".

On the point of mash thickness it doesn't make a lot of difference, whatever will fit in your pot. For example in the UK they used a fairly thick mash for their bitters but over the Channel in Europe they used a thin mash for their lagers and fine beers were produced on both shores. With BIAB you use the full volume of water up front to produce a thin mash and it works just fine, in fact some sources say the enzymes work better in a thin mash.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. going to pick up my urn and some grain for a LCBA style beer which has a lower desired OG (1044) so lesser effeciency wont be an issue. ive done some reading on mashing out and will do so whilst proding the grain. ill be no chilling into a cube and am using ian's spreadsheet so i have that no chill compensation enabled.

20l target
2.7kg wey pils
0.76kg wey vienna
0,23kg wheat
0.23 carapils
B-saaz &cascade
 
You might be interested in the article I put up a few years ago, in desperate need of a rewrite then getting it moved to the AG subforum, but still pretty current.
 
Thanks bribie. Will study that nice and good. im working with ian's biab spreadsheet. Whilst im all excited for my first brewday ive organized a number of things to write down. Mash volume. post mash volume & gravity, post boil volume and gravity and naturally all the temperatures so the SG readings can be adjusted appropriatley. With this i should be able to hone in the efficency for the second run.

I was unable to get the urn until friday but i have my grain, bag, hosetail, ball valve and bulkhead, cube and 1M of food grade silicon hose .

My fermenters are currently full of extract brews however they are about 9 days old. usually i leave for 14 days but ill bottle one today if the FG is good so i can have room in the fermenter for day after brew day.
 
Back
Top