The Steamtug Blog

This week’s project was to construct a new mash tun, which will allow me move away from canned malt extract, and make the whole beer from mashed barley. For quite a while now I have been making what’s known as partial mash beers, using the can but instead of adding sugars, mashing grain in my esky (cooler box) or doing it in a bag on the kitchen stove.

I followed some plans from the internet, and with parts from the beer shop ‘Grain and Grape’ in Melbourne, I purchased a 46 litre stockpot, false bottom and with some parts lying around home came up with my new mash tun. I was dying to try it out, so I have already made my first beer with it, but still a partial mash ale just to try it out before moving out of my comfort zone.

I filled it with 10 litres of water heated to 45 degrees, added the malted barley and a little crystal malt and raised the temp up to 67 degrees to get the enzymes to start breaking the starch down into the favourite food for yeast, maltose. After 90 minutes I raised the temp up to 72 degrees for another 20 minutes to let some different enzymes work on the last bits left before raising the temp up to 80 degrees for mash out. That’s basically how you make beer! I then proudly opened the valve to drain off the sweet sticky wort only to find that the hose connecting the false bottom strainer had come off during the stiring process (teething problems!). So after some patient filtering, I got the the level down low enough to re-attach the hose ready for rinsing the grist off to collect all the sugars.

The beer is in my fermenter now. I hope my next brew to be 100% mashed grain with no added can muck. But before I do this, I need to increase the different types of hops I have so I can diversify my beer tastes, ready for the next brew. Maybe some Willamette, or some Cascade. Maybe even the favourite of Victoria Bitter drinkers, “pride of ringwood”.

While at the farm the other day, I found this lost lamb wandering around outside the fence. Once caught, she was very calm and seemed to enjoy going for a ride in the ute back to the paddock from where she came from. Once inside the gate, she trotted off before stopping to turn and look at me as it to say “thanks for the lift”