Wanna graduate from extract to partial mash..but

Been doing extracts for a few months and am building up the guts to do a partial mash…I have everything I need but for the grain bag…am curious as to what size and courseness I should get…and do I take the grain out of the bag and into a strainer when spurging? Getting a little apprehensive…lol…same as my first brew! Which went great and tasted great…any tips and/or link to help me?

You can go get a paint straining bag if you want, or use a couple of muslin bags with a pound or so of grain in each. Leave the grain in them when sparging.

I’m a total noob but have a few partial mashes under my belt and I love it. I picked up the 5 gallon paint straining bag (2 pack) for about $3 at Lowe’s. Fits well in my 5 gallon BK over the rim and handles.

After mashing in I put the lid on and put the kettle in a warm oven for an hour to maintain the temp. When it’s time to sparge I pull the bag out of the kettle and place it in a strainer resting on top of the kettle. I have the sparge water in another pot ready and scoop it out about 2 cups at a time and pour it slowly over all the grains in the open bag in the strainer and let it drip or give it a little squeeze to help it along. After that, it’s the same as extract brewing. :blah:

I haven’t tried to figure out the efficiency, but every time I’ve done it this way, I’ve exceeded the expected SG. :cheers:

Definitely go PM! Don’t be afraid or hesitant. Sure, it makes your brew day about 1.5 hours longer, but it’s totally worth it. Your beer will taste more professional than extract w/steeping grains. It’s probably the best move I’ve made so far in my brewing journey, aside from implementing fermentation temp control and making yeast starters.

I use this bag from NB. It’s plenty big for any PM, probably good for 3-gallon BIABs too:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew ... 4-214.html

I originally would mash in my kettle like Mabus suggested, keeping the lid on the kettle, obviously, putting it in a warm oven (down to 170*, as low as my oven goes) and I would cut the heat on the oven once I put the kettle in. The trapped heat in the oven keeps the mash temp within 1-2 degrees, which is perfectly fine. I’ve since invested in a 3 gallon igloo cooler and mash in that now instead.

As for sparging, I would also put my grain in a colander over my brew kettle and slowly pour the sparge water over it, but I found that the colander wasn’t big enough to hold all my grain. So now I batch sparge in my 3-gallon igloo cooler. It works nicely because you can drain the wort right out of the cooler spigot into your kettle after your sparge. You can also vorlauf, if you want. This is basically recirculating a few quarts of wort back on top of the grain to help clear it.

Hope that info is helpful. Don’t be afraid to jump into PM. Just read over the instructions a few times before you try it and make sure you’re prepared. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

Thanks for the imput guys…ordered the Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat pm kit from NB…I’m sure I’ll be fine…I’ll make beer!