Mash schedule - Partial/Extract Porter recipe

This will be only my third homebrew attempt and I'm going to do a Porter. The crushed grains I have are Choc Malt, Black Patent, and Crystal. The malt charts all say that these grains do not need mashing, but all of the Porter recipes I see online containing them call for a mash. I can do a mini mash in my kitchen and it wouldn't be a problem to do it - I just need to know if it's necessary for these ingredients. Other than that, I think I'm set with the rest of the recipe, etc.

I also am gonna throw in a little dextrin malt, and am not sure when to do that, either.

Any advice on this would be appreciated. Thanks

If you do a mash with those grains alone, you won't get much in the way of conversion. A couple pounds of two-row would be necessary for a proper mini-mash.

On the other hand, in a partial, a mash really isn't necessary, as the primary function of those grains is flavor, head retention etc. and you'll get most of your gravity from extract anyway.

So you're saying just steep them? I do have Munton's Light LME, which the HBS guy said was English 2-row Pale. I also have some Munton's DME Amber malt. It's sort of a Kitchen sink porter since I'm trying to use up my stuff before I leave town for a while.

It may be that the light LME is from English 2-row Pale, but there are no enzymes to convert the starches to sugars.

As bernerbrau has stated, though, the steeping grains are for colour, flavour, and the other intangibles that make for a really great stout.

I would just heat 1-2 gallons water up to ~155, steep the grains for an hour, then run additional heated water through the grain bag to rinse and collect your boil volume.

Sounds nice and easy - usual sparge water temp is 170, right? Thx

Sounds nice and easy - usual sparge water temp is 170, right? Thx

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Yep but it's not critical to hit that temp because you aren't really halting any diastatic power. Just don't go too hot or you might get some astringency (think the flavor you get from reusing a tea bag or steeping it too hot) from the specialty grains.