Mini mash in a bag: need help please

Hello all.

So I'm going to do an IPA.

It's an all grain recipe and I've converted it over to an extract with a partial mash type idea.

What I plan to do is put 2 lbs of 2 row, and about 1 more pound of some other grains (1/2 lb each of Crystal 40L and Honey malt) into a grain bag. I'm going to "mash" that in 4 quarts of water at 152 degrees for one hour.

I'm going for conversion of starch to sugars here with these grains.

After the "mash" I'll lift the bag out and then steep with 170 degree water about another quart or so through the grains.

At this point I'll top up to about 3.5 gallons and bring to a boil and run through my hop schedule as outlined in my recipe.

At flameout I'm going to add in all my DME and LME to avoid scorching and off flavors.

Does this sound okay? Particularly the mashing process I've outlined?

Thanks!!

I haven't done a mini-mash in a bag, but your process sounds like it's worth a try to me. With that said, I would probably "mash" with about five quarts and "steep" with more than one (and for just a short while since all you are doing is really rinsing the grains), particularly if you are topping up to 3.5 gallons. Other than that, I would just recommend double checking you hops additions for bitterness as well as flavor since wort gravity affects utilization. Without any dme and lme in your wort during the boil, the gravity should be pretty low, which would increase your utilization.

Have you seen Deathbrewer's partial mash walkthrough? https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

I've done several partial mashes and your process seems good. I agree with J-Drew about steeping in a little more volume. It certainly won't hurt - only help get those sugars out. Are you comfortable with the AG-to-extract conversion you did? Is this for a 5 gallon batch? Partial boil with top-up in fermenter?

Well I did my brew Saturday.

Mini mashed or whatever it's called. 3 lbs of grain in a muslin bag held at 150-155 for an hour. Then sparged with about a quart or two of 170 degree water.

Did my boil, roughly 3.5 gallons. Checked everything in Beersmith and it all checked out.

Pitched yeast at 5:30pm yesterday and still no activity in the airlock....... used two packets of US-05 which I rehydrated first......

Don't know what's going on here.

I think I'm going back to AG next.......

OG was supposed to be in the 1.077 range. Mine was 1.062

I think the reason was I added water to get to about 5.3 gallons in my fermentor and I had to leave a good bit in the pot dug to tremendous amounts of hop sludge and I really was trying to keep as much of it out of the fermentor as possible since this recipe was so hop heavy..... About 7 oz of hops in the boil!

We'll see.....