Northern Brewer Kit - Questions

Hey all,

I'm a newb. I've done a few True Brew kits and had some really good luck so far. Deciding to branch out a little bit, I've just received my Northern Brewer Honey Brown Ale kit.

I have a couple of questions about the kit and wondering if anyone could lend their advice.

First question, the kit comes with ~1lb total of speciality grains for steeping. The instructions NB provides with the kit instruct you to "crush and steep". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe all the grains shipped in NB extract based kits, are already crushed? I'm super inexperienced with grains and brewing, since the only kit I've done with any grain at all, was the True Brew Belgian, and that came with pale 2-row that was almost pulverized, it wasn't in question if it was crushed or not. The NB grains are all together in one bag, and I certainly see some 'hulls' and bits and pieces, but it's not completely crushed, like one might expect. So, is this crushed or do I need to beat these fellas with a rolling pin?:



Second question, the instructions also say to heat 2.5 gallons of water and steep the grains in the supplied bag, for 20 minutes, or until the water reaches 170... What does this really mean? Should I just heat the water and use a thermometer to tell when the water is precisely 170, and then steep the grains for 20 minutes with timer? Or put the grain bag in the cold water, crank the heat, and take it out as soon as it reaches 170? This might not take that long on my gas stove, with the powerboil burner and I don't want to short change the grains in the wort. I'm not sure which way to go on this.

You guys are a wonderful source of knowledge on brewing, and quite entertaining at the same time, it's much appreciated.

PS: Smack pack has been whacked.

If you open the plastic bag you have there and dump the grains out into a bowl or something and the look like this.

Homebrewing - Cracked Grains

Then you know they have been cracked or crushed. You should be able to tell pretty easily. The grains will be open a little bit or crushed even more depending on the recipe.

For your second question. I personally take my water up to about 112 and put the grain bag in and take it up to 160ish and cut the heat. The pot will continue to get warmer for a couple of minutes and by then you should be close to your end time.

I use the Northern Brewer kits as well. My porter I recently did said the exact same thing. "Crush and Steep" and had a similar call for temperature and steeping.

Let me know how it goes and if that helps.

mikebiewer said:

If you open the plastic bag you have there and dump the grains out into a bowl or something and the look like this.

Homebrewing - Cracked Grains

Then you know they have been cracked or crushed. You should be able to tell pretty easily. The grains will be open a little bit or crushed even more depending on the recipe.

For your second question. I personally take my water up to about 112 and put the grain bag in and take it up to 160ish and cut the heat. The pot will continue to get warmer for a couple of minutes and by then you should be close to your end time.

I use the Northern Brewer kits as well. My porter I recently did said the exact same thing. "Crush and Steep" and had a similar call for temperature and steeping.

Let me know how it goes and if that helps.

Click to expand...

My grains aren't quite as crushed as the ones in the picture you used as an example, but pouring some of them out into a bowl definitely helped showed that there was some bits and pieces and crushing action going on in there. On top of that, they smell fantastic. Ohhh that's going to smell good in the pot..

I think your technique for temperature is reasonable and I'll give that a shot. I just found their directions a little bit vague. The True Brew kit (Belgian) basically said "Heat the water until it boils and turn the heat off, now put the bag in and let it sit for 15 minutes." essentially. Those instructions left way less room for interpretation.

Yea. Problem with that though is you don't want your grains in at over 170 degrees as you'll release tannins into your wort. Those tannins will give you a headache kind of like what wine can do.

Looking back at my Brewer's Best Kit they recommend bringing the water up to 150 to 165 and steeping. This has less room for error yet.

The only reason I was doing a steep from 112 up to the 160s is because I've seen some all grain batches and I understand it isn't completely the same, but at certain temps the grains release different enzymes. One temp point is around 122 and the other is in the 150s to 160s.

But forget that, its just what I like to do to possibly pretend that I am adding more flavor or something. I'm still a newb to.

Stick to 150's to 160's or just put it in after 100 and let it go. Just keep notes and learn for next time

Just my 2 cents on steeping, I've made a number of NB kits. I usually get the water up to 154-156, put the bag in and let it steep. Occasionally will gently lift the bag up and down a few times. I steep for 25-30 mins, dependent on how patient I am that day. I'll keep an eye on the temp and add a little heat as needed to keep the temp right around 154-156.

I've been very pleased with the NB kits, enjoy.

Thanks for the input guys. I did my brew today and so far I'm very pleased with it. Wonderful smell, taste, and aroma for sure. Excited and looking forward to the end results on this one.