Boiled grain blues

I've got 'em. I just bottled my Dortmunder and it had that off taste. When I was brewing, instead of using the cheesecloth bag I steeped the specialty grains in a gallon of water on their own. When I went to pour them into my brewpot there was so much grain that it overflowed my strainer and about a cup or so went into my brew pot. I didn't want to mess with restraining, it would have been complicated with my current set up, so I just boiled away.

Anyway I definitely tasted an off flavor. Kind of sucks, but was also a good learning experience. Now I know what that tastes like. The beer is still drinkable and is a big beer so not all is lost. Another thing I got out of it is the driving home of the point that it is hard to completely ruin a beer. A final lesson is to pay attention to the amount of specialty grain and to think about using the cheesecloth from now on.

Take a look at wine supply sites and get a really big mesh bag. I have one that fills my fermenting bucket. I use it for steeping and partial mashes. It also holds adjuncts during the ferment when I make fruit/berry ciders.

It's reusable?

billybrew said:

Another thing I got out of it is the driving home of the point that it is hard to completely ruin a beer.

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If you set your standards low enough, yes, this is true.

The bag I purchased is just like the re-usable grain/hop bags, except it is about 24x40 inches. Last time I made some blackberry cider, I just put it in the fermenter, dumped in 3 gallons of blackberries, tied it off and added three gallons of apple juice and the yeast. When it was done, I decanted to the secondary and pulled the bag out with about 1/2 gallon of blackberry seeds in it.

I use muslin bags for my specialty grains and simply fill the bag away from the pot and either tie it closed unto itself or tie it closed with string...no worries of dumping grains into your kettle. My $0.02.

I've got a nice elastic-rimmed grain bag that fits beautifully into the brew pot and stays secure. Easy work.

Also, a 3" or 4" fine strainer with a handle, when cleaned and sanitized, is great for removing those grains (bought mine at Wal-mart). Just sweep through the wort to remove those astringent little husks.

The only reason I didn't use the bag in the first place was that the guy at Dr. Jekyll's in Ft. Worth convinced me that with the bag you didn't get all of the flavor of the grain.

The happy mug said:

I've got a nice elastic-rimmed grain bag that fits beautifully into the brew pot and stays secure. Easy work.

Also, a 3" or 4" fine strainer with a handle, when cleaned and sanitized, is great for removing those grains (bought mine at Wal-mart). Just sweep through the wort to remove those astringent little husks.

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Dang, I had one of those, but didn't think about it!

billybrew said:

The only reason I didn't use the bag in the first place was that the guy at Dr. Jekyll's in Ft. Worth convinced me that with the bag you didn't get all of the flavor of the grain.

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I think I know who you are talking about. I've been in Dr. Jekyll's. Big dude with longish hair? Very helpful guy. I suppose he figured you wouldn't use too small of a strainer or something.

When I bought steeping grains and hops pellets for my Stout, he didn't say anything about me buying bags for both. He did wonder why my recipe called for TWO cans of Coopers Stout extract. Thought that maybe Coopers or someone was trying to make an extra buck by recommending two instead of one.

Before I left, he made sure I knew how to make a blow off tube setup. Even gave me a piece of tube to make one with. As it turned out, it was a good thing he did. Otherwise, I would have had a mess on my hands, for sure...