mashing

Great beer balances bitterness, color, flavor and body. As an all-grain brewer, you need understand how to control the body of your home brewed beer using mash temperature. By altering your mash schedule to match the style of beer you are brewing you can achieve precise control over the body of your beer…

Batch sparging has become a popular technique for all grain home brewers. This week I invite Denny Conn who is an expert in batch sparging to provide his advice on the best way to batch sparge your home brewed beer. Download the MP3 File – Right Click and “Save As” to download this mp3 file […]

This week we go all grain with Grandmaster brewing judge Gordon Strong. Gordon tells you how to make the leap from extract brewing to all-grain, including basic equipment, how to do a simple infusion mash, and sparging. Gordon also shares his thoughts on his new book “Brewing Better Beer” which was just released. Download the […]

This week I interview Dr Charles Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch endowed Professor of Brewing Science a the University of California at Davis. We talk about the entire all grain mashing process for beer brewing from start to finish. Charlie explains how mashing actually works, how changes in the process affect the finished beer, and the role […]

Pat Hollingdale

From half a world away in Australia, Patrick Hollingdale is my guest for this week’s episode. We talk about the Brew-in-a-Bag (BIAB) all grain brewing technique that started in Australia but has become popular worldwide. BIAB lets an all grain brewer start with nothing more than a large pot and grain bag and brew a […]

Diastatic Power and Mashing your Beer

by Brad Smith on January 4, 2010 · 52 comments

This week we cover the technical topic of the diastatic power for mashing your all grain beer. While rarely covered, this topic is an important one, especially for home brewers making beers with high percentages of non-barley or specialty grains. This is an important topic for partial mash brewers as well, since they are often […]

Mashing for All Grain Beer Brewing

by Brad Smith on July 16, 2009 · 14 comments

mash-door-web

Mashing can be a mystical process for first time all-grain or partial mash beer brewers. At its heart, the mashing process uses hot water and natural enzymes to convert complex sugars from malt into simpler sugars that can be readily fermented. We covered the basics of infusion mashing in an earlier article. At its essence, […]

Avoiding a Stuck Sparge for All Grain Beer

by Brad Smith on April 24, 2009 · 15 comments

barley_beer_web

A stuck sparge can be a painful experience when brewing all grain beers. New all grain brewers often find their sparge has come to a complete halt when brewing their favorite beer, so this week we look at how to avoid this common home brewing problem.

Decoction Mashing for Beer Recipes

by Brad Smith on September 1, 2008 · 11 comments

Decoction mashing is a great way to enhance the flavor and clarity of your all grain beer recipes, and requires only minimal additional equipment and time. Few homebrewers use decoction mashing in their recipes, but it is a very powerful technique for enhancing many styles of beer. This week we’re going to demystify decoction mashing so you can add it to your arsenal of homebrewing tools.