Crystal Malt Mash Time

[Moody_Copperpot]

I've been brewing for a few years now, and have been doing all grain for just over a year. I have gotten tons of info from here, and other sources but had never read my copy of John Palmer's How To Brew; so I decided a few weeks back to do so...fantastic read!!! Wish I'd have read it sooner. Anyway, he mentions in there that certain grains like black patent don't really have to be mashed for any substantial amount of time, and can be added at the end of the mash. He said the same of some of the higher lovibond crystal malts. Is there a benefit/drawback of mashing say...crystal 60 for only part of the mash rather than the whole hour? What about othet crystal malts? I've always just mashed all my grains for the full hour.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Mash thickness.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

My

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

(hit send by accident) My mash thickness is never a problem. If it's a lot of grain, I use rice hulls. I do double batch sparges and generally yield 85% efficiency.
I mean in the sense of flavoring or efficiency. Will these be affected by adding crystal malt late in the mash vs the whole 60 min?

 

[Cromwell]

Crystal malt isn't really mashed, it's steeped. I don't think you'll hurt anything by putting them in the mash for the whole time, but you're not breaking down starches so you don't need any time to allow the enzymes to work. All you're doing is extracting the sugars from the Crystal malt.

 

[thughes]

There's a guy in the Aussie forums that mashes just the base malts for the full duration and throws the specialty malts in for the last 10-15 minutes. He's done side by side tests mashing this way versus mashing all the grains at once and gets the same gravity both ways. He states that it adds a certain "complexity" to the malt profile in the finished beer that is not present when mashing all the grain for the entire duration. I am planning on experimenting with this method one of these days (when I remember to crush my grain separately).

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

I'll have to give that a shot with the next brew as well.

 

[eltorrente]

There's a guy in the Aussie forums that mashes just the base malts for the full duration and throws the specialty malts in for the last 10-15 minutes. He's done side by side tests mashing this way versus mashing all the grains at once and gets the same gravity both ways. He states that it adds a certain "complexity" to the malt profile in the finished beer that is not present when mashing all the grain for the entire duration. I am planning on experimenting with this method one of these days (when I remember to crush my grain separately).

Gordon Strong uses this method, also.