Beer Forum

Disclaimer: I'm new to both brewing & forum posting - if I need to look on other threads, please just point it out.

That being said, I'm ready to go to partial mash, but have a couple extract recipes that I really like. How should I go about converting the recipes toward partial mash? I've found formulas that allow for conversion from ectract to all grain, but I haven't had any luck converting to mini-mash.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

There are fairly complete instructions on John Palmer's website www.howtobrew.com . Basicaly, you need to take exchange part of the "base" extract you would use and replace it with an appropriate base malt, such as 2 row or pale ale. (Make sure your local homebrew shop mills the grain for you, many people have forgoton this step when starting out.) To make it easier to figure out how much grain to exchange for extract, I use brewing software (I'm partial to ProMash), inputing my original recipe to calculate my starting gravity. Then, I remove an appropriate amount of extract from the recipe and add in enough base malt until I return to my original starting gravity.

John's website has very detailed instructions, with pictures, on how to partial mash. I would very strongly urge you to buy a copy of the book if you havn't already. He has "taught" many of us how to get started on the road to all-grain.

Hope this helps,
Alan

Wow, thanks Alan

I'm amazed at how quickly information is exchanged on this forum. I'm picking up tips and tricks everyday! The shop where I buy my brewing supplies is half computer/gadget/RC car shop, and the guys that run it don't seem to really know much about the products they're selling. You guys on the forum are life savers!

to convert extract to partial mash, we use promash, but basically one pound of briess DME = 1.75 pounds grain. So figure out how much you can mash (our large mesh bags, 18x22", holds 7 pounds or so maximum), divide by 1.75, and subtract that from the extract recipe DME total.

That's a pretty good rule of thumb.

Fierce Beard wrote:Wow, thanks Alan

I'm amazed at how quickly information is exchanged on this forum. I'm picking up tips and tricks everyday! The shop where I buy my brewing supplies is half computer/gadget/RC car shop, and the guys that run it don't seem to really know much about the products they're selling. You guys on the forum are life savers!

I have been there once. Pretty strange store. I believe the owners name is Curt and he is a BJCP judge, but the workers there are electro-geeks. They are nice and try to help, but.....
They do have some good stuff there, including air-soft and paintball guns, computers and tvs and all kinds of goofy stuff.
Also, the flow of info on here is pretty amazing. If you have a valid question, it is usually answered quite quickly. Good info and good personalities to go with it. Mostly.
I think I am going to pick up a sack of 2-row this weekend sometime. Probably Saturday afternoon sometime. Let me know if you want to meet up at McCann's for a beer or 3. Or meet up at Nitro. Whichever, both ways end with a good brewskie!