Adding extra base grain to the partial mash

[driftwood]

So far I've been just making the Northern Brewer extract kits and partial mashing the specialty grains. On the BN they talk alot about recipe formulation and balancing the beer. Am I pretty safe to throw in an extra pound of base malt with the partial mash to give the beer a little more body and alcohol? Or is it not that simple?

I recently acquired a 25kg sack of maris otter from a local homebrew club and was thinking about throwing some in the partial mash with the specialty grains to beef up the beer. Also-- do I need to be careful which style I use the maris otter in, or is that a pretty flavor-neutral base grain to throw in with any extract kit?

Any opinions are appreciated as I have no idea what I am talking about!
Andy

[Pseudolus]

It sounds like you're not really partial mashing, you're steeping. Steeping is putting crystal and/or roasted grains into 150Fish water for a few minutes and leeching their sugars and other flavor components out into the wort. Partical mashing means that you are actually converting starches to sugars through the action of enzymes that are present in the malts, and requires that at least some base malt be present to provide those enzymes. Partial mashing can be done with virtually any brewing grain (including the ones that can also be steeped), and requires a bit more attention to water temperatures and volumes than does steeping. It also takes a little longer, and, possibly, a little more equipment.

Check out these two BYO links for more on partial mashing:
http://byo.com/feature/986.html
http://byo.com/feature/1536.html

Secondly, just adding a pound of extra grain to a recipe (and then mashing it correctly) is probably not the best way to beef up a recipe. As you suspected, it would likely throw off the flavor balance with the other grains and with the hops. If you want to learn how to design great beers, probably the best place to start is a book called, what is it again, I think it's "Designing Great Beers".

[driftwood]

Well crap. I thought I was partial mashing. Based on what I had read, I thought it would be better to "mash" the crushed specialty grains at a specific temperature instead of just throwing them in a bag in the brew pot and letting them go through a range of temperatures as the brew pot heats up. I basically was following the directions for partial mashing that I had found online.

So did I miss the whole point-- that I should be doing this to base grains, not specialty grains? Was there any benefit to doing what I was doing? Should I be partial mashing the specialty grains with the base grains, or just seep the specialty grains and mash some crushed base grains separately? I will read your links later tonight. Right now I need to run to Home Depot before it closes at 10pm--my ejector pump stopped running and my basement floor is all wet-- yuck.

Thanks so much!