All-Grain Brew Day Walkthrough (IV: The Mash)

This is the fourth installment in the All-Grain Brew Day Walkthough, which started with a post on strike water preparation

 

IMG_2935

The mash — hot brewing liquor mixed with crushed malt.

This walkthrough is going to focus mostly on the practical. However, at this point, let’s stop and think about what’s going on in the mash. While the mash is progressing, the homebrewer typically does fairly little. He might stir the mash, or his rig may circulate the wort through the grain bed for him, but it’s mostly downtime for the brewer. At the end of the article, I’ll focus on the things you can be doing during the mash, but first, let’s examine what’s happening in the mash tun.

[Read more…]

All-Grain Brew Day Walkthrough (III: Mashing In)

DSCN0118

Mashing in is the mixing of water and grain. Mixing equal volumes of water and crushed malt yields a mash thickness around 1.0 qts./lb. (2.1 L/kg), depending on how loosely the grains are settled.

This is the third installment in the All-Grain Brew Day Walkthough, which started with a post on strike water preparation

Once the brewing liquor is heated and the grist is crushed, it’s time to mash in. Mashing in, or doughing in, is mixing the hot strike water with the crushed grains so they come to rest at the target mash temperature and thickness. Homebrewers have a few options when it comes to mashing in.

[Read more…]

All-Grain Brew Day Walkthrough (I: Strike Water)

IMG_2938Starting this week, I’ll post a series of articles walking readers through an all-grain brew day. Hopefully this will give beginning all-grain brewers — especially those who don’t have access to a homebrew club or a friend who brews — a guide to their first all-grain brew day. For intermediate all-grain brewers, it will hopefully provide a list of options to explore. I’ll focus mostly on the process itself, only mentioning theory when it explains the motivation for a step or provides some interesting information that is not well-known.

[Read more…]