Question to those that brew mainly using extract, I've noticed several hb'ers who have created a recipe such as: 6lbs DME 2lbs 2-row malt 0.5lbs crystal 60L Why bother with the 2lbs 2-row malt? Does this actually serve a purpose in the recipe unless your goal is to do a small partial mash? Will be doing an extract brew up next and was just poking around the interweb and it struck me as kinda pointless so wanted to get some opines here...
But they are adding 1/2 lb. of 60L crystal. Given the amount of color you will get from the crystal malt what would 'lightening' with 2 lbs. of 2 row get you? Cheers!
It may be like adding parsley to your TV dinner. You've got something there to make it fresher. 20% of the fermntables or so (at 75% efficiency) will be from freshly mashed malt. Better than none.
When I was doing partial mash I would sometimes use some type of base malt along with whatever specialty grains, even if the base malt wasn't necessary. It doesn't hurt anything if you do it right, and the process of doing the partial mashes primed me for going all-grain. The beers came out very tasty, btw.
If you're steeping the 2row, its pointless. If you're doing a mini mash, well, its pointless then too, you can steep the crystal and get the sugar out. When I do a mini mash recipe I will use some six row to convert specialty grains that need to be mashed to convert their sugars. Wheat, rye, oats, among other grains don't do anything when you steep, and need some enzymes from the 6 row to convert their starches to sugars. I use six row because it has the most enzymatic potential. My guess is that whoever threw thatrecipe together didn't know wtf they're talking about.
thanks for response everyone...wicked, I like the analogy. Seemed weird to perform a partial mash, then call it an extract recipe...you're mashing there mr. recipe builder. To see it several times over to was the head scratcher.
Crystal malts are not 100% unfermentable, so a minimash with the 2-Row would convert those sugars I think. I am not sure about C60 but carapils has been reported at 70% fermentable and there is a thread on HBT where someone tested it. That being said, I doubt that is the reason extract brewers do a minimash is to convert the sugars in the crystal. When I did that sort of thing it was part of my progression through extract to all grain.
I got 30-something points off a mini-mash once near the end of my partial-mash brewing. It had about five and a half pounds of grain, which was about half of the total fermentables. Much of it was base malt. That's when I realized I might as well just go all grain, when I tasted that beer. It's not that the beer was SO spectacular, it's that I realized grain ---> wort wasn't really that hard. At the time my only cost to upgrade was the mash tun, which I built for less than fidy bucks.
