Doing a mini mash. Been a while since I did one of these, so getting the measurements is my big priority today.

How much mash water, how much sparge water, how much top kettle top up. I needs to know.

I see that Beersmith doesn’t know what the hell I’m doing. It seems to be calculating the LME into the mash. Well maybe not in the mash as much as in the sparge or something. Its trying to have me sparge out like 6 or so gallons thru the tun. I dont think that would be a good idea with only 2 lbs of grain.

I think I’ll do a normal 1.25 mash, fill the tun up for a mash out, pull it all, and refill. Once. Measure these amounts and top kettle to 4.25 gallons.


Started with 3 quarts of 165 water. Settles at 148. Lots more loss of heat than i thought.
Getting 2 gallons of water for mash out and sparge ready 165

And yep Stuck sparge. I just added a new CPVC manifold to the mini masher. Even when I was cutting the slots I was worried about it. Not much area to be cutting. The few slots get plugged and its over.

Took the nylon bag i had and dumped everything in that. Put the whole thing back into the masher and sparged as normal. worked great. Will probably do that from now on.

Well between first and second sparge we got 2.5 gallons total out. topped up the Kettle to 4.5 and fired it up.

Other than the stuck sparge I think everything seems kosher

Decided to FWH again. Sure makes the boil over happen. pretty tough to keep it down. but eventually settled. Dont know if it was the rye, the hops or what the hell.

Added the extract at 15 min along with another hop addition. More boil over attempts.

Got the last minute hops in. and started chilling.

Am letting it settle out for a bit. Will rack to fermenter and take a reading when I get it in the house.

We took over 3 gallons off. Not so much boil off in my little kettle. Even though she was a rolling pretty good.

Finished with an OG of .052
(ibrewmaster says expected og was .052, Beersmith says .060. Not sure who is right with the smaller boil off. More data needed)

Mini Mash

Getting ready to unleash the mini mash monster. It is functionally ready to brew now but am generally working on two goals.

1- portability. Want to be able to load up easily for roadtrip brewing.
2- electric. For indoor winter brewing.

Not so much worried about 2. I generally have no problems brewing outside in the winter, nor do I mind brewing indoors with current setup. But electric looks cool.

About all I need now for portability is a shorter burner and possibly a different chiller.
The burner I have now is very tall. And would a pain to move around. I need a second burner for my tiered system anyway so might as well factor in a shorter one.
The chiller I use now is made for 5 gallon or more batches. Yes I can and do use it for my smaller batches, but half of it sticks out of the wort. A smaller version would not only be more efficient but easier to transport.

Have been making a list of what I need. Although it looks like alot, most everything is either smaller versions of what I use at home, or easily fits inside something else for moving.

– burner and propane
– 5 gallon kettle
– water jug. Bring my own water and bring wort home
– mini mash tun
– 2 or 3 gallon pail for measuring, sparging, cleaning.
– chiller
– box for tools and ingredients. Coffee cans, thermometers, refracts, spoons, garbage bags, cleaners, starsan, sprayer.
(most likely fit in 5 gal bucket)

And optionally I could bring a smaller pot for the smaller pot, and my own hose with splitter.

That's it. So if there water for chilling, we can brew.
Hopefully I can stop tonight and look at burners. Then we can work on the tiered, and the portable.

Sent from my iPod