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Mash Protocol 1 at Homebrew Scale

Our production baseline, translated to 5 gallons. Everything scales linearly except the parts that don't — and the parts that don't are the ones worth knowing about before brew day.

Mash Protocol 1 is the real thing: a 100% sorghum malt enzyme mash we ran commercially for years. The protocol page owns the controlling values. This page answers the question that page can't: what does it look like in a 10-gallon kettle in a garage?

The batch this assumes​

A 5-gallon batch from 10 lb (4.5 kg) sorghum malt. Scale everything below proportionally for a different grain bill — the doses are per-pound for exactly that reason.

The numbers, translated​

StageTargetTimeAdditions for 10 lb malt
Liquefy190°F (88°C)60 min~3.1 gal (11.8 L) strike water at 2.6 L/kg; 20 mL Termamyl SC DS in the water before the grain
Convert145°F (63°C)45 minCold water to hit temperature (~1.5–2 gal); 15 mL Ondea Pro + 7.5 mL Termamyl SC DS
Finish145°F (63°C)10 min7.5 mL Amylase AG 300L
Mash out180°F (82°C)10 min~0.5 lb rice hulls, mixed 5–10 min before transfer

Dose basis: Termamyl 2 mL/lb at mash-in and 0.75 mL/lb at coolback; Ondea Pro 1.5 mL/lb; Amylase AG 300L 0.75 mL/lb. Water 2.2–3.0 L/kg initial — the range production actually ran.

The three things that decide whether this works​

1. Enzyme in the water before the grain. Heat your full strike volume to 190°F, dose the Termamyl, get the mash moving, then add malt slowly. Dumping grain into hot water without active enzyme is how you get a clumped, gelatinized brick. This is the single most important sentence on this page.

2. Stir continuously. Production had a motorized agitator; you have arms or a pump. Sorghum starch gelatinizes hot and thickens fast, and unstirred mash means scorching, uneven conversion, and a stuck runoff. This is the biggest reason a recirculating system earns its price — see Equipment for the Process.

3. Hit 180°F at mash-out. The finishing glucoamylase survives lower temperatures and keeps drying your wort during a slow homebrew lauter — and homebrew lauters are slow. If your beer finishes thinner than the numbers predicted, this is the first suspect.

What breaks at small scale​

  • Thermal mass. A 10-gallon kettle loses heat far faster than a 40-barrel tun. Insulate, or plan to fire the burner during holds — and measure the mash, not the setpoint.
  • Enzyme sourcing. These are commercial products in liter jugs. Homebrew-scale suppliers repackage equivalents; if you substitute, match the enzyme class (heat-stable alpha-amylase for liquefaction, a brewing blend for conversion, glucoamylase for finishing) and follow the vendor's dose, not ours. Record what you used — that's the data.
  • Cooling for the coolback. Production added measured cold water. At home, pre-measure your coolback water and chill it; hitting 145°F by guesswork wrecks the ratio you just calculated.
  • Runoff. Sorghum has no husk. Rice hulls at mash-out are not optional at this scale unless you're brewing in a bag.

What we want to know​

This translation has never been validated as a homebrew protocol — it's arithmetic on a production process, and arithmetic isn't a brew day. If you run it, tell us: your efficiency, mash behavior, runoff time, gravity, fermentation curve, and what you'd change. Contradictions are the most useful reports we can get.