First Partial Mash Recipe Advice, Please

[rotten]

G'day all.
I'm doing a partial mash very soon and I would like some recipe advice Please. So far ingredients I have to choose from are
1.5 kg light liquid malt extract
1 kg light dried malt extract
1 kg dark dried malt extract
1 kg weyermann munich 2
1 kg roast barley
1 kg medium crystal

Hops I have or like are Amarillo. Nelson Sauvion, Saaz, Perle. Just to name the few I have tried really. I like a bitter, hoppy, malty beer most of the time, at least 28 IBU pref higher. I know I don't have enough grain, but I don't know what to get more of. I will boil 8 ltrs liquor at least (depending on what esky i use to mash) total volume 19-20ltr
Any help greatly appreciated.
Cheers

[Bum]

Really rough (and completely pissed) version of advice:
all the LDME and LME, munich and crystal to 300/400g (haven't run the numbers but top up with dex, if required, to 1060ish), bitter with perle with big, late additions of Amarillo and NS to 55/65IBU total for and AIPAish thing that should be alright if you like that kind of thing.

[bullfrog]

A kilo of roasted barley?? I would have dropped that to about 300-400g. Horse for courses, and all that, but you may find that a kilo is way more than you'd want.

Okay, I re-read it, that's just what you have around, not what you're putting in the brew. Do excuse me, I've not yet had a coffee this morning.

Were you looking to make something dark and roasty like a stout? I've had a few American stouts which were quite nice and that I'm sure used a lot of Amarillo, but my most often brewed stout recipe just calls for Fuggles and EKG (and Northern Brewer as the first addition, when I can get my hands on it -- LHBS doesn't stock it) so it turns out a bit more English-styled than American.

You could mash your kilo of Munich with 300g Roasted Barley, 200g Crystal and maybe 200-300g Choc if you can get it. Then I'd add the 1.5kg LLME and 1kg LDME. Hop schedule would depend on whether you were looking for an American or English style.

For an American-style stout maybe:
20g Amarillo @ 60
10g Nelson Sauvin @ 20
10g Amarillo @ 20

For a more English approach, perhaps:
20g Northern Brewer @ 60
20g Fuggles @ 20
20g EKG @ 20

[drsmurto]

Agree with Bum although i think you could just as easily make a nice hoppy pale ale rather than a brutal AIPA.

Here is my take on it

Recipe
0.75 kg Extra Light Dry Extract (5.9 EBC) Dry Extract 21.43 %
1.50 kg Pale Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Extract 42.86 %
1.00 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 28.57 %
0.25 kg Crystal (Joe White) (141.8 EBC) Grain 7.14 %
20.00 gm Pearle [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 21.3 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.50 %] (20 min) Hops 10.3 IBU
15.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] (5 min) Hops 4.8 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
Yeast - US05

Mash the munich and crystal in 3L of water @ 65C for 60 mins. At a guess you would need the water to be ~72C to start with as the cold grain and cold esky/pot will drop the temp. Sit for 60 mins then strain into your pot and sparge with another 4L of 65+C water. Top up to 8-9L and bring to the boil.

Hop schedule as above, you could add more hops in at flameout if you wanted more aroma or dry hop. Add the extract to the pot to dissolve and drop the pot into a sink of cold water to cool down. Once cold strain into a fermenter and top up with tap water to 19-20L. Pitch yeast. Ferment at 18-20C.

My calcs
20L
OG 1.050
IBU 36 (based on the above AA%)

The resulting beer will be malty but with a nice bitterness and plenty of hop flavour/aroma. I've used amarillo and NS in combination before and love the result. I always use munich malt in my hoppy pales to get a good malt backbone.

Cheers
DrSmurto

p.s. you could easily mash that much grain in your pot on the stove. Warm the water up in the pot and add the grain.

[rotten]

Thanks for that guys. Going to pick up order from beerbelly this weekend doc so will brew your recipe Sunday, sounds perfect for me. Might even see if they have any NASA burners yet.
Cheers.

[drsmurto]

If you want a NASA burner or similar check out Gaganis Bros. in Hindmarsh.

[Bum]

i think you could just as easily make a nice hoppy pale ale rather than a brutal AIPA.

Try as I might I can't make sense of this statement...?

Yeah, your recipe does look pretty tasty, DrS. I'd dry hop or lean on the late additions a little harder but I'm pretty mad for that US fruity thing.

[rotten]

Hey Bum, nothing wrong with your suggestion, I do aim to try somethinng along those lines. The doc's was just what I was after this time around, and something that I know I will enjoy.
Cheers

[Bum]

Well, there are one or two things wrong with my suggestion. In the cold, hard light of day (sobriety) my suggestion is barely a partial at all. I decided to go easy on the munich because I was worried that more would come out a little chewy with all the extract I suggested (remembering that extract is pretty famous for not fermenting out as much as we'd sometimes expect). Probably should have suggested something more like all the LME, 1kg munich, 200g crystal then use more dex to make up the OG (and dry it out a little).

Even with these amendments, DrSmurto's is still a more doable recipe (in that it will be more approachable and balanced). Be sure to let us know how it turns out.

[rotten]

Brewed partial mash last night, this is recipe I went with and what i did/what happened.

1 kg Munich 1
250 g Medium Crystal
750 g Light Dried Malt Extract
1.5 kg Light Liquid Malt Extract
20 g Perle @ 60 min
15 g Amarillo @ 20 min
20 g Nelson Sauvin @ 5 min
15 g Amarillo @ flameout
US-05 yeast pitched @ 21c

Drsmurto and TL's partial mash instructions are slightlty different, for this one I followed Drsmurto although I incorporated some of TL's advice as well.

Put munich and crystal into mashtun (12ltr pot) added 3 ltrs strikewater @ 74c which dropped to 66c after stirred. Great start although I later read I should be adding grain to strikewater, will this matter?
Mashed for an hour stirring about every 15 min, added 300ml near boiling water @ 30 min to keep temp above 60c.
Scooped grain and liquor into strainer over boil pot while sparge water heated up.
4 ltrs sparge water @ 65-70c slowly poured over mash to drain into boil pot.
Topped boil pot up with 2 ltrs water to get approx 8-9 ltrs for boil.
Boil went fine with the above hop schedule. Added 1.5 ltrs boiling water to boil with 10 mins left.
Added Liquid Malt and Dried Malt at flameout. Will change this next time and do 2 boils, one wort, one extract with half hops in each.
Cooled, into fermenter, topped up to 20 ltr, pitch yeast 20-21c.
OG 1040
This was low, supposed to be around 1050. Any suggestions on what to improve?
Cheers

[drsmurto]

A couple of thoughts and a big disclaimer

Disclaimer - i haven't done a partial mash, i went straight from kits to AG. So i haven't read TL's partial mash thread other than a quick glance a few years ago.

Thoughts
If you are mashing in a pot you could pre-heat your oven to ~65C and put the pot in their once you have started mashing. That will retain the heat. Grain to water, or water to grain, it doesn't matter.

Sparging, probably best to add the sparge water and the grain back to the pot and stir. Let sit for 5 mins and then strain. Instead of top up water you could add more sparge water. Apologies for not thinking of this before hand.

The OG of 1.050 depends of your efficiency and it appears you got a very low efficiency. Part of that is probably not sparging with enough water and that is my fault for some dodgy advice, again, sorry for that.

Since you have a 12L pot you could so a 10L boil allowing you to sparge with a lot more water which will rinse more sugars from the grain.

OG of 1.040 isn't too much of a problem, you'll end up with a beer of ~3.5% so a mid-strength hoppy ale. I currently have a beer on tap that started at 1.036 and is a great session beer.

Cheers
DrSmurto

[rotten]

No disclaimer neccassary!
I'm excited to have my first partial done and just learning as I go. I bought a 19 ltr pot last week so I could up the sparge water even more if needed, and increase boil size. As a rule of thumb how much sparge water per kilo of grain is too much?

Cheers and thanks for all the help!

[drsmurto]

For a full size batch (20L), i mash in with 4.5kg of grain and 13L of water (I normally aim for between 2.8-3L/kg for the mash). The grain soaks up ~1.1L/kg of water so i drain ~8L off. I sparge with 20L of water to get 28L of pre-boil.

So when doing a full sized batch you sparge with enough water to hit your pre boil volume target.

If you are getting a bigger pot you can increase the % of grain you use assuming you have a pot/esky of a decent size to mash in as well.

Beersmith is very useful for partials, it's what i used to work out the recipe for you.

[rotten]

Thanks again Drsmurto. I finally worked out how to use brewmate so will play around with that as it's free. The last recipe was only slightly different in numbers to beersmith.

P.S. i bought 4.5 kg of smurto golden ale grain from beerbelly, surely you must have a good recipe for that one.
Cheers

[Bum]

Your recipe looks pretty tasty, rotten.

As DrS points out, your lower OG isn't a huge worry.

Well done and I can't wait to hear how it turns out.

[rotten]

I went back to my recipe and dropped the OG to 1040. 24% efficientcy. Just as well it only has to taste good.
Cheers

[SuperBroo]

P.S. i bought 4.5 kg of smurto golden ale grain from beerbelly, surely you must have a good recipe for that one.
Cheers

Link to the recipe here Rotten

http://homebrewandbeer.com/forum/viewto ... =11&t=8645

[rotten]

Thanks Grog, i have seen that recipe. Have i misunderstood the grain I bought? Could it be blended already? It was sold as 'smurtos golden ale wey, make 23 ltr'.

Apologies to drsmurto if comment was condescending, purely meant as a compliment.
Cheers

[drsmurto]

Ah, yes. Beerbelly sells DrSmurto's Golden Ale as a pack. Well, 2 versions of it. One is all weyermann malts which is what i used originally (and what you have bought) and there is also a JW version.

But what you have is a full size 23L AG pack that has already been (crushed?) mixed up so you need to brew a 23L AG batch. You can't just weigh out a portion of it and do a partial.

This is fine as you can do a slightly concentrated boil and then dilute back to 23L after the boil or do a split boil. I do concentrated boils when doing double batches so i can help you out with the calculations.

Assuming you have the hops and yeast as well then you are set to go.

When you get your 19L pot we can work out how to go about it.

If you lived a tad closer i would drop by and help you out.

[rotten]

When you get your 19L pot we can work out how to go about it.

If you lived a tad closer i would drop by and help you out.

Thanks for the offer doc. I did ask if it would be O.K for partials and the reply was 'should be'. Take that as a no next time. Right now I have a 12 ltr and a 19 ltr pot, thinking of buying another 19 ltr pot for $20 until i get my 50 ltr! I do have plenty of Amarillo, US-05 yeast though is busy for next 2 weeks until i bottle. Only other yeast I have is S-04.
Cheers