First Partial Mash

Thanks largely to Clibit's excellent 'How to' guides, I had a go at my first partial mash today.

I love Adnam's Mosaic Pale Ale, so I decided to do a single hop IPA based on this hop. I also wanted it to slap me in the chops a bit, so I went with loads of late hops. It remains to be seen if it's a bit overboard.

1.5kg Maris Otter
1.5kg Light DME
500g Dextrose
330g Carapils

10g Mosaic 45min
25g Mosaic 15min
40g Mosaic 10min
45g Mosaic 5min
45g Mosaic 0min
135g Mosaic 7 day dry hop

1tsp Irish Moss 15min

Rehydrated 20g Mangrove Jack's M44 West Coast and pitched at 21c

IBU 55
Target SG 1056
Actual SG 1053

Largely went without issue, the only problem being that the muslin in a collinder I used to strain the hops into the FV clogged pretty quickly due to the amount of hops. I had to improvise with a separate sieve, hopefully no hop debris got through. Next time I will just use a sieve, then I can discard the hops as it fills up. Lost a fair bit of water to hops and boil, ended up with 12.5ltr wort from 15ltr boil. Topped up to 20ltr.

I was fairly pleased with the SG, though I'm not sure what else to do to get it bang on. I mashed for 60 mins and the temp was still 65c at the end (started about 67c). I sparged with 6ltr at about 70c, although this was poured from a jug, so maybe that's the reason.

According to Brewtoad the FG will be 1013, but I've used this yeast before and it attenuates pretty well, so I expect it to be around 1008-1010. I was in two minds whether to use the second packet, as Mangrove advises to use two packs over 1050, but for 25ltr. At least it should take off quickly!

Took about 4 1/2 hours all in, but I wasn't particularly rushing and the cooker takes a while to get the volume to boil. Guess I will get quicker with experience.

Looking forward to this, so hope it turns out well.

Wasn't much more effort than extract, so may well so 10ltr AG batches sometime in the future, then I can have more variety to choose from.

Really enjoyable brew day, thoroughly recommend it if you've not tried before and so much more rewarding than just mixing a kit with water. Unless it tastes **** of course!

Wow, that's a huge mosaic hit. Even the Romans didn't do Mosaics that big. But it's how some people hop their American ales. Sounds like a great job. If you like huge Mosaic hoppiness, then you're going to love this aren't you?

Hitting OG is something you get better at. It may mean adding some grain, to adjust to your efficiency. However, as you are doing partial, the simple thing to do is add some DME, if you have some. You can do that any time before or during fermentation. You could also boost an AG with DME, obviously, if you fell short.

Cheers clibit. Two reasons for the amount of hops were; I was interested to see how far I could go and secondly if it's not too pleasant, I can leave it for a few months to mellow out. Of course I could be wrong!

The SG was based on a 70% efficency, I don't know if that's achievable for my set up?

Hops_and_Dreams said:

Cheers clibit. Two reasons for the amount of hops were; I was interested to see how far I could go and secondly if it's not too pleasant, I can leave it for a few months to mellow out. Of course I could be wrong!

The SG was based on a 70% efficency, I don't know if that's achievable for my set up?

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It'll be very resiny I would expect. Nearly all the hops are last 15 minutes, so all should be well.

You could adjust your efficiency to 65% in your calcs. The grain crush may be a factor. I crush mine really fine. Buy that Corona mill! The sparge is the other thing - if you dump the grain bag in a second pot with your sparge water and leave it 10-15 mins and stir well, you could get more sugars out. Unless you're doing all that already. TBH grain is so cheap why fret? What does 200g of MO cost?! Just adjust the efficiency to 65% and relax. Keep the process quick and easy.

Yep, good plan! Adjust the calcs to suit. I bought pre-crushed, but didn't seem really fine. Didn't use a second pot, just put the bag in a collinder, waited for it to stop dripping, then poured the hot water though. Took 2 jug fulls, so turned the grain over a bit in between.

As you say though, 200g or so of grain is nothing, so can compensate that way.

As long as the end result is right, who cares?!

What I do to strain the hops out is use a sieve. It will clog up with hop debris and fill up with wort, then I use the back of the jug I'm transfering my wort from the pot to the FV with to get the wort through the seive and squash any wory out of the hops. I then chuck those spent hops away and carry on transfering till it happens again then repeat

Hops, you got me thinking I can have a crack at the AG. Right, off to ebay checking stock pots.

Pre-crushed grain is milled for mashtuns, where a really fine crush could cause a stuck sparge. Biab benefits from finer crushing. If you order from the Maltmiller, for one, you can ask for a finer crush, I believe. They crush to order.

I squeeze the hops too. Another option is to use pellets, which absorb less wort, in my experience.

LarryF said:

Hops, you got me thinking I can have a crack at the AG. Right, off to ebay checking stock pots.

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Go for it! I got this pot (although it looks like they've put it up by a fiver):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XXL-Jumbo...-20-litres-boiling-pan-saucepan-/361074293614

It seems to be good quality and has a nice thick base. From what I've read, Wilkos do large pots too?

The only other thing I needed was a grain bag, but you can make these if you want. I did buy a wort chiller too, for speed and ease of cooling, but it's not really essential. The main cost is time, really.

I'm interested to find out the difference in quality between kits, extract and now this one. Only my kits are currently drinkable.

clibit said:

Pre-crushed grain is milled for mashtuns, where a really fine crush could cause a stuck sparge. Biab benefits from finer crushing. If you order from the Maltmiller, for one, you can ask for a finer crush, I believe. They crush to order.

I squeeze the hops too. Another option is to use pellets, which absorb less wort, in my experience.

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Ahh, I see. I'd better not buy yet another piece of HB equipment for the time being, I'm running out of storage space! So no mill for now. I got the Maris from my LHBS and ordered a few speciality grains from geterbrewed. Might ask them next time.

The amount of extra Maris Otter needed to get to the planned OG will be negligible. Not worth worrying about at all. Less than 50p I'm sure.

This was going like the clappers this morning! Took off about lunchtime yesterday. The muggy weather has caused it to get up to 23c overnight, not too happy. Wrapped it in a wet towel to hopefully cool it a bit.

Can you move it somewhere cool to reduce the temp? Outside?

MyQul said:

What I do to strain the hops out is use a sieve. It will clog up with hop debris and fill up with wort, then I use the back of the jug I'm transfering my wort from the pot to the FV with to get the wort through the seive and squash any wory out of the hops. I then chuck those spent hops away and carry on transfering till it happens again then repeat

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Thats excatly what I do, and I have an extra large seive too

clibit said:

Can you move it somewhere cool to reduce the temp? Outside?

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I've had to come home at lunchtime anyway, so I've re-wetted the towel and pointed a fan directly at it. The house is a lot cooler now than it was this morning, so hopefully it will drop a bit.

clibit said:

Can you move it somewhere cool to reduce the temp? Outside?

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Sorry was in a bit of a rush earlier and didn't answer your question - brewing anywhere in the house is frowned upon! And our back garden is a sun trap during the day, which is normally a good thing, but not for brewing.

The range for this yeast does go up to 23c, so hopefully won't be a problem, just don't like it going to the upper temp limit. Annoyingly I have a few packs of Mauribrew in the fridge, but didn't think I'd need it yet.

Anyway, towel/fan combo seems to have done the trick as it's back down to 21c now, so will just keep an eye on it.

I have done a few partial mashes now and even though I am no doubt a kack handed amateur I am staggered at how good they have all been.

Sure yours will be great, enjoy it !

Down to 1010 now and tastes great. Unfortunately I think I've just oxidised it as per my thread in the brewing discussion section.

Don't worry, I've oxidized many a beer and it's never really ruined it. Bit contentious perhaps, but I don't think it's a huge problem. You may well never notice. Unless you seriously aerated it.

It's been at 1006 for the past few days, so will go ahead and bottle on sat. It's certainly hoppy! I'm guessing it hasn't cleared due to the amount of hops, but it's made to drink, not look at!

Sadly, this will take up my last remaining empty bottles, so will be a few weeks with an empty FV. Unless I up my drinking!