Do I have to steep special malts or can they just go into the mash with the base malt

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Elysium

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I am working on a porter recipe

There is a high (24%) content of special malts (carapils 3%, crystal malt 60L 9%, chocolate malt 7% and black malt 3%) in this recipe. I am wondering if I can just simply mash it for 60 minutes (or even 90....I dont know what is better with such a grain bill) at 154.4F or do I have to steep the special grains 1st and then move onto the mashing?

Any thoughts on this?
 
Yes, everything in together. Steeping specialty malts is a procedure for extract homebrewers unable to mash.
 
The only time you need to steep speciality grains seperately is when your mash tun isn't big enough for the entire grain bill
 
The only time you need to steep speciality grains seperately is when your mash tun isn't big enough for the entire grain bill

I have a 13-gallon pot for BIAB and dont brew more than 7 gallons anyway.

Can you tell me a bit more about this part you said: when your mash tun isn't big enough for the entire grain bill.

If it is not big enough how do you steep at all? I thought steeping or mashing takes place in the same pot, with the difference that steeping is at a lower temperature. Am I wrong?
 
The only time you need to steep speciality grains seperately is when your mash tun isn't big enough for the entire grain bill

In one sense, this is true.

However, if you are using certain dark roasted malts, having them in for the entire mash can extract some bitter/astringent flavor. You can wait and add those during the last 10-15 min of the mash to get the color and some flavor while avoiding much of the bitterness.
 
^^ This. I generally throw my crystals/carapils in the mash, but something like black patent or Carafa you might want to add late in the mash, for just those reasons.
 
You could add some right when you sparge to get less roast character but still add color to the wort if that's what you're trying to do.
 
In one sense, this is true.

However, if you are using certain dark roasted malts, having them in for the entire mash can extract some bitter/astringent flavor. You can wait and add those during the last 10-15 min of the mash to get the color and some flavor while avoiding much of the bitterness.

^^ This. I generally throw my crystals/carapils in the mash, but something like black patent or Carafa you might want to add late in the mash, for just those reasons.

You could add some right when you sparge to get less roast character but still add color to the wort if that's what you're trying to do.

All great points.
I add all my dark/roasted malts with 15min left in the mash, it extracts color and flavor without all the harse tannic compounds. You might have to adjust this time for flavor (porter vs RIS) where as if i was brewing a RIS i might add them at the beggining of the mash to get that bitter roast.

Hope this helps!
Cheers
 
Elysium said:
I have a 13-gallon pot for BIAB and dont brew more than 7 gallons anyway. Can you tell me a bit more about this part you said: when your mash tun isn't big enough for the entire grain bill. If it is not big enough how do you steep at all? I thought steeping or mashing takes place in the same pot, with the difference that steeping is at a lower temperature. Am I wrong?
do a search for mash tun. In an all grain brew, there is a specific vessel for mashing. Once the mash is complete, the liquid (wort) is drained i to a boil kettle. If you are doing BIAB you will have a different approach. But as an example, my mash tun will hold 10gal of water. Adding 13 lbs of grain to it greatly reduces the amount of water it holds. The statement above basically means, if you cant get enough strike water into your mash tun, steep the specialty grains seperately to accomodat for more strike water. Steeping and mashing are a little different. Mashing temps are different than steeping temps. I suggest searching the BIAB threads for more info. I also recommend reading John Palmer's "How to Brew" and Charlie Pappazian's "The Joy of Homebrew". Good luck.
 
I put'em all in the mash together.If I'm making something lighter than stout or porter,I'm using less of the dark roasts anyway. Plus I'm doing partial boil/partial mash biab as well.
 
I do partial mash BIAB. My kettle is 19L. On average you need 1.3L of water per 500g of grain.

So therefore my Kettle can only take about 6kg of grain and water. So If I have a grain bill that is bigger and I can't trim it, I will steep the speciality grains in the wort after the convertible grains have been mashed.

In principle the same problem can occur in any all grain kettle or mash turn if the specific gravity of the beer is very high and the grain bill very large.

In your case you have a very large kettle, so providing your sticking to 5 gallon batches this wouldn't be a problem in virtually all instances except for the most high gravity/largest grain bills.
 
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