mnpaddler

Recipes 

howdy, being a little new to brewing i have a question. I am doing an extract IPA and I was wondering about the grain bag. The recipe says to steep the grains for 20 min at 160 and then squeeze the bag until the liquid stops dripping out of the grain bag......i have read that you should never squeeze the bag, just rinse with steryle water........what is the right proceedure???? thank you for any response.....scotty

bradsul

Recipes 

I've read claims that squeezing the grain bag releases tannins into the wort. I squeezed the grain bag and never noticed anything like that. But the safest method is to put the grain bag into a strainer of some sort and pour hot water (sterile isn't necessary, you're going to boil the wort anyway) through the bag until you reach your boil volume. That way you get all the flavour and sugar out of the grains and none of the potential problems.

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BarleyWater

Recipes 

Don't Squeeze Your Bag!!! It hurts...

It actually can extract astringent tannins from the grains. Rinse them with hot (170-180ish) water.

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petrolero

Recipes 

I just did an American IPA. I didn't squeeze the bag but I did "sparge" the grains by pouring some of the hot water over the bag a couple times to get out whatever sweet stuff was trapped in there.

In my case I used a very fine mesh net because I steeped directly into my brew kettle and I did not want any grain husks in the boil. The muslin bags that the brew store gave me had too large a mesh to keep the husks out of my water. I have learned that grain husks in the boil are bad bad bad because they leach tannins that make your stuff way bitter in a bad way.

Good luck!

mnpaddler

Recipes 

Thank you for the responses...I will follow your advise to the T.....Cheers, Scotty

NWernBrewer

Recipes 

With steeping grains I usually rinse, although I have squeezed when I 1st started. To be honest I have never had a tannin issue - even using the muslin bags. The grain bill just isn't large enough to really create a problem with a steep - small amount at a fairly low temp. You are replacing 10 times (sometimes) the amount of grain with extract.

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