A couple of questions about Extract brewing procedures.

For my first two batches I did partial grain/extract (LME) kits. Both had relatively similar instructions and had me steep my grains in a bag for 20-30 min while the water heated up to 160-170 degrees. I have a couple questions.

1. I have basically been steeping my grains in the cold water for half an hour as it heats up. In both boils it took me about 25-30 min to hit 170 degrees as the recipe stated. I then removed the grains and went to boil/add extract/etc... Should I keep doing this with future kits or should I pre-heat the water to around 150 degrees and then steep at that temp for 20-30 min?

2. With hops I add in bags per recipe but my question is about cooling. Finishing hops tells you to let the bag steep in the wort while cooling. For my first batch I left both bags in the wort for the entire cool (approx 40 minutes) and only took them out when transferring to the fermenter. My second batch I cooled much faster, around 20 min and transferred to my bucket as soon as I hit 70 deg. so the hops came out quicker. Should I remove the hop bags sooner during cooling or is it safe to just leave them in while you wait?

EDIT: I do full boils so I do not add cold water to cool.

3. Lastly, when bottling my Irish Red Ale I took my FG reading and had a taste. The beer tasted exactly how I expected (a flat Irish Red) but it had a slight dry bitter after taste on the back of my tongue. It was not horrible but definitely noticeable and I am not accustomed to that sensation with this style. It's going to have a nice rest for about a month before drinking so perhaps some aging and carbonation will help but should I be worried?

My FG ended up 2 points higher than expected but not dangerous. I started at 51 and after 2 and a half weeks I had 18. I took readings for 3 days, kept getting 18, rocked the fermenter a bit and waited some more but had no drop. My target should have been around 10-16 so I wasn't way off.

EDIT: I had little to no airlock activity for about a week and the surface area of the beer was all but clear. No Krausen, little to no yeast activity, etc. I do not have a 5 gallon secondary so thats why I bottled.

Also I did have my boil partially covered for this batch (didn't know that was bad) so it may have trapped some of the heat break. Perhaps that is a possible source of the after taste? Or maybe I am just paranoid. Anyway if anyone could share their insight I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

I am on Extract myself, but am considering moving to a partial mash technique as it seems simple and sounds like it can really help without a lot of extra work. As for your questions:

1) The method you were using sounds like the one from Charlie Papazian's book and the original version of "How to Brew" online. I think that steeping at a steady 150-155 degrees has gained popularity as the preferred method.

2) I think you will get varied answers on this. I have seen people who just throw the hops in and never strain them out, and those who use a bag (and have tried both methods myself). Not sure if there is a concrete right or wrong here.

3) The bitter aftertaste is probably a result of the beer being green and not having a chance to clean up. I would expect most people here to reassure you that your beer will be good in a month when you go to taste it again. Also, I think that covering the boil is generally bad, but if you only had it partially covered you should be ok. Avoid it in the future, unless you need to partially cover to acheive a boil.

The month will be a long wait but the reward is great. Good luck.

what duckassassin said. everything you're doing is fine and there are many various methods.

1. steeping at 150-155 in a small volume of water is what i do for extract...making it very similar to actual mashing.

2. i leave my hops in until i'm done cooling.

3. bitter aftertaste = green beer (90% of time)

i would not cover my boil...you want to drive off dms and other undesireable aromas. i wouldn't worry about it, tho...i doubt it affected the beer much, if at all.

1. It's probably better to preheat the water, throw in your grains and then cover and let them sit. Though I don't see a reason why doing it the way you've done it would be bad. It will be quicker to heat the water without the grain in it, I would think.

2. There's no reason you can't leave the hops in while you cool. If you have them in a bag, pull them out. It reduces the mess going into the fermentor.

3. All your beers will have that bitter finishing taste immediately after cooling. Nothing has hand a chance to meld together. It's normal.

Best to keep the lid off the boil. Keeping it on produces DMS, which will give you a nasty buttery flavor/aroma.

Looks like most of your process is fine. RDWHAHB.

EDIT: DB beat me to it, but he was far less verbose, as usual.

shecky said:

EDIT: DB beat me to it, but he was far less verbose, as usual.

Click to expand...

you no good at explanation. i much bigger/better than you. you full of sheck.

DeathBrewer said:

you no good at explanation. i much bigger/better than you. you full of sheck.

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Good point.

Thanks all of ya. I appreciate the input. I am going to try the 150 degree steep next batch and I did not cover the boil t all on my second. I read about that after I did the first Ale. I only had the lid partially covering but I am not going to do it again. A long 4 weeks it will be indeed!!!

1. I have done it both ways and I seem to get a lot more out of the grains when I put them in cold, bring to 155 and take it off the heat for 15-20. Although putting them in at 155 for 15-20 works well, so it depends on the recipe in my mind. But I like to err on the side of more flavor.

2. I dump the hops in w/ out bags and they hang out until I rack to secondary.

3. Hop bitterness will mellow with time and carbonation.

Also I have been doing 5 gallon boils with kits. Should I just drop to partials?

For my Altbier I ended up with exactly 5 gallons of wort in y fermenter without any trub at all yet some have told me that full boils with kits can increase IBU's beyond what may be desirable.

I would do a full boil if I were you, there aare a ton of hop calculators you can get to adjust for utilization.

On my second batch I had some operator errors with temperature control and my grains steeped >180 for 30 minutes. The OG was 1.050 but the FG was only 1.018 after two weeks in primary and two in secondary. It tasted good at bottling, but did the too high temp at steeping cause the lower attenuation?

I ordered a floating thermometer to prevent this rookie mistake from happening again.

OLB said:

On my second batch I had some operator errors with temperature control and my grains steeped >180 for 30 minutes. The OG was 1.050 but the FG was only 1.018 after two weeks in primary and two in secondary. It tasted good at bottling, but did the too high temp at steeping cause the lower attenuation?

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no. it was your extract, your yeast, fluctuating fermentation temps, you racked too early, etc. there are so many variables.

it's possible the steeping left a bunch of starches in there, but it wouldn't be any less with a regular steep. you do not get fermentable sugars from steeping specialty grains.

Yeah mine was almost identical to that scenario. OG of 1.51 and an FG of 1.018.

DeathBrewer said:

no. it was your extract, your yeast, fluctuating fermentation temps, you racked too early, etc. there are so many variables.

it's possible the steeping left a bunch of starches in there, but it wouldn't be any less with a regular steep. you do not get fermentable sugars from steeping specialty grains.

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Of all those variables, I know that fluctuating fermentation temps definitely contributed. The temp was in the mid 60's for the first three days, then dropped into 59-60 range for a couple of days before moving my primary. The new location was in the 70+ degree range for a week. I am looking into better ways to control temps. I like the fermentation chamber that you made but will probably start with a water bath in a cooler with an aquarium heater. That should hold me through the long Chicago winter. Thanks for the input!!