I just finished my 2nd batch of extract brewing. The first time I brewed I was pretty clueless and made some mistakes. This time I prepared a lot more so it seemed real pretty easy and fun.
I was wondering about the next thing I can add to my brewing for the next batch to make it better.
I know I’m not ready or want to all grain yet. I know they have partial mash kits on NB.
What exactly is partial mash and does it really make any difference in flavor??
Do you need any extra equipment?/
For the last kit I had to soak specialty grains before adding malt. Is it similar to that?
Partial mash is similar to steeping grains, but does involve more work. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend reading “How to Brew” by John Palmer ASAP. There is a free version online to help get you started:
How do you control your fermentation temps? I would say the best thing to get down is fermentation temps (after good sanitation of course). Made a huge difference in my beer. I am an all grain brewer, but recently made a couple of extract batches and was pleasantly surprised how good they came out compared to my old batches that had little or no temp control.
Partial mashing will give you a bit more control and open up more variety of beers to make, but it won’t necessarily make the beer better. Partial mashing is very much like doing extract with specialty grains. I did partial mashing for almost a year before jumping into all grain, and used a process similar to this:
In the end though, getting your process down (sanitization, etc.) and fermentation temp control will have a much bigger impact on the final results.
+1 on getting “How to Brew” by Palmer. Great book.
This is just me but I’d skip the partial mash and go straight to all grain later on. If you are looking to upgrade in another area to help your extract beer I’d go fermentation chamber if you want to spend some money. If not I’d go yeast starter kit so you can make sure you are getting the right amount of yeast to get the job done correctly
