Written By: Peter Evans
Date: December 14, 2009 You've spent countless hours finding the right wheat barley or rye for your brew and you’re absolutely sure that this batch will be the blue ribbon envy of your fellow brewers. Just don’t get so excited about it that you try to skip through the mashing process.

Crushing the malt to break apart the grain kernels and expose the cotyledon is one of many crucial parts of the brewing process. The cotyledon contains a majority of the carbohydrates and sugars. In other words, this is the stuff that will make or break you. If the malt is the foundation of your beer, the grist is the wood you will use to build on that foundation.

Crushing the malt increases the surface area of the roasted grains and separates the smaller pieces from the husks. This produces grist which is mixed with heated water in a vat called a mash tun. The process, oddly enough, is called mashing. Which is appropriate, not only because you might get mashed from beer, but because you have just mashed your malt.

 During this process, enzymes in the malt further break down much of the starch into sugars. You will need these sugars to allow the fermentation process to take place.

Mashing usually takes 1 to 2 hours. How much time it takes and when to wait depends on the type of malt and the recipe you are using, but are an important part of the process. Different enzymes are activated at different temperatures and waiting for them to do so is will assure a good fermentation. You can use variations on this to produce a little more of a custom flavor, but having a good base (recipe) to start from and firm understanding of the mashing process is important for your success.  Enzymes convert the starches of the grains to dextrin and then to fermentable sugars such as maltose. Yes, we’re beating this to death, but it’s important!

 Straining out the husks and small bits left over from mashing can be accomplished in several ways. A simple strainer works well but might affect your temperature should you pour from vat to vat. In a pinch it will work. A mash tun with a strainer already in the bottom is the most recommended tool for this.

 Once you have properly observed the mash rests and temperature requirements, you are ready to move on to the “mash out” phase. This will deactivate your enzymes and is important because it “locks in” your mash flavor and gets things set up for the next part of the process.
 
 Understanding each individual step on the same level as a chemist is not necessary, and might just be overdoing it a bit. But understanding WHY you have to perform each step in the brewing process will give you the foundation you need to expand your flavor brewing potential and allow you to experiment more productively. After all, who wants to spend half a day working on a brewing project for an inferior batch?