Am I understanding these directions correctly?

I found this recipe for a clone and the directions are slightly different from the kits I usually buy, so I want to make sure I would be doing this correctly.

Here is the recipe:
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Obsidian Stout

A Northwest favorite from Deschutes Brewing. It's not too robust in dark malt character but just the right balance. The hop character is mellow, not bitter, not sweet. Although it's not a traditional oatmeal stout, the oats give it more body, head retention, and creamy texture. Expect a higher OG (about 1.065) and a higher finish (1.025).

7 lbs Amber Malt Extract

1 lbs Amber Dry Malt Extract

1 lb Flaked Oats

1/2 lb Munich Malt

1/2 lb Roasted Barley

1/4 lb Chocolate Malt

1 oz Centennial Hops 12 HBUs (Boiling)

1/2 oz Fuggles Hops (15 min)

1/2 oz Fuggles Hops (2 min)

Wyeast Irish Ale Yeast

For Bottling:

1 1/4 cup Dry Malt Extract Or 3/4 cup Corn sugar

Add cracked Munich Malt, Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt and Flaked Oats to 2 gals of water. Heat to 150º. Hold that temp. for 1 hour. Remove the grain. Add the Amber Malt Extract and Amber Dry Malt Extract then bring to a boil. Add 1 oz of Centennial and boil for 45 mins. Add 1/2 oz of Fuggles Hops and boil for 13 mins. Add 1/2 oz of Fuggles Hops and boil for 2 mins. Sparge the hops with cold water then add the wort to the fermenter with cold water to make 5 gals. Add the yeast when the temp reaches 70º. Aerate well. Ferment at 70º for 10 days or until fermentation slows. Rack to a secondary fermenter. Let it age 2 weeks in secondary, then bottle or keg. For bottling, use 1 1/4 cup of dry malt extract boiled with 2 cups of water added in the bottling bucket.

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Ok, where it says hold that temp for 1 hour. remove the grain...boil the hops and sparge the hops with cold water...
When I remove the grain, what do I do with it? Normally when I remove the grain, I sparge the bag of grains I have with some hot water, and then add the hops to it, bring it to boil, then add cold water to it in the fermenter. Do you think they meant to say to sparge the grains? And should I normally sparge wtih hot water or cold water? my previous kits have said to sparge wtih hot water, and then add cold water to the wort.


Any thoughts, changes, advice, etc are greatly appreciated.

Yea, that sounds kind of funny to me. I would assume sparge grain with hot water. never heard of sparging hops.

Wait for someone else to reply though, never did an extract batch.

Those instructions are more or less right.

When you take out the grain, then throw it away. Or feed it to some animals, they go crazy for that stuff.

The first time that I've heard about sparging hops was yesterday actually. Sparging the grains is normal procedure; however, I wouldn't sparge my hop bag if I used one. I would just squeeze it out.

To that end, it isn't necessary to use a hop bag at all, you can just throw them in the boiler. I did use one at first and it did reduce the amount of trub that went into the fermenter, but now I just throw it all into the primary after that.

Hope that helps.

devilishprune said:

Those instructions are more or less right.

When you take out the grain, then throw it away. Or feed it to some animals, they go crazy for that stuff.

The first time that I've heard about sparging hops was yesterday actually. Sparging the grains is normal procedure; however, I wouldn't sparge my hop bag if I used one. I would just squeeze it out.

To that end, it isn't necessary to use a hop bag at all, you can just throw them in the boiler. I did use one at first and it did reduce the amount of trub that went into the fermenter, but now I just throw it all into the primary after that.

Hope that helps.

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So after I steep the grains, do I just remove the bag and squeeze out what I can from it and toss it? No need to sparge it? Would I not get a better OG if I try to extract as much as I can from the grains, or is this recipe figured to have enough just be removing the grains and not sparging them?

fatinma said:

So after I steep the grains, do I just remove the bag and squeeze out what I can from it and toss it? No need to sparge it? Would I not get a better OG if I try to extract as much as I can from the grains, or is this recipe figured to have enough just be removing the grains and not sparging them?

Click to expand...

The recipe is configured to get the OG you want without sparging the grains. I would not squeeze the bag as you run the slight risk of pulling tannins that way. Just hold the bag up out of the water and let it drain. You can sparge with a small amount of water if you want. It's not going to up your gravity much, if at all.

As for the sparging the hops with cold water, that seems like a silly and unnecessary step. Can't say I've encountered that one before.