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Good info for partial mashers - mini-mashers- brew in a bag ....

SleepySamSlim

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I was not aware of this issue about diastatic power and mashing in any of the articles I've read on stove-top mashing. You definitely want to read this. I created a simple spreadsheet to plug numbers in to calculate a recipes Lintner value. All but 2 of my mini-mash recipes were ok.


http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2010/01/04/diastatic-power-and-mashing-your-beer/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BeersmithcomHomeBrewingBlog+%28BeerSmith.com+Home+Brewing+Blog%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
 
Interesting read,

I'm confused about something though.  I thought conversion for the specialty grains was really a non-issue as conversion already happened at the maltster? In other words, I thought if you were a partial mash guy/gal you didn't need to worry about conversion for those speciality grains and all you needed to do was to steep them to get the goodies out of them since all of their sugars have already been converted?

Also, if I'm wrong and only most of their sugars have been converted, as compared to base malts, do you still need the diastatic power you would need to convert base malt sugars?

Good article though, I feel I know more after having read it
 
I think the key here is mashing - where you are counting on your grist to actually produce a malty liquid versus just steeping with say crystal malts. In an extract only recipe all the malty-ness is coming from your extract and the steeping grains are adding only color - flavors - and a very low amount of malt body. In any of the mashing styles you are counting on your mash to not just add some color and flavors -- but also some malt body. And a key part of is to have enough diastatic power to have that conversion occur within your typical mash time.

And I'm still working thu this - but the key (apparently) for a good mash is having sufficient diastatic power in your grist. Thats all I got - I'm just glad I stumbled across the article. Next piece of info in to understand what level(s) of diastatic power relate to mash time / grist volume(s)
 
      So if you have a lot of specialty grains, to achieve a malt-body profile in a beer, but the stove top pot (mash tun) can't hold any more base malt needed to achieve the diastatic power for conversion,
couldn't you use the lower range of mashing temperatures to help the enzymes that are there, start breaking down the sugars into smaller chains? ( Thus helping conversion )
stevemwazup
 
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