Simple kit plus mini-mash method to improve a kit

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

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

clibit

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2013
Messages
2,070
Reaction score
903
Most people add sugar or DME (spraymalt) or both (beer enhancer is a mix) to their beer kits. Why not use grains instead? It takes longer, obviously, but it saves money compared to DME (grain is cheap), it makes better beer (much better), and you get a fresh malt flavour and a much nicer head on your pint. You can mash some flavour grains too, to alter the beer. You can even make a stout from a lager kit, by mashing or steeping dark roasted grains.

And, you can boil hops when you do the boil, so you can also get a much better hop flavour than kits usually provide. Boiling hop allows you to also increase the bitterness of the beer if you wish.

Nowadays on the odd occasion I make a kit beer, I buy a one can/bag kit and mash 1-2kg of grain to replace most or all of the sugar/DME I used to add. Mashing (soaking) grains and adding the wort to a kit or to some extract is called a mini mash, or a partial mash.

In a nutshell
You soak 1 - 2kg of grains in water at 65-70C, remove the grains, boil the wort produced for an hour, add hops to the boil, then add this to the FV with the kit and cold water, and stir thoroughly. That's all there is to it.

Mash
A pan/pot big enough to hold the grains and mash water is needed for this, a 12 or 15L pot will suffice (cheap from places like Wilko). You start the process by soaking crushed grains (mashing) in about 5- 6 litres of water per kg (or as much as the pot will allow) at a mashing temperature - between 65 and 69C is ideal - for 45-60 mins. A large piece of voile or muslin (about £2 a square metre), or a bag made from one of these, that lines the pot, enables you to lift the grains out after the mash. You need to keep the pot wrapped up at this stage, I use a fleece or towel, to hold the temperature as steady as possible. Large pots of hot water cool very slowly, I have never lost more than 3C in one hour, and that was without wrapping the pot! I usually lose 1 degree at the most, you don't need fancy equipment.

Mashout
Then you raise the temperature of the mash by heating gently on the lowest heat setting to 75 - 80*C and stir well to extract as much sugar from the grains as possible. Lift the bag up to drain, maybe place the bag on a colander on top of your pot as you lift it out and then rinse with more hot (not boiling) water from your kettle by pouring it through.

Boil
You boil all the wort you create, with any hop additions, usually for one hour. See the link below for some recipe ideas) You can then either:
a) add the extract to the pot and stir it in, and pour the wort into your FV through a sieve (to catch the hops) into your sterilised FV, then top up with cold water. Or
b) add the extract with some water in the FV and stir as you would a kit, and then pour your grain wort in through a sieve, and top up to the required level.

It's that simple.

Once the temperature has fallen to 20*C, take a hydrometer reading and pitch the yeast.

Grains
You will need pale malt, such as Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Pearl, Halcyon or lager malt. You can also add other grains to alter the flavour and colour of the beer if you wish. Common grains are crystal, amber, chocolate malt, black malt, roast barley. You can add wheat malt, Munich, Vienna, rye or brown malt. Mashing means you can use any grain you like, the starches from the pale malt will convert the sugars in the other grains.

Here is an online guide to doing mini-mashes with kits, with a few recipes:

http://www.babbrewers.com/files/story/2003/04/Partial_Mash_Talk.pdf

Two recipes:

1. 4.2% Motueka Blonde Ale: Cooper's APA 1.7kg, Maris Otter grain 1.5kg, Caramalt grain 300g, Brewing Sugar 200g, Motueka hops 20g. Mash the Maris Otter and Caramalt, mash out, bring to the boil, after 55 minutes add the Motueka hops and the sugar, 5 minutes later switch off. Cool in a sink of cold water to about 40C, then pour through a sterilised sieve into the FV. Add the kit can, rinse it out with hot water and add that, and stir thoroughly. Top up to 22 litres and stir thoroughly again, and use a sterilised whisk to aerate the wort. Pitch yeast at 20C.

2. 4.75% ABV Amarillo Pale Ale: Young's Harvest Pilsner 1.5kg, Maris Otter 1.5kg, Crystal Malt 80EBC 300g, Brewing Sugar 300g, Light DME 250g. 14g Amarillo last 20 mins, 14g Amarillo last 5 minutes.


Brewing Software helps a lot
I use free software called Brewmate (now "Brewers friend for Windows") to calculate quantities. It is easy to use. You put in the ingredients and quantities etc and you can then adjust the batch size and it recalculates. Add a kit can to your recipe as liquid extract. But download Brewmate, it will teach you loads. And it stores recipes you enter.


Partial Mash
When you get used to this, you can simply use dry or liquid extract instead of a kit can, and make a partial mash beer. Here is an example:

A step by step 20 litre brew using grain and extract - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=50780


All grain
And, in making a mini-mash, you have already made all grain beer and then 'ruined' it by adding a kit can! You could just leave the kit out, and make a 10L all grain brew this way, making sure your hop boiling schedule achieves the bitterness you want! See the Simple AG how-to guide:

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51779
 
This is just a re-working of the how-to guide "Using grains with kits - Partial Mash - All Grain", I think it was less clear thatn it could be, hopefully better now, and a couple of my own recipes. So maybe we should remove that how-to and make this one a sticky?

I'm considering how-to guides on:

*Using steeping grains and hops with kits
*Guide to grains
*Guide to yeasts
*Beer styles - maybe individual style guides, how to make them, recommended ingredients etc.

Over a period of time of course!

Anybody have any priorities or other suggestions?
 
Yeast varieties would be my preference for next. Big hole in my knowledge, even though I have a degree in microbiology! :wha:
 
I'm not an expert on yeast, and won't need any micro-biologists reading it! it would be basic, looking at attenuation, affects of temperature on a simple level, and some commonly used dried and liquid strains.
 
I'm not an expert on yeast, and won't need any micro-biologists reading it! it would be basic, looking at attenuation, affects of temperature on a simple level, and some commonly used dried and liquid strains.

That's what I was hoping for. Don't need the technical, just what yeast to use for what style of beer and what they bring to the party. (And, university was a very, very long time ago and I didn't carry it on as a career.)
 
I'm enjoying reading your posts and grateful to you for sharing your wisdom with us. I am learning lots about brewing, 90% of which I read on here and I'm sure it has helped me avoid lots (not all!) of rookie mistakes.

One question though, can you steep flavour grains at the same time as you do a mini mash? I assume this all goes in the mash tun at the same time when doing full AG, but just wanted to double check.
 
Yes you can steep them in the mini mash. In fact, you get more from them doing this.
 
Cool, thanks. Am now planning to do a partial mash for the next brew, doesn't seem much more involved than steeping grains, just might take a bit longer.
 
Cool, thanks. Am now planning to do a partial mash for the next brew, doesn't seem much more involved than steeping grains, just might take a bit longer.

Did my eighth Mini Mash plus kit today. Nothing difficult, but it does take about 4 hours to set things up, go through the processes and then clear up afterwards. There is a fairly clear hour during the mash to, say, bottle up another brew or rack one from primary to secondary FV.

One thing I've noticed is that in the primary FV you get a lot more trub (2-3L), which I think is due to "break material" from the mash, that AG brewers will leave behind in the boiler.

I am convinced the extra effort is worth it. :cheers:
 
Clibit .perfect timing .I have a wherrys kit on the shelf and was going to ask what I could do to improve it. You seem to have answered my question before I got the chance to ask it :-)
Brill .
 
Did my eighth Mini Mash plus kit today. Nothing difficult, but it does take about 4 hours to set things up, go through the processes and then clear up afterwards. There is a fairly clear hour during the mash to, say, bottle up another brew or rack one from primary to secondary FV.

One thing I've noticed is that in the primary FV you get a lot more trub (2-3L), which I think is due to "break material" from the mash, that AG brewers will leave behind in the boiler.

I am convinced the extra effort is worth it. :cheers:

I've done a couple of extracts, so I've been basing it on that, plus the hour for the mash. SWMBO is out Sunday afternoon/evening, so I've pencilled it in for then.

I'm looking forward to the results as the kit beer efforts aren't bad (extract not ready to drink yet), so I'm quietly optimistic as to how they will turn out based on what I've read on here.

Interesting about the trub as I don't syphon mine, I use a tap and as it stands now, there's only about a half inch gap between the trub (about an inch deep) and the tap opening.

I enjoy the more involved brewing, actually makes you appreciate the results more. I always think of a kit as a bit like a microwave ready meal.
 
I've done a couple of extracts, so I've been basing it on that, plus the hour for the mash. SWMBO is out Sunday afternoon/evening, so I've pencilled it in for then.

I'm looking forward to the results as the kit beer efforts aren't bad (extract not ready to drink yet), so I'm quietly optimistic as to how they will turn out based on what I've read on here.

Interesting about the trub as I don't syphon mine, I use a tap and as it stands now, there's only about a half inch gap between the trub (about an inch deep) and the tap opening.

I enjoy the more involved brewing, actually makes you appreciate the results more. I always think of a kit as a bit like a microwave ready meal.

If you bottle from the primary FV, there should be no real issues as the trub line is, as you say, a fair bit lower than the tap.

There never seems to be much material racked over to the secondary FV, especially if you leave it a bit longer than a week.

As someone who has always liked cooking, especially a Sunday Roast or a BBQ, I like the "ready meal" analogy.
 
If you bottle from the primary FV, there should be no real issues as the trub line is, as you say, a fair bit lower than the tap.

There never seems to be much material racked over to the secondary FV, especially if you leave it a bit longer than a week.

As someone who has always liked cooking, especially a Sunday Roast or a BBQ, I like the "ready meal" analogy.

Ah OK, was worried about it coming above the tap. Much to the annoyance of the Mrs, I bought a bottling bucket as part of my ever growing beer making collection, but this is still filled via the tap, so hopefully won't have any problems.

The analogy also came from explaining the difference between kits, extract and AG (not that she was particularly interested), so I used curry as an example! Kits are like ready meals, extract like using ingredients, but with a jar of sauce and AG is making it all from scratch. She still didn't care, and was more concerned with the spare room 'brewery'.
 
something that never seems to be covered anywhere ant I'm more than a little curious...

AG brewing is always sold as being a cheap way of doing homebrew. But if I'm reading it right, you need to start maintaining the liquid at 65 C for nearly an hour (admittedly a lower heat input) but then you need to maintain the liquid at boiling point for an hour. This has to cost something? Anyone done any proper calculations or readings on what it costs from the energy point of view?

I'm not trying to pick holes, but satisfy a curiosity as to what AG costs in terms of non ingredient based costs.
 
People have costed it out. Varies obviously. For me on my cooker with 10 litre brews it's 50p max I think. Maintaining mash temp costs nothing btw. You insulate it, and hot water cools very slowly in brewing quantities.
 
50p to boil for an hour? That's actually quite good. I'd have thought it would be more expensive.
 
I think people who use gas from a bottle with a gas burner use around £3 of gas for a 5 gallon brew. I think mains gas is the cheapest, then electric, then bottled gas.
 
I'd agree, a gas cooker uses very little gas - our meter barely moves in the summer. It's the central heating that's the killer, especially when females class being cold as anything sub 27 degrees Celsius.
 
I'd agree, a gas cooker uses very little gas - our meter barely moves in the summer. It's the central heating that's the killer, especially when females class being cold as anything sub 27 degrees Celsius.

Absolutely. A female moved into my house in September and the gas payments have been revised upwards, dramatically, recently! :doh:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top