A mini-mash mangle of Jamil's Export 80 recipe

[jaydub]

On one of Jamil's earlier appearances on TBN, he kindly provided us with a recipe for Scottish Ale that I thought I'd try as a mini-mash. The account, below, is an outline of that experience. I first list the abridged recipe (the full Promash recipe is posted elsewhere on the forums), then the modifications to it I made to turn it into a mini-mash.

I then take you on a journey of a confident, but green, extract brewer down the path of folly that took a simple recipe and turned it into a strange Frankenstein monster of its idealized self.

I should say that at the moment, the results are burbling happily away in my primary fermenter, with a thick, healthy head of krausen and no off-odours. I'll probably send in the final, bottled beer for the Brewcasters to compare with their memories of the original stuff.

05-C Scottish Ale, Export 80

76.8 8.50 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3
4.5 0.50 lbs. Munich Malt Germany 1.037 8
4.5 0.50 lbs. Honey Malt Canada 1.030 18
9.0 1.00 lbs. Crystal 40L America 1.034 40
3.4 0.38 lbs. Crystal 120L America 1.033 120
1.7 0.19 lbs. Chocolate Malt - Light Great Britain 1.034 200

0.85 oz. Goldings - E.K. Pellet 5.70 19.9 60 min.

White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Mash Schedule
-------------
Saccharification Rest Temp : 158 Time: 60
Mash-out Rest Temp : 168 Time: 15
Sparge Temp : 170 Time: 60

Below lie the rantings of a madman:

5 lbs Coopers Light DME

1.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) American
1.50 lbs. Munich Malt Germany
0.50 lbs. Honey Malt Canada
1.00 lbs. Crystal 60L American
0.50 lbs. Chocolate Malt - Belgian

0.75 - 1oz Goldings - E.K. Pellet@60min
(scale's not that accurate for 0.85oz)

Minimash procedures
(all water treated w/pot-met to eliminate chloramine)

Set aside 1QT cold water
Heated 1QT boiling water
Set oven to "warm"

Heated 5QT water to 180F

Mixed grains into wife's spaghetti pot
Stirred in 5QT hot water

Initial temperature = 130F!!!

Added 1QT very hot water

New temperature = 141F
Popped mash into heated oven & scratched head (pot is very, very close to too full)
Got wife's 2QT saucepan and scooped ~1.5 QTS of mash into it
Returned main mash to oven
Boiled saucepan in pathetic imitation of a decoction mash
Returned boiled decoction to main mash

New temperature = 148F

Repeated wild-ass decoction technique

New temperature = 155F

Left in oven for 60 min & cleaned up evidence of pot-pilfering

Heated 1QT mash-out water to 200F
Removed main mash from oven
Final temperature = 160F

Added mash-out water
New temperature = 170F
Back into oven for 15mins

Heated (batch) sparge water to 170

Got SWMBO's help to hold spaghetti colander over kettle while I gently poured mash into it ( 3 gal main boil water already in it)
Placed colander in kettle & batch sparged 15 min
Poured "2nd runnings" into main kettle

Boiled 30 min
Added hops
Boiled another 30 min
Stirred in dry malt extract
Hyperventilated while preventing standard DME boilover event
Added immersion chiller to sterilize
Boiled another 30 min

Pulled a gravity sample: 1.073 - should have used more water!
Gently poured in water to ~ 5 gallon mark & boiled 20 min
Separately boiled another gallon of water on stove
Pulled a second gravity sample: 1.054
Poured in half of boiled gallon: 1.048

Chilled to ~85F with tap water, then switched to bucket of ice water & chilled below 70
Poured kettle into sanitized bottling bucket & went to bed

Woke up
transferred to primary fermenter (sans trub, thanks Justin) & pitched yeast

Comments, anyone?

Note: important edit!

[2DogAle]

For an extract brewer who wants to try mashing all I have to say it Oh.... My..... God!!! You know, if this turns out well for you I have to try it myself, and I mean exactly the way you did it my friend. Any variation from that process would be deadly.

Thanks,

Rob

[jaydub]

Yeah, I really wasn't expecting the trouble hitting the mash temperatures. Evidently your initial mash-in water needs to be hotter than I was expecting. Any guidance from the gurus is appreciated there.

The other oddity was the amount of water I lost in the main boil. I remember looking at it when I was adding the DME and going, "Hmm, maybe it'll look fuller once I get the extract in". I wanted to cut down on the boil time for the extract, as suggested by some of the conversations on the show. Then, once I found I was short and added water, I wanted to make sure I had at least 20 minutes to boil the added water. In anticipation of still needing to add more, I boiled the last addition separately, which was a wise move as it turned out.

Total time from raiding the cooking pot cabinet to going to bed was 6 hours (6pm to midnight). I hadn't planned to start that late, but SWMBO had conditions that needed to be fulfilled before she gave up the spaghetti pot. I'll admit that I was more careful to avoid spills once I had spent 2 hours scrubbing the kitchen floor first.

[jamilz]

It will probably be fine. I'm sure you made a good beer.

The part that sticks out for me is the 1/2 lb of chocolate malt. It is going to be quite roasty, more like a brown ale than a Scottish.

[jaydub]

My LHBS was out of dark crystal malts, so I upped the chocolate proportion to compensate. It is indeed darker than I thought it would be.

I had 2 objectives going into this
1) Making a good beer
2) Having some fun working towards mashing skills

I think I succeeded on both those counts. I'm rarely put out by having to improvise on the fly (which makes me a good researcher and a poor QC technician for my paying work). Doing this gives me a good idea about where the tricky parts of mashing are. I'll definitely try it again.

[jamilz]

That is a great way to look at it and I'm certain the results will be just fine.

[dawgfur]

I recently attempted my first mini-mash with the B3 oatmeal stout kit.
I used a 5-gallon water cooler, purchased at Walmart for about $19, and a large steeping bag to hold my mash grains.
I heated my strike water temp to about 170F, and after I mixed up in the grains I got down to a nice 154F, which held during the entire rest in the cooler!
I read up on strike water temperatures from John Palmers, "How to Brew" website. Check it out: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter16-1.html
Without this information, I probably would have been very lost, and suffered far worse folly than you!

Well, the beer came out just fine, and I've done two all grain batches since. Once you get the hang of it, your brewing experience will take off to another level, very fast!

Good luck!

Bill