steeping grains meant to be mashed

I just brewed a saison from Austin homebrew and they sent me grains in the extract kit that beersmith said can only be mashed. The directions said to steep them. I steeped them for 30 minutes, what gives?

hoppheadIPA said:

I just brewed a saison from Austin homebrew and they sent me grains in the extract kit that beersmith said can only be mashed. The directions said to steep them. I steeped them for 30 minutes, what gives?

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If you steeped them for 30 minutes, at 150-155 degrees, you actually probably mashed them!

What grains did you have?

aromatic, pilsner, flaked wheat, and white wheat

Well, if you steeped those together, then you probably did a nice mini mash. Did you hit your expected OG?

hoppheadIPA said:

I just brewed a saison from Austin homebrew and they sent me grains in the extract kit (aromatic, pilsner, flaked wheat, and white wheat)that beersmith said can only be mashed. The directions said to steep them. I steeped them for 30 minutes, what gives?

Click to expand...

Base malts (pale, pilsner, Munich, Vienna, etc), unmalted grains (flaked grains, torrified wheat, rice, etc) and specialty grains with residual starch should be mashed. That said almost every HBS sells extract ingredient kits containing steeping ingredients that should be mashed. I'm sure nothing harmful happened. Like Yooper said, since there was some base malt in the mix there probably was at least some degree of mashing going on. You might want to research mini-mashing. It's not much more difficult than steeping and that way you will be able to effectively use all grains and malts. Some of the differences between mashing and steeping are that enzymes and starch conversion are present during a mash. The water:grain ratio, temperature and time are generally more specific for mashing than steeping. Simple steeping is merely soaking out water soluable colors, flavors and sugars that have been previously converted. Roasted grains and crystal malts are the most commonly used and effectively steeped grains.

I've often wondered why AHS includes base grains with their extract kits. If you did manage to mash the grains and get some fermentables that could throw off your OG and make for a much stronger beer than intended.

Any input Forrest?

If you have John Palmer's How To Brew check out pages 123-126 for a list of grains for steeping and mashing.

The 2-row we include with the steeping grains are not for sugar, instead they serve a different purpose. The 2-row's enzymes bring out more from the other grains included.

So the base grain does not need to be mashed for this purpose.

Forrest

It's a good thing you're here Forest.

Props to AHS for doing this. I see so many kits with poor steeping grain choices, leading to sub-par, cloudy brews. Tossing in a little 2-row and making it a mini-mash is a no brainer.

Thanks for the replies and the explanations. I guess I did do a mini-mash cause there's no difference in that and what I did. I even sparged the grains a bit with 1 gallon of water. I actually did not hit my target OG, but I think it's because I added about 1/8 of a gallon too much at the end.