Steeping grains

If I'm steeping some crystal malt or other specialty grain, should I put enough water in to cover said grains? Or should I only use 1/2 gallon of water per lb. of grains?

Is there a negative to using too much water to steep the grains? Right now, I only have a 5 gallon pot and I'm doing extract to get my process down before moving to AG, so I am not doing full boils yet.

Thanks!

You steep in whatever volume you are boiling...It's not like a PM or all grain, where the ratio of water/grain is important.

In my 5 gallon post on my stove I usually steep in 3 gallons then lift the grain bag and rinse it with a couple quarts of hot tap water...so it will give me a volume of about 3.25-3.5 gallon. This I will boil for an hour with all my extract and hops (after removing the grain bag.) I usully end up with 2.75 - 2.5 gallons of water which I then top off in the fermenter to 5 gallons.

You absolutely want to a void a dilute steep of specialty grains. If you steep the relatively small amount of specialty grains used in an extract recipe in too much water, that small amount of specialty grains is not sufficient to lower the pH of that large amount of water enough to avoid extracting excess tannins from the grain husks. 1-3 quarts of water per pound of specialty grains will avoid a dilute steep.

If you would like to see a great article that was written about this very subject by Chris Colby of BYO magazine please feel free to PM me and I'll be glad to email it to you.