So I've decided to take the next step on my journey to all grain: Partial Mash. I've been wanting to get a bit more customization in my brewing lately and this is the only way how to do that with out some how going all grain. A partial mash is done by replacing a portion of your extract with grains. I've decided to make a Belgian Witbier, because of its quick turn around and it will be a good summer beer.
My recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
3.3# Pils Extract
4# White Wheat Malt
.5# American 6 Row malt
.5# Carapils
.75oz Sterling (6.0%AA) pellets @60 minutes
.64oz Sterling (6.0%AA) pellets flame-out
Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat
Spices:
Bitter Orange Peel 1oz 5 minutes
Coriander Seed, crushed 15 minutes
First of all mashing is the process of converting starches from grain into fermentable sugars. To mash you bring 1-1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain you have to a temperature of 170°F then add the grain you wish to mash. Adding the grain drops the temperature of the water significantly. Once you have the grain in you want the mash temp to be between 154 and 158 depending on the recipe. With a partial mash you can adjust the temp if it gets too low. It takes about an hour to convert the starches to sugars. After the mash you have to drain the water from the grain, which can be done using a mesh grain bag or stainer. Once separated you need to sparge, or rinse the left over sugars off the grains with hot water. The amount of water used for sparging doesn't seem to matter as much with a partial mash than it does with all grain. How much sparge water I will use I will figure out later. All of the runnings are collected in the brewpot and then you add extract then bring to a boil as normal with extract brewing.
