It's been a while since we had some Live Brewing Action on the blog, so here's a wee video of Mashing. This is the beginning of a brew of Lia Fail and it's where the crushed malted barley or grist is mixed with hot water or liquor as we like to call it. This happens inside the Mash Tun and it allows the starch in the grist to dissolve quickly into the liquor and lets the enzymes in the malt convert the starch into liquid sugars which we call wort.
This wort is drained off the grain husks and pumped to the brew kettle - as seen in Live Brewing Action #1. It's quite hot in the mash tun because the liquor temperature is around 72 C and the 'Goods' as we call the porridge-like mash end up at around 66 - 68 C depending on the brew.
I'll cover the rest of the brewing process in later blogs but in the meantime it's time to 'Set Taps' or in other words open up the valves at the bottom of the mash tun to let the wort start flowing out to the kettle!
Slainte, Ken
