Since I have only done one partial mash in the past, I thought I would brush up on the technique. Here are my top 10 points I can pass on to would be partial mashers:
- Get your hands on the October 2006 issue of BYO magazine. It has a great article on countertop partial mashing.
- I bought a picnic cooler to mash in. You don’t need one, but it helps to keep the temperature of your mash steady.
- I haven’t modified the cooler to make it easy to separate the wort from the grain like a false bottom or a manifold, so I am just going to use a grain bag. I am going to keep the bag as loose as possible to ensure I get a good soak.
- There are a few different ratios of hot water to grain out there. I am going to use Chris Colby’s 1.375 quarts to every pound of grain.
- I know I should heat up more water than I need and I should heat it 11-15 degrees hotter than my mash temperature.
- After mashing for an hour, I will open the spigot and let the wort drain into a large pitcher. Then I will pour it back over the grains to recirculate it since the first runnings are cloudy and probably full of husks.
- Then, I will drain the cooler into my pitcher again until all the sweet, sweet wort has flowed out of the cooler
- I will then pour the wort gently into my brew pot.
- After draining the cooler, I will fill it up again with water that will settle to 170 F and I will let it sit there for 5 minutes and then drain it again.
- Not sure how much water I will need to add to the wort to get to total of 6 gallons to brew (I will need 6 gallons for the boil to end up with 5 gallons in the fermenter), but that amount is what I will put in my kettle.
If I think of other partial mashing tips, I will post them. I probably will have a bunch after my brew sessions.
Chemgeek
I do mostly partial mashes now days, but I don’t use a cooler. I try to maintain the temperature on the stovetop. I’ve been seriously contemplating purchasing a cooler. The distinct advantage seems to be temperature control. I look forward to your assessment of the technique. I trust the folks are BYO, but it would be nice to have a second opinion.
Good luck
John
Hey Chemgeek. Thanks for the comment.
When I did a partial mash last year with Mike’s help, we used a 2 gallon cooler. It was really easy. We put the grain in, we put the water in, we made sure we hit our mash temperature, and we closed the cover.
An hour later, the mash was still at the same temp.
Without it, I would probably need to turn the burner on and off on my stovetop to keep the mash temp steady. It might help the hour to go by faster, but I have an electric stove and I don’t think the burners react as fast as a gas stove burners do.
I will post my notes after the brew.
Jim L
John,
Will the cooler be resistant to temperatures that high?
Thanks,
Jim
John
Hi Jim L,
Thanks for the comment. I would have to check with the owner’s manual to be sure 🙂
Here are my thoughts though: Think of the cooler as a big thermos since it’s the same technology in play. You can use a regular sized thermos to keep hot liquids hot and cold liquids cold. I could put hot soup into a thermos and it would stay hot until I was ready to eat it. Hot soup is generally around those temps…so I think the cooler can take it. Plus, when I have used a cooler before to hold hot wort, it was fine…and many homebrewers use large coolers as mash tuns so I will use their collective experience to back up this process.
John
P.S. If you would like to know, the cooler was 24 bucks.
JIM
Has anyone tried using aa 5 gallon cooler($19 at Home Depot) for partial mashes? Is this too much cooler? I would like the all grain option that a larger cooler would provide later on. A great place to get fittings for these coolers is weldless fittings .com Very reasonable prices on stainless fittings.
Matt
I’ve started doing partial mashes on the stovetop. I use two pots, one 2 gallon pot for the mash, with a grain bag, and one 3 gallon pot for the boil.
To maintain temp, after pouring in the strike water, I simply put the lid on and pop the pot in a warm oven for the hour. Using the right size pot, so it’s filled to the top, also helps reduce heat loss.
For the sparge, I put around 5 – 6 litres in my 3 gallon brew pot, heat it to the sparge temp and dunk the grain bag in there for about 10 mins.
I discard the grains and the contents of the (2 gal) mash pot is then carefully poured into the larger pot and the boil starts.
This has worked really well for me to date.