steeping grains like sun tea?

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Oh for sure, it's great for the garden, but man does it reek if you let it sit and compost first.... the lacto makes it smell like a mutated pile of nuclear baby vomit. Great for my wife's flowers, though, although I'm thinking our Columbine plant may be a bit sensitive to lactobacillus, a couple of the leaves had colonies that looked like they were on a petri dish. :mug: :ban:

:off: Any ideas on what to do about this? I'm going to have to stop composting my spent grain because my composter is getting too rancid smelling and my back yard isn't all that big. This weekend my daughter and friend were swinging on the backyard hammock and her friend was like "what's that stinky smell?". My wife hasn't noticed yet, but before she does I'd like to address it, and/or just stop putting my spent grains in the composter.
 
:off: Any ideas on what to do about this? I'm going to have to stop composting my spent grain because my composter is getting too rancid smelling and my back yard isn't all that big. This weekend my daughter and friend were swinging on the backyard hammock and her friend was like "what's that stinky smell?". My wife hasn't noticed yet, but before she does I'd like to address it, and/or just stop putting my spent grains in the composter.

I use 'em right away, before they start going foul. I do BIAB, so I just give my wife the grains after the mash and she sprinkles them in the garden. No stink, just pretty flowers... and the occasional pellicle flower, but no stink. I tried the composting grains idea, and for those few months our backyard stunk, no more, they either go into the garden or to the outside trash cans on the alley driveway.
 
I use 'em right away, before they start going foul. I do BIAB, so I just give my wife the grains after the mash and she sprinkles them in the garden. No stink, just pretty flowers... and the occasional pellicle flower, but no stink. I tried the composting grains idea, and for those few months our backyard stunk, no more, they either go into the garden or to the outside trash cans on the alley driveway.

:off:
I may have to double-bag the grains I discard, too. That or buy better bags. Those rancid things can't leak out of a hole in the bag or else I have to clean a putrid trash can with Lord knows what else my kids threw in it, ie. dog-poop and food they were done with :mad:
 
So I'm fairly new to this, but for sun tea don't you let it sit in the sun for a few hours, or until it taste good, then you chill it and drink it fairly quickly correct?

If you did this with beer I think you'd have to do a very small batch? Also when you make sun tea isn't that a good temperature for bacteria, so unless you boiled the sun tea after to "clean" it, you have a risk for bacteria right? It sounds interesting though if you do decide on it good luck!
 
Ok, im going to play along here and give you an opinion unlike the others... I think you can most definitely STEEP your specialty grains in a sun tea method. When steeping specialty grains All you are really trying to do is extract color and some flavor from the grains, as opposed to mashing the grain where you are actually pulling sugars and such. In my opinion on a hot day in direct sunlite it would take maybe 2.5 to 3hrs to be the equivelent of the 45 min steep that the recipe calls for. Here in texas during the summer, i have no doubt that you could get some water & grains up to 150 in direct sunlite depeding on what kind of container you used. After steeping your specialty grains, you'll still need to follow the boiling instructions to to break down the protiens and such, for sanitizing, and for hop utilization.

Honestly though, while "sun infused", or "ultra violet steeped" may sound cool you aren't going to get any different flavors just because the sun is your heat source instead of your stove top. I guess there is a chance that UV could do something interesting, but I doubt it. Steep your SPECIALTY Grains in the sun if you want to, it will be fine, just make sure to follow the rest of the recipe in regards to BOIL and fermentation.


I say all this assuming that you are brewing extract kits with steeping grains. You could not & should not do a mini mahs or all grain recipe with the sun, it wont work.
 
Can't this thread just get deleted? I feel bad for the original poster for not knowing everything and having pride.
 
Can't this thread just get deleted? I feel bad for the original poster for not knowing everything and having pride.

You know, I've reread this entire thread, and I fail to see how anybody was rude or disrespectful or anything else. He asked a question and it got answered by lots of folks.

Obviously something offended OP, but my suggestion to him would be that being thin skinned makes the internet a dangerous place to chit chat.

And no. That wasn't a knock either. It just means posting questions to strangers on the net opens you up to answers you may not have hoped for. No reason to delete the thread, and in fact I learned something about cold steeping (although after rereading the OP and the entire thread I still think the OP was asking about sun steeping as a substitution for mashing, and talking about dryhopping as a substitute for boil additions), and I also think posters exchanged ideas about how to deal with spent grains...all good.

JMHO.
 
So I'm fairly new to this, but for sun tea don't you let it sit in the sun for a few hours, or until it taste good, then you chill it and drink it fairly quickly correct?

If you did this with beer I think you'd have to do a very small batch? Also when you make sun tea isn't that a good temperature for bacteria, so unless you boiled the sun tea after to "clean" it, you have a risk for bacteria right? It sounds interesting though if you do decide on it good luck!

As far as sun tea is concerned,no,you won't need the CDC to save you after drinking uncooked sun tea. It's in a sealed container That's left to get hot in the sun all day to brew the tea. 2-3 hours isn't long enough. I'd put out a jug or two of water & tea bags tightly sealed on the roof of the extra car,or other surface that gets hot in the sun. By the time I got home in mid-afternoon,it was dark & ready. Mix in your favorite sweetener,& fridge it till dinner time.
As far as beer goes,I agree that this method should only be done with specialty grains so as to illiminate the threat of it going rancid by the time you use it. Might be ok to save time while you're at work or something. But only about 30 minutes would be saved on brew day.
 
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