THE MASH, MASHING IN, MASHING
Now it’s time to Mash. Do the monster mash… ok, I’ll stop.
There are lots of ways to mash your grains. You can spend a lot of money on contraptions that do it all but for this, a popular item is a 10 gal. cooler from a very orange national home improvement store.... Those can be picked up for around $40. I do what it called the batch sparge technique or a more technical name, Single Temperature Infusion method. The idea is to soak the grains in hot water to get the starches to convert to fermentable sugars. There is also a Multi-Rest technique and all sorts of ways to manipulate the water pH and other chemisty variables, but for now, this is a basic rundown to get started in home brewing. John Palmer's book How to Brew is a ridiculously fantastic book for getting into more details of every process, including the Mash step. |
Single Temperature Infusion / Batch Sparge
A basic plan to start is heat approx. 3-3.5 gallons of water to 170 degrees.
Put into Pre-Heated cooler with grains and let sit for 1 hr. – ***a good mash temperature is about 150 degrees. Starting with 170 degree water and the temperature of the grains around 65-60 (room temp) the resultant temperature should equalize to approx. 150 degrees. Always have a tea kettle going with some hot water if you need to raise the temp of the mash.***
BrewersFriend.com has a nice and easy Infusion Mash Calculator to help determine amounts and temperatures of the water you will require.
While the grains are mashing, start heating next round of 170 degree sparge water, 5-5.5 gal.
Put into Pre-Heated cooler with grains and let sit for 1 hr. – ***a good mash temperature is about 150 degrees. Starting with 170 degree water and the temperature of the grains around 65-60 (room temp) the resultant temperature should equalize to approx. 150 degrees. Always have a tea kettle going with some hot water if you need to raise the temp of the mash.***
BrewersFriend.com has a nice and easy Infusion Mash Calculator to help determine amounts and temperatures of the water you will require.
While the grains are mashing, start heating next round of 170 degree sparge water, 5-5.5 gal.
Empty cooler contents into kettle and dump back into the cooler. Again, collect in kettle. It may help to tilt the cooler just a bit. An extra hard cover glasses case has worked well for my last few batches. Remember, get creative, it's a home brew!
Then take next round (5 gal. 170 degree water) and dump into cooler with grains.
Let sit for 15-20 min.
Again, drain out about half, and pour back into cooler and continue collecting in kettle until empty.
Now you’re ready for the boil. Click HERE for a great description from Adventures in Homebrewing for a more traditional sparge technique. YouTube is also a great resource and has endless ways of creating and collecting wort from simple grains. YouTube also has thousands of cat videos that result in wasting an hour of your life every so often.
Then take next round (5 gal. 170 degree water) and dump into cooler with grains.
Let sit for 15-20 min.
Again, drain out about half, and pour back into cooler and continue collecting in kettle until empty.
Now you’re ready for the boil. Click HERE for a great description from Adventures in Homebrewing for a more traditional sparge technique. YouTube is also a great resource and has endless ways of creating and collecting wort from simple grains. YouTube also has thousands of cat videos that result in wasting an hour of your life every so often.