Partial Mash vs Steeping

[abdominousabel]

I found a recipe for a mango ipa and it says 1lb of caramel malt for steeping and 9lb of DME. The steeping grain efficiency is 25%.

Question 1: Is “Steeping” the same as Partial Mashing? If not how do they differ (I know partial mash, not steeping)

Assumption: I assume not because the efficiency is horrible if it was mashed

Question 2: If Q1 is that they are different. Can I mash to have roughly 70% efficiency and not use 9lb DME but instead 6lb DME maybe.

Question 3: Will partial mashing instead of steeping change the flavor?

 

[Kent88]

Just something that I like to say- there is nothing partial about doing a small mash. It is a mash. Many people call it a mini-mash. I call it partial-extract brewing. But that is just me fighting a pretty much losing battle.

Q1- The way I look at it, Mini-mashing involves some enzyme activity and starch conversion. Steeping is mostly to extract color and flavor, and a little starch/sugar that goes mostly unaffected by enzymes.

Q2- Probably. You'd have to do a mini-mash with some base malt. What kind of DME is it? You can play around with BrewersFriend recipe calculator and make sure you get the same OG as you would from the method recommended by the recipe.

Q3- Depends on the grain. For something like this it probably wont change the flavor much.

 

[bucketnative]

Steeping is not the same as mashing.

With steeping, you are essentially rinsing starches and complex sugars from the specialty grains.

With mashing, you are relaying on the amylase enzymes in the malt to convert the starches in the malt to fermentable sugars. This requires a base malt with enough diastatic power (DP) to convert the starches. So, a pilsner malt has a DP of about 125 °L, which is plenty to self convert and contribute to the conversion of specialty grains, like a caramel malt. Caramel malt itself typical has a DP of 0 °L, which means it doesn't have the necessary enzymes to convert the starches to fermentable sugar.

If you added some pilsner (or other base malt) to the partial mash, it would most likely result in a lighter (drier) beer with a slightly higher ABV.

 

[bpgreen]

A couple of other people posted while I was creating this reply, and all of the responses are fairly similar, but I'll post anyway.

Mashing and steeping are different.

When you steep, you're using specialty grains that were kilned to convert starches to sugars. They are then heated to specific temperatures to get the colors and flavors desired. Most of the sugars in specialty malts are not fermentable.

When you steep, you use base malts that have enzymes that will convert starches to sugars. Some of these sugars are fermentable and some are not (there are a number of factors that determine how much will be fermentable, but mashing temperature is probably the biggest).

If you're doing a partial mash, you can include the steeping grains with the base malt. This will usually lead to more of the sugars in the steeping grains being fermentable (still mostly unfermentable, but some sugars will be converted to fermentable sugars in the mash).

So, to answer your questions:

Q1: They're similar, but different.
Q2: If you only use caramel malt, that's a steep, not a mash, and you wouldn't want to use more caramel malt and reduce the amount of DME used, since most of the sugars are not going to ferment. If you include a base malt, you can reduce the amount of DME used (depending on how much base malt is used).
Q3: It depends on what grain(s) you use and how much you use, but if you use something like two row, you probably won't change the flavor much (although in my opinion, doing a partial mash tends to lead to a "fresher" flavor, but this could be confirmation bias).

 

[abdominousabel]

Q1- The way I look at it, Mini-mashing involves some enzyme activity and starch conversion. Steeping is mostly to extract color and flavor, and a little starch/sugar that goes mostly unaffected by enzymes.

Q2- Probably. You'd have to do a mini-mash with some base malt. What kind of DME is it? You can play around with BrewersFriend recipe calculator and make sure you get the same OG as you would from the method recommended by the recipe.

Q3- Depends on the grain. For something like this it probably wont change the flavor much.

A couple of other people posted while I was creating this reply, and all of the responses are fairly similar, but I'll post anyway.

Mashing and steeping are different.

When you steep, you're using specialty grains that were kilned to convert starches to sugars. They are then heated to specific temperatures to get the colors and flavors desired. Most of the sugars in specialty malts are not fermentable.

When you steep, you use base malts that have enzymes that will convert starches to sugars. Some of these sugars are fermentable and some are not (there are a number of factors that determine how much will be fermentable, but mashing temperature is probably the biggest).

If you're doing a partial mash, you can include the steeping grains with the base malt. This will usually lead to more of the sugars in the steeping grains being fermentable (still mostly unfermentable, but some sugars will be converted to fermentable sugars in the mash).

So, to answer your questions:

Q1: They're similar, but different.
Q2: If you only use caramel malt, that's a steep, not a mash, and you wouldn't want to use more caramel malt and reduce the amount of DME used, since most of the sugars are not going to ferment. If you include a base malt, you can reduce the amount of DME used (depending on how much base malt is used).
Q3: It depends on what grain(s) you use and how much you use, but if you use something like two row, you probably won't change the flavor much (although in my opinion, doing a partial mash tends to lead to a "fresher" flavor, but this could be confirmation bias).

Here's the link to the recipe https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/206864/mango-ipa

9lb of Pilsen DME ran me about $35, and if I mash and use less DME it I can stretch out the 9lb I already bought.

Which base malt should I use as a fermentable? Should I still steep the specialty gain while my wort is boiling if I mash?

 

[RM-MN]

The other posters have skirted around your question. Steeping can be done at a wide range of temperature and unless there is a base malt and the temperature is within a small range you get the sugars that were converted already from the Crystal/caramel malts and flavor and color from the rest. Base malts will have diastatic power listed as degrees Lintner.

If you include base malts and keep the temperature in the range of ~148 to ~158 the enzymes that these malts contain will cause the long chain starches to break apart into sugars. Most base malts contain enough enzymes to convert their own starches and some from the other grains too. If you stray too far outside the temperature range mentioned, the enzymes will either not be activated if too cool or destroyed by being too hot. In that case the starches will remain unconverted and your base malts will have been steeped.

Caramel malt has no diastatic power but it is sweet because of the way it was formed which converted a lot of its starches to sugar already. Add a bit of pale malt and its enzymes will convert more of the starches left in the caramel malt to fermentable sugars. Use enough pale malt and you can do without the DME. How much? Well, that depends on how your mash efficiency is and that depends a lot on the crush of the grain and your technique. Nobody can give you a straight answer on this.

 

[Kent88]

You should replace Pilsen DME with Pilsner Malt. If you are in a jam and can't get any pilsner malt, I would assume some generic 2-row should be fine for this recipe. You can play around with the numbers within BrewersFriend to adjust the amount of malt and DME you use (it isn't a 1-to-1 substitution), and make sure you're still getting an OG of 1.077, and make sure you adjust the efficiency percentage to what you think you can do with your system.

It is not recommended that you steep grains in boiling wort. When grains are steeping, you typically want the water to be around 145-155 fahrenheit, never above 170, and probably not any lower than 80.

If you need a refresher on mashing, there are a couple links in my signature to some podcasts on TheBrewingNetwork. There is a lot of info crammed in there, if I remember correctly.

 

[bpgreen]

The recipe is using Pilsen DME, so ideally, you'd want to use Pilsen malt. You could use two row in a pinch (I tend to buy two row in bulk, so if I were doing it, I'd use two row instead of Pilsen, but if you need to make a trip to the store, Pilsen would be a better choice).

You'll still want to use the C40. That's going to add color, flavor, and body.

If I were doing it, I'd just put the C40 in with the Pilsen/two row.

I don't have my brewing software handy, but if I remember correctly, as a rule of thumb you'll probably want to use about 5 lbs of grain to replace 3 lbs of DME (this depends on your efficiency). So you could use 6 lbs of DME, 5 lbs of Pilsen/2-row malt, 1 lb of C40.

Mash with 6.5 gallons of water at 152F for an hour, then start the boil. If you can't do a full volume boil, I would hold the extract and just use the wort from the mash for the boil. Add the extract at the end of the boil. If you're doing a full volume boil, include the DME for the full time.

If you haven't used DME before, you should be aware that it can foam suddenly and can quickly overflow just about any pot. And it makes a sticky mess when it does. Watch it like a hawk. It seems to be able to tell when you turn your back and will choose that moment to overflow the pot. A few drops of fermcap-s can help prevent boilovers, but some people don't like to use it.

 

[bpgreen]

As Kent88 said, you should probably use some sort of brewing program to figure out the exact amount of base malt to use (don't go by what I came up with trying to remember conversions off the top of my head).

 

[abdominousabel]

Mash with 6.5 gallons of water at 152F for an hour, then start the boil. If you can't do a full volume boil, I would hold the extract and just use the wort from the mash for the boil. Add the extract at the end of the boil. If you're doing a full volume boil, include the DME for the full time.

Sorry I'm new at this, you say "full volume boil" I assume your mash water and sparge water is your total batch volume. If its not "full volume boil" would that mean that I would have a partial volume wort and add water into my carboy to make the full volume? Am i totally wrong?

I checked on brewersfriend.com and 5lbs of grain was roughly 3lb DME

 

[bpgreen]

Sorry I'm new at this, you say "full volume boil" I assume your mash water and sparge water is your total batch volume. If its not "full volume boil" would that mean that I would have a partial volume wort and add water into my carboy to make the full volume? Am i totally wrong?

I checked on brewersfriend.com and 5lbs of grain was roughly 3lb DME

I guess my memory is better than I thought.

I've only recently started doing all grain batches. Before that, I'd mash to get about 3-4 gallons of wort. If boil that on my stove and add the extract at the end (in my case it was LME). If you're boiling the full volume of wort, add the dme at the beginning. If you're boiling part of it and topping off, add the dme at the end of the boil.