Beer Forum

I'm doing my second partial mash today and par for the course I've run into a problem. (first time worked like a charm)

I'm trying to mash 9.75lb of grain in a 16qt cooler. I heated up 3.25gal water for the mash and when I put it in the cooler I realized there isn't enough room for all the grain and water in the tun.

I managed to get all the grain in but I had to drain the tun to do it. I drained off about 8cups of water from it to get all the grains to fit.

It's now mashing at 152º so I have an hour to figure out the best way to proceed.

What should I do now.

I figure I have 2.75gal of water in the tun now. That comes out to about 1.125qt per lb. grain.

I saved the run off and figure I will add it to the sparge water. I took the water out of the tun after I had added the specialty grains, but before I added the base malt.

I'm planing on fly sparging so it shouldn't be a big problem to get enough sparge water.

Never a dull moment

You are MAKING BEER!!

Just go ahead and sparge with your runoff already collected, and what ever amount of fresh sparge water you need to collect your pre boil Volume. You may need to do several seperate sparges, but you will still make beer.

Have fun it, you are doing ok.

Sean

Sounds like your on the righty track! Most impresive...Thats a lot of grain for a 5 gallon partial mini mash. Its almost all grain with a DME suplement. I did partial mash for the larger part of my brewing history and went all grain about 3 months ago and I never exceeded 6 lbs. of grain. What are you brewing? Have a good brew...

It all worked out in the end. Relaxing now

I got 4.5 gal out of the mash. It's an Oatmeal Stout that is basically following this recipe:

http://www.beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/JamilsOatmealStout.htm

But 5gals. and only 60min boil

I did 9.75 lb grain and then after checking the gravity I added 1lb of DME at the end of the boil, bringing it to 1.052.