Oh man, I'm kinda broke right now and also I'm busy. I really want to play around with mashing on the single variable process I describe below.

First, I have for the first time set up not one but two kegs of beer in my place. An IPA and a Pale Ale. The second was the first aniversary beer--I brewed it one year from the first nextweek brewing ever. The pale ale is known as Return to Ale Pale, since it was the first beer I had brewed in ages. It was a pale ale. I also have an amber ale in secondary.

The Return to Ale Pale is pretty good. Troube in the carbonation hurt it a bit, I think. I've learned a thing or two about kegging recently, though. Not everything there is as promised, but it sure helped prevent glasses of foam.

What's all this talk about playing around with mashing? I'll tell you: experiementation. I'm going to make several small mashes controlling as much as I can every variable except the mash process. The result will be several worts that I will ferment with the same yeast, thereby enabling me to infer the effect of the mash process on the basis of the attenuation of each sample.

Each mash will be conducted in four steps:

1. A rest at 125 degees for 15 minutes.


2. A rest at 145 degrees. The time of this rest is the independent variable of the experiement.


3. A rest at 155 degrees for 45 minutes.


4. A rest at 167 degrees for 5 minutes

During the rests, each mash will be monitored for temperature drops. Heat will be added to bring the mash back to the rest temperature if it falls below the specified temperature. The first stage of the mash will be an infusion of the crushed grain with water at The mash will be raised to the next steps by the application of direct heat to the mash vessel (a pot on a kitchen stove.)

An iodine test for starch conversion will be condcuted at the beginning of each rest, plus once every fifteen minutes during stage 3 of the mash. This information may be useful in determining whether, as a part of actual mash practice, a rest at 155 degrees will benefit from the full 45 minutes of the rest; however, the results of these iodine tests suggest further experiementation rather than offering a conclusive determination of the value of the 45 minute duration.

The mash constitution will in every case be 1 pound of breiss 2-row pale malt and 1.5 quarts of water. This will remain constant throughout the mash.

Extraction of the fermentable matter after the mash presents a slight challenge. It would be nice if each the extraction from each mash were identically prepared because to do so controls for unforseen variables and makes it possible to measure the extraction effciency of each mash. One hopes that this will remain constant across mashes, however, such variation as mash proceedure induces should be recorded. And here the experimenter must be judicious, for the potential extract of the mash is 38 ppg, which is 152 pp quart, or a specific gravity of 1.101 in 1.5 quarts. With 75% efficiency, we have a SG fo 1.075. While such a mash gravity may be high for ordinary brewing purposes, such a gravity suggests itself for the present experiment, for it allows greater precision in attenuation calculation--a difference of .001 in SG for a wort of gravity 1.040 amounts to a 2.5% difference in attenuation; a difference of .001 for a wort of graity 1.075 amounts to a 1.3% difference in attenuation. This means that small differences in attenuation will be more detectable with a higher gravity wort. All this, I believe justifies a spargeless method of extraction: simply add the entire volume of mash to a strainer and allow the liquid to run-off until 1.1 quarts of liquid are extracted. The extra .1 quarts being useful for measuring th gravity of the initial extract.

Fermentation will be conducted in such fermenters as are available. Originally, I had thought to use slurry from a batch of completed beer to ferement each wort, however, this strikes me as perhaps undesirable because it would reduce the repeatability of the experiement, thererby making the results less verifiable and confounding slightly further experiments to extend the results of this one. Instead, yeast will be prepared from one packet of dried ale yeast and a uniform amount (likely 15mL) added to each wort for fermentation.

The rest is pretty much up to the yeast. I will allow all the fermentations to proceed for the same amount of time, probably two weeks. Then I will test the net attenuation.

Oh, how many test mashes will there be and what will the mashes look like? Keep in mind the only variable will be the time alloted for stage two above. I will probably do 0 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute and 45 minute batches.