1st partial mash today

So, after much kit brewing and two months sat looking at my newly acquired 15L pan, 10kg sack of Maris Otter plus associated stuff for a partial mash, I am going to do it today, mainly because I'm not allowed to fish on Sunday (!).
I will be using one can from a Wherry kit as my LME.
On a recent post Spapro offered a good recipe which I will follow but he did suggest adding the kit wort at the beginning of the boil . Is this necessary as I was under the impression that kits had already been boiled, can I not just add it along with my newly boiled grain wort to mix in the fv ?

Yes, I would add it in the FV. How are you hopping it? Be careful not to add too much bitterness, the sherry can Will provide some.

Sorry for late reply Clibit. Possibly too late as I have the 'boil' on as we speak. I added 20g of First Gold hops at the beginning of the boil. Jeez, this is some time consuming mullarkey !
Hoping to report back when I have the time and energy, hopefully with photos if I can work out how to post them from the I pad....

I do a PM in 2.5 to 3 hours.

How long is your boil?

Boil was one hour but it took a good three quarters to get up to boil on a calor gas stove in my shed. Crash cooled between two builders buckets (outside taps are very handy) , surprising how often I had to change the water, at least two gallons every few minutes cooling approx 12 litres of wort.
In the fv now with the Wherry wort and waiting for it to cool a little more before I add the safale s-04 yeast.
Og 1040, not sure what I expected really but quite happy with that.
Total time around 4 hours but did manage to bottle 40 pints of John Bull IPA in between ....:

Nice one. Did you add any hops later in the boil?

No, didn't add any more hops.
I found it quite a bit more involved process than kit brewing and not sure what to think at this stage over kit brewing, I guess the proof is is the tasting ....
I'm guessing once you get 'up to speed' it gets much easier and I have 8kg of Maris Otter, crystal malt and hops to mess with ,along with a few kit cans to add so I wil persevere.

Redron said:

No, didn't add any more hops.
I found it quite a bit more involved process than kit brewing and not sure what to think at this stage over kit brewing, I guess the proof is is the tasting ....
I'm guessing once you get 'up to speed' it gets much easier and I have 8kg of Maris Otter, crystal malt and hops to mess with ,along with a few kit cans to add so I wil persevere.

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Once you work out what your doing and your schedule you'll get a lot quicker. You'll start to be able to work out time saving things to do whilst the mash and the boil is on. I remember my first full brew length AG took about 8hrs. I was knackered by the end of it.:lol:

As promised, a quick report back on proceedings and conclusions.
This is the first time I have attempted brewing with grains so set off with a little trepidation....
I followed a recipe from Spapro with reference to Clibit's post 'have a go at simple AG'.
So, one can of woodfordes wherry bitter
1.9 kg Maris Otter
150g crystal malt
20g first gold hops added at the beginning of the boil
1 tsp Irish moss 15mins into boil ( I think this should have been added 15 mins from the end of the boil !)
Sachet of safale-04 yeast (11g)

I boiled the kettle several times to get 7litres of water to soak the grain, surprised at how adding a little cold water to the boiling water reduced the temp. I used my wife's jam thermometer to get the strike water to the desired 67deg, eventually....
I soaked the grains in a muslin bag draped over my new 15L pan with a crappy fitting lid and wrapped it in a towel for one hour, I didn't stir at all, maybe should have done...
I bottled 40 pints of John Bull IPA whilst I waited for the mash and sampled a pint of my Brewbuddy bitter as is the 'law'
After an hour I blagged my wife's jam pot and boiled the kettle again for my sparge water, mindful not to have it boiling when I poured it over the grain mash.
I put the bag of mashed grain into the jam pot and poured over three litres of very hot water to sparge and as per advice, squeezed near every last drop of wort from the bag (hot hands!).
Added this back into my 7litres or so of wort in the 15L pan which gave me around 10 litres of wort for the boil.
Into my shed and onto a butane gas stove. It took nearly three quarters of an hour to get it up to boil, more Brewbuddy bitter...;-)
Eventually got to a rolling boil and added the hops and waited and watched , took me a while to judge the heat to maintain a rolling boil but I got it eventually
I added the Irish moss 15 mins into the boil, not sure if I should have added this later ?
One hour boil and then 'crash cooled' between two builders buckets with lots of water changes to get the temp down. added to the FV along with one can of Wherry. Let the temp drop to 21deg and added the rehydrated yeast .
Total time from start to finish, 4 hours and I was knackered !

It was 'away' after 24 hrs though not too vigorous and two days later there is at least an inch of trub !
I wait with baited breath.....

Conclusions....

I want to do it again and am trawling the Internet for a mash tun and a boiler.

It's a time consuming process, much more so than kit brewing. I will wait for the taste test before making more conclusions, premium kits and 'tweaked' kits produce very good beer...

it was 'fun' and like most things, I'm guessing you get out what you put in.

Stop reading Clibit's posts !!!!

Well done Redron,

You will never look back, world of difference in the taste, give it the usual 2+2+2 weeks and then give it a try. Not sure if you are kegging or bottling? I like kegged ale but this time of year its a bit warm for kegging. Bottles are great for sticking in the fridge and getting a nicely carbed, cold pint of ale.

As clibit points out your timings will come down with each one you do, I now mow the grass while my grains are mashing, and clean as I go so not too much to do at the end. The beer produced will be worth every minute. Good luck with it and make sure to post a picture of your finished beer in a glass !

I as going to stick with partial mashes and may still do, but I can feel the pull of a full size electric boiler purchase coming on.

Thanks and thanks for the encouragement.
This one will be bottled, as you say, kegged beer can be a little warm at this time of year. Had a minor disaster yesterday when one of my King Kegs split on a seam due to being too warm and consequently over pressurised whilst full of a seriously tweaked Geordie bitter kit, basically some very vigorous secondary fermentation !!!! I thought the s30 valve pressure release valve would have kicked in but it didn't :hmm: I was lucky as I was around when it happened and quickly transferred to another keg.

Now getting my head round the grain brewing and may invest in a 30 litre pan and a robust propane burner along with a mash tun. Reckon I could get that lot for less than £150 ? And besides, I still have 8kg of MO that needs using pronto as I understand it doesn't keep forever...

Happy days :hat:

You have made an all grain beer already - except you added extract and additional water (and hops) to it to increase the volume. You could make a half batch of AG, and see how that compares?

Redron said:

Now getting my head round the grain brewing and may invest in a 30 litre pan and a robust propane burner along with a mash tun. Reckon I could get that lot for less than £150 ?

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Why not get the 30 litre pan but not the mash tun and stick with full length BIAB? Not sure much is gained in terms of flavour by adding the seperate mash tun vessel. Others may have a different opinion, maybe I am lazy but a mash tun just looks like something else to clean to me :hmm:

Well, what a revelation !
I started this brew on Sunday. It was away in 12 hours and has quietly chugged away, no vigorous early action and very little Krausen and a huge trub, much more so than kit beers.
I was a little concerned, and despite my own advice , couldn't resist the occasional peak to make sure 'stuff' was happening. A quick sniff over the past few days revealed enough co2 to reassure...
Today I did the same and no familiar gas up the nose... Thinking it may have stalled I took a sample to check the sg, it was down from 1040 to 1010 in just 5 days, so 3.9% at this stage. I took a tentative sip from the cloudy trial jar..... FLIPPIN HECK !
It is absolutely bloody lovely after just 5 days ! Far better than I had ever hoped. It is clean and nicely bitter with no 'twang' whatsoever.
I have been brewing what I consider to be good kit beers for the past 18 months after an apprenticeship in the eighties with the kits of yesteryear so I am no home brew Virgin .
How can this be ? Is it the yeast volume (11g safale-04) that encouraged the speedy ferment ? My kit beers all seem to take 2-4 weeks to ferment out.

I should add, as this was my first attempt with grain. I think I made a few errors along the way with temps and moss addition and sparge water volume and temps but the result is truly a revelation. Goodness knows what I can achieve when I get it sorted....

I will give it a couple more days and see if drops a couple more points and then bottle it with a big grin on my face !

I don't know why I am so surprised as there are many posts on this forum that suggest we should and will move onto grain brewing. Well, consider this one more convert !!!

I should add I am a 55 year old Yorkshireman with a good history of drinking lots of good beer, farmer, nurse, fireman, rugby player, so I 'know my beer'.....

So, I tip my hat to all those on this forum who have encouraged along the way.

In my best post award speech voice "thank you so much, I love you all". :

Welcome to the darkside

Another one bites the dust. :thumb:

Great news on your rebirth, Redron. :smile:

It is quite a revelation isn't it Redron !

The yeast just loves the mashed malty goodness - worth leaving in the FV another week just so the yeast can 'clean up after itself' before bottling.

It does take a bit more time than kits but worth every minute - there i no way back to kits once you have tried any form of wholegrain/partial mashing.

What brew are you planning next ?

Spapro said:

Why not get the 30 litre pan but not the mash tun and stick with full length BIAB? Not sure much is gained in terms of flavour by adding the seperate mash tun vessel. Others may have a different opinion, maybe I am lazy but a mash tun just looks like something else to clean to me :hmm:

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If you're going full 20-23litre brews you need more than 30liters for full length BIAB you will probably need a 40 or 50l pan.

Wasn't it yourself I was talking about the ACE boiler the other day? well the 30 liter capacity meant you'd have to do a sparge and manually top up. Don't get me wrong that method works fine , I would have been happy to have done that but if you want to do a full scale and mash out drain/ lautner and get on with the boil.

Covrich said:

If you're going full 20-23litre brews you need more than 30liters for full length BIAB you will probably need a 40 or 50l pan.

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Hi Covrich, yes I was/am considering the ACE boiler - or the Peco boiler/wort chiller from the Homebrew company, or sticking with partial mashing for now.

Good point about volumes though, thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: just bit the bullet in a moment of madness and ordered the £81 BIAB starter kit from The Home Brew company using the forum members discount code: http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk...iler-chiller-mashing-bag-mash-kit-p-2426.html
Will break the news to SWMBO about my new 'investment' after she has had a couple of glasses of wine this evening !