left steeping grains in too long?

Long story short I made my first beer kit yesterday that was a kit for an stout. The directions (I know I shouldn't have even looked at them) said to put the steeping grains that came with the kit into a Muslim bag and keep it in until right before the boil...so I did that. I finished the boil, cooled it down, pitched the yeast, took a reading with the hydrometer and was pretty much right on (1.055). The beer is now bubbling happily in my swamp cooler at around a steady 65 degrees. I am no expert but the smell does smell a little bitter maybe dry?.. but I'm guessing this is the hops I added right at boil and more I added at 55 mins into the 60 min boil. I read that you aren't supposed to steep those grains over 170...so I guess my question is how bad is my beer going to turn out? Thanks guys for any help

Realized this actually wasn't that short lol oh well :cross:

Time will tell, but being as it is in a stout you may not be able to tell.

Wait, the directions said to put your grains in and heat the water and then take them out right before the boil? Are you sure? If so, never buy from them again.

You probably pulled out a lot of tannins and will have a very roasty and likely bitter stout. The bitterness will be from the grains if you heated them up all the way to 200+ deg.

Could you post the whole recipe?

I left grains in too long too... on purpose.... but you seem to have done the right thing by steeping and removing them before the boil.... I dont get the problem

Time will tell.It being a stout. you may be OK.

But that muslim bag may hurt the beer..........."...

Cheepbeer said:

I left grains in too long too... on purpose.... but you seem to have done the right thing by steeping and removing them before the boil.... I dont get the problem

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Big difference in steeping, say 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes, at 165ish and leaving the grains in while heating to boil and removing right before hand. The latter is what I took his post as saying.

Steeping longer at appropriate temps will pull more color and flavor out, but tannin extraction is not impacted much. Too high of a temp pulls those bitter compounds out of grains and makes for an unpleasant beer.

The full recipe is at http://www.homebrewers.com/category/aatdvarks.beermakinginstructions/

It says

1. Fill your brewpot with 2.5 gallons of water. Place the specialty grains inside a muslin bag & tie. Add the bag to the brewpot. Turn on the heat. Remove the bag just before the water boils. Discard the grain bag.
2. Turn off the heat and add all of your liquid and/or dry malt extract to the brewpot while stirring. If adding other sugars, (i.e. honey, brown sugar, malto-dextrin, Belgian candi sugar, rice syrup, corn syrup) add them now. Do not add priming

kepling5001 said:

The full recipe is at http://www.homebrewers.com/category/aatdvarks.beermakinginstructions/

It says

1. Fill your brewpot with 2.5 gallons of water. Place the specialty grains inside a muslin bag & tie. Add the bag to the brewpot. Turn on the heat. Remove the bag just before the water boils. Discard the grain bag.
2. Turn off the heat and add all of your liquid and/or dry malt extract to the brewpot while stirring. If adding other sugars, (i.e. honey, brown sugar, malto-dextrin, Belgian candi sugar, rice syrup, corn syrup) add them now. Do not add priming

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Yeah, I've never seen that before. Follow How To Brew by John Palmer or posts here on standard mini-mash techniques.

I hope it turns out good for you. Good luck!

The steeping grains were probaly in the pot for maybe 20 mins and the water wasn't boiling just yet when I took them out but it was pretty close . How much damage will these tannins do and should I dump and restart or just let it go and see what I get?

I boiled a whole pound of grains in my boil kettle once (couldn't figure out how to get them out, using a "new" idea I had that wasn't thought through), and didn't notice a single negative result in the finished beer. I wouldn't purposely do it again, but I think tannin extraction from high temps with a fairly minor amount of grain is wayyy overrated.

edit: just to be clear, I BOILED THEM FOR 60 MINUTES in the boil - didn't see the tannin extraction boogyman after it.

Frodo you give me hope haha! I will say the beer does smell dryish but still smells good to my inexperience nose

What type of beer were you brewing frodo?

it was an irish red ale, 1 lb of crystal 60L. my notes say "very obvious caramel sweetness, but not cloying" - nothing about bitter or astringent, and i remember this was a really nice beer! (early 2010).

Tannin extraction depends on the roast of the grain. For you, Frodo, not much is there, but the OP had dark grains for the color.

Since they weren't in there that long, you may be good. Don't toss it until you taste it. It's a stout, so don't toss it until at least 3 months in the bottle or keg. The flavors on a stout tend to mellow with age, so be patient. Take it all the way through.

I had a double chocolate cherry stout that reeked at bottling and didn't taste good (like vomit, honestly). Three and six months later the flavor wasn't drinkable but it didn't make me want to puke, but the smell was still terrible. A year later, after dumping all but 6 bottles, I opened two of them and it had developed a copper flavor. The rest got dumped. Anyway, the flavor got significantly better over time and my issue was the cherries and I probably oxygenated the hell out of it because I was freaking out about it stalling at 1.030 in the primary. I made many more mistakes, and much worse ones honestly, and with age it improved. Ok, that was rambling and not really germane, but there you go.

kylevester said:

Tannin extraction depends on the roast of the grain. For you, Frodo, not much is there, but the OP had dark grains for the color.

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oh ok... any empirical evidence, or just boogeyman speak?

See How To Brew, Brewing Better Beer, and many other books on the subject of brewing. Along with food science...

Higher roast means more astringent tannins. So, with grains like chocolate malt and black barley, there is more astringency/bitterness potential from too high of extraction temp.

Oh ok. Yeah OP, your beer is ruined.

Damnit! I just did a batch from Homebrewer's Outpost and followed the same procedure (as stated in their directions). I just re-read Palmers book and he said to steep between 150'-170'.



So much to remember.

On a positive note, my OG sample tasted great.

Just dry hop it with fresh 2012 amarillo .. 4 oz and u good to go \/\/

So an update....I woke up this morning and read the comments and decided to at least try my satellite bottle a sip. It actually tastes great! Very sweet but I'm assuming that's BC of the wort sugar that hasn't been converted to alcohol yet. Will the taste vary that greatly from this stage to final product? Are the tannins move evident later? Thank you guys for the helpful info

"You probably pulled out a lot of tannins "
I am not sure where this misconception started but it just is not true. Grains are boiled all the time when you do a decoction mash with no issues. Tannin extraction mostly happens when you fly sparg and let the ph get too low.

kepling5001 said:

Thank you guys for the helpful info

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Idk what you where reading? But i didn't see that much helpful info... If someone ever tells you your beer is ruined before fermentation/conditioning is complete you should proceed to ignore everything they say after...

You thought that steeping the grains at a temp approaching 212 might have hurt your beer. That's understandable, it probably didn't help it. But the complaint you had was a bitter angel while fermenting, all beers smell biter while fermenting, that's the krausen (wort proportions, dead yeast, hop residue.... The greenish brown gunk you see on the sides of the fermenter), it's bitter by nature and it coming out makes the beer taste better.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-2.html
An intro to it by palmer.

Secondly, if you did pull an extreme amount of tannins from your grains (unlikely). The solution is to condition longer, age will mellow out the flavor and heal your beer.

Congrats, you've made beer! Keep us posted, and start figuring out your next brew.

kepling5001 said:

Long story short I made my first beer kit yesterday that was a kit for an stout. The directions (I know I shouldn't have even looked at them) said to put the steeping grains that came with the kit into a Muslim bag and keep it in until right before the boil.

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A Muslim bag? Are these grains from the Middle East? You might want to watch out for bottle bombs!

Matt3989 said:

Idk what you where reading? But i didn't see that much helpful info... If someone ever tells you your beer is ruined before fermentation/conditioning is complete you should proceed to ignore everything they say after...

You thought that steeping the grains at a temp approaching 212 might have hurt your beer. That's understandable, it probably didn't help it. But the complaint you had was a bitter angel while fermenting, all beers smell biter while fermenting, that's the krausen (wort proportions, dead yeast, hop residue.... The greenish brown gunk you see on the sides of the fermenter), it's bitter by nature and it coming out makes the beer taste better.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-2.html
An intro to it by palmer.

Secondly, if you did pull an extreme amount of tannins from your grains (unlikely). The solution is to condition longer, age will mellow out the flavor and heal your beer.

Congrats, you've made beer! Keep us posted, and start figuring out your next brew.

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Thanks for the hope! Haha...yeah I feel a lot more confident now that I've tasted the beer that the finished beer will probaly be OK. On another note...stop making fun of my middle eastern bags :cross:

As noted above, steeping at a high temperature doesn't by itself extract tannins. In fact, you can boil the grains without extracting tannins to any great extent. Where you extract the tannins is with too high of a pH and high temps. If your pH remains low, no tannins. If you keep the temperature low you get no tannins either. Most of the time the grains will be low pH and will prevent your steeping water from being too high in pH but if your water was very alkaline, you could have problems. That situation is unlikely.

This is probably a dumb question but how does the water pH get low? Is it just part of tap water or something else?

>.This is probably a dumb question but how does the water pH get low? Is it just part of tap water or something else?

The grains will lower Ph, especially darker grains. Acid Malt is sprayed with lactic acid and will also lower Ph.
Water salts can also lower Ph.
If you use distilled water, there is no buffering, and your Ph may drop more than you would like.

Frodo said:

oh ok... any empirical evidence, or just boogeyman speak?

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Frodo, just because you did something incorrectly, and didn't notice a problem, doesn't mean there were no off flavors such as astringency.
Maybe you don't detect them because of the style, that doesn't mean they aren't there. Or maybe you don't know what the off flavor tastes like.

The most important point is to keep the Ph low, so you don't want to steep in a large volume of water.
From what I have read, Ph is the main determinant in leaching, but temperature can increase the leaching. Without proof, steeping grains should be steeped, at less than 170, then removed, not boiled. There may be no problem if you do, but it's not helping you, and may leach some Tannins. RM-MN made a good comment, which I pasted below.



The danger is you are giving misinformation to others, and claiming Tannin extraction is a myth. If you believe this, conduct some experiments, and post your results. But until you have proof, don't tell others to follow a bad process.

"To save money I don't use Starsan, I urinate on my equipment, and have never had an infection. Infections are just boogeyman speak".
Would you take anecdotal evidence like that?

"Water treatments are BS, I use my tap water which is alkaline and has Chlorine and my beer tastes great". (maybe the person only brews stouts, and the beer isn't as good as they think, or as good as it could be)



As RM-MN said
>>As noted above, steeping at a high temperature doesn't by itself extract tannins. In fact, you can boil the grains without extracting tannins to any great extent. Where you extract the tannins is with too high of a pH and high temps. If your pH remains low, no tannins. If you keep the temperature low you get no tannins either. Most of the time the grains will be low pH and will prevent your steeping water from being too high in pH but if your water was very alkaline, you could have problems.

My first batch, I boiled my grains for 20 minutes. Beer turned out fine.

Sounds good i am hoping it turns out fine....luckily mine never boiled was just in the pot for the first 15-20 mins before boil

Never throw out your beer before it's done and has sat for awhile. Beer can make miraculous recoveries. (And it can go horribly south.) You shouldn't give up on it before it has a chance to age a bit.

Matt3989 said:

Idk what you where reading? But i didn't see that much helpful info...

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That's what I was thinking too.... first half of the thread is like watching the blind lead the blind.

OP, Plenty of extract kits come with the instructions to leave the grains in as you heat to a boil, removing just before boiling. People have made lots of good beer using those kits.
What you have here isn't a boogeyman. Your beer's undoubtedly going to be fine, and I'd be willing to bet free of any unwanted tannins as well.

You're right, I completely forgot about the pH factor. Doh!

ArcLight said:

Frodo, just because you did something incorrectly, and didn't notice a problem, doesn't mean there were no off flavors such as astringency.

...

Maybe you don't detect them because of the style, that doesn't mean they aren't there. Or maybe you don't know what the off flavor tastes like.
The danger is you are giving misinformation to others, and claiming Tannin extraction is a myth. If you believe this, conduct some experiments, and post your results. But until you have proof, don't tell others to follow a bad process.

...

"To save money I don't use Starsan, I urinate on my equipment, and have never had an infection. Infections are just boogeyman speak".
Would you take anecdotal evidence like that?

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I was giving the OP an example of when I did something that is very similar to what he was asking about and my results were fine. I've read a lot, in books and on this forum, and who knows where else, about tannin extraction, but some of that discussion is whether it is often an overstated risk. I don't think anyone prior to me had told the OP that tannin extraction might be overstated as a risk. Not too long ago brewers thought leaving beer in the primary for long would lead to autolysis; now not so much. Why is that? Improvement in ingredients, particularly yeast quality? A lot of it, maybe, is that it had just become "common knowledge" that you want the beer off the trub ASAP... What if no one ever questioned the "common knowledge"; would we ever improve anything if no one ever questioned whether what we're doing is based in fact?

And just when exactly did I tell others to follow my example and boil grains in their wort? I believe I said I hadn't thought through the process and couldn't figure out how to remove the grains, didn't I? I'd appreciate it if you'd pay attention to what I wrote before accusing me of giving people bad advice. I was not proclaiming that I know everything about tannins; I wasn't suggesting that everyone boil grains in their wort. I was indicating that the risk might very well be overstated, and was looking for more than a "what I read in this book was this" response.

FYI you should try that pissing on your equipment idea.

Frodo,
Not only were you offering bad advice, you were mocking those who didn't agree with you.
If you were to perform a set of experiments on the subject of Tannin extraction, and post the results here, I, and probably many would be interested.
If you think Tannin extraction is a myth, get yourself a Ph meter and thermometer and go to work.

"Common knowledge" is not always correct. But those questioning it tend to present proof, they don't just say "That's nonsense".


No Chill is scoffed at by some, but it's widely practiced in Australia. They have collectively brewed enough to offer some proof.

As opposed to some one who says "I do X and nothing bad happens, so X is a myth".

Frodo said:

I boiled a whole pound of grains in my boil kettle once (couldn't figure out how to get them out, using a "new" idea I had that wasn't thought through), and didn't notice a single negative result in the finished beer. I wouldn't purposely do it again, but I think tannin extraction from high temps with a fairly minor amount of grain is wayyy overrated.

edit: just to be clear, I BOILED THEM FOR 60 MINUTES in the boil - didn't see the tannin extraction boogyman after it.

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Do you see where it says "I wouldn't purposely do it again, but I think tannin extraction from high temps with a fairly minor amount of grain is wayyy overrated."?

That post was in response to what appeared to me to be a bunch of people giving advice to the OP that might well lead him to think he'd ruined his beer, when in reality he probably hadn't.

ArcLight said:

Frodo,


No Chill is scoffed at by some, but it's widely practiced in Australia. They have collectively brewed enough to offer some proof.

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Not to change the subject but what exactly is the no chill method?

It just means you let the wort cool on it's own after the boil, without using any methods of cooling it quickly

From all the recipes I have and books I've read, steeping should happen once you have your original 2.5-3 gallons of water between 155-160 degrees. From speaking with the guys at my brew shop, anything above 15 minutes is too long. Remember the specialty garins are only inended for color and flavor additions and not so much for any reasonable portion of your actual sugar build. Unless I'm short on base malt and want to keep them in longer (which will take on some tannins), stick to no more then 15 minutes. Don't forget, how thin the grains are milled will also have an impact on what's extracted if you're steeping. Most brew shops mill for mashing not steeping.

NordeastBrewer77 said:

That's what I was thinking too.... first half of the thread is like watching the blind lead the blind.

OP, the guy telling you that you've extracted all sorts of tannins from steeping grains is either making it up or is regurgitating something he/she read regardless of having experience with the subject or not.
As someone else pointed out, if high temps caused tannin extraction by themselves, people wouldn't use decoction mashes. Tannin production/extraction is much more closely linked to mash pH than it is to mash temp. In steeping, I don't really think any of this is a concern unless you've actually boiled the grains, and even then, I doubt you'd pull noticeable tannins out.
Plenty of extract kits come with the instructions to leave the grains in as you heat to a boil, removing just before boiling. People have made lots of good beer using those kits.
What you have here isn't a boogeyman, it's someone giving you bad advice. Your beer's undoubtedly going to be fine, and I'd be willing to bet free of any unwanted tannins as well.

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Since I'm not in the habit of someone calling me or my brethren the boogeyman, I got up this morning, inspected by East Coast IPA fermenting away, and grabbed the bible or Homebrew scripture if you prefer.

It's not often I have to go Papazian on someone but here is goes.

Page 31 of The Home Brewer's Companion/The Essential Handbook under the sub-heading
"Using specialty malts without Mashing"
and I quote => For the ideal extraction of the favorable qualities of any malt, the crushed grain should never be brought to a boil. Some recipes and procedures guide beginning brewers to bring the specialty malts just to a boil and quickly remove them from the heat source. This is a simple procedure designed to encourage their use by beginning brewers. For those who desire to improve the quality of their beers with a small additional investment in time and attention, the grains should NEVER be steeped in water who temperature exceeds 170 degrees F (77 degrees C). The extraction of UNDESIRABLE TANNIN and ASTRINGENT characters is minimized with a lower-temperature steep" end quote

Let's remember one thing here, professional brewing in big vessels and homebrewing are two different things.

Have fun brewing and open a beer and enjoy!

gcdowd said:

It just means you let the wort cool on it's own after the boil, without using any methods of cooling it quickly

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Yeah and unless you want to invest in a wort chiller, buy a large bag of ice drop it in a big sink, fill it partially with water, add the ice, make sure your kettle doesn't sit too high in the ice water to avoid it tipping over (I use the one flat hand underneath the kettle bottom technique) to determine the amount of water needed. If you don't have enough ice, add from your fridge.

It should chill in less then 30-35 minutes below your desirable 80 degrees. It will cool down even further when you add the additional water to bring it to 5 gallons.