Steeping Vs Partial Mash Question

So what really is the difference? I did my first steeping on wednesday with a Mr. Beer based stout among some other things. Today was my first 5 gallon batch and it was all just a MoreBeer American Amber kit with an added .5# of Honey Malt. Now I ignored the MoreBeer steeping recommendation of throwing the grain in cold water and heating to 170 over a 30 minute period and did DeathBrewers get it to 155ish and put the grain in for 30 minutes but stir and make sure it is ALL wet. I dropped in 1# of Crystal 60L with the .5# of the Honey for 30 minutes and after that, brought it to a boil and added the 8lbs of Extra Light LME. My concern is my OG measurement... recipe was calling for about 1.052...



Thats about 1.065-1.066. Was the way I hit the grains more efficient than what is considered a steep? Also boiled with a lot more water and only topped and poured into about a gallon total. Here is a pic of my 5 gallon kettle during boil:



And the last pic is just showing off . I got this Frigidaire wine chiller off craiglist for $30. The guy said it did not cool anymore. 1 $10 part later and it is fully functional. I just need to find a way to rig up a heater into the digital controls and somehow fit both of my LBK's and the 5 gallon fermenter in there...

You are steeping. Mashing, whether partial or "whole", would incorporate base malt. That is malt with starch and enzyme content where the mashing process allows the enzymes to convert the malt's starches into fermentable sugars. The malt you steeped are crystal malts which have already had their starches converted to sugars during processing. Steeping soaks color, flavor and sugar out of the crystal malts but there is no enzyme content or starch conversion taking place.

BigEd said:

You are steeping. Mashing, whether partial or "whole", would incorporate base malt. That is malt with starch and enzyme content where the mashing process allows the enzymes to convert the malt's starches into fermentable sugars. The malt you steeped are crystal malts which have already had their starches converted to sugars during processing. Steeping soaks color, flavor and sugar out of the crystal malts but there is no enzyme content or starch conversion taking place.

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Ahh.. alright. Just wondered how .5# of honey malt would raise my estimated ABV by almost 1%. This guy is gonna have to condition for several months.

In addition to what BigEd said, good mashing involves closer temperature controls and the basics of managing water chemistry become much more important.

Your OG reading is spot on for a 5 gallon batch with the ingredients you mentioned. Your recipe is wrong.

If you were to categorize the 4 basic ways of making beer you'd have

Extract only
Extract and steeping grains -grains add little to the grain bill for color and body
Partial Mash - About half of the grain bill is mashed in rest is extracts, step up from steeping grains
All-Grain - no extracts.

Here's an example of an ESB Partial mash kit

3.5 pounds Marris Otter
3 pounds light DME
.5 pounds honey malt
.5 pounds caramel 60
.5 pounds carapils

Same kit in extract the 3.5 pounds of Maris Otter is subbed out for 3 pounds of DME.