Question about steeping grain

Hello, I brewed my first batch on Saturday and since I've been reading more and more on here. What I realized is when I was steeping my grains I left the heat on. I didn't realize I had to shut it off. But what I did do is constantly monitor it to make sure it didnt go over 160f . Will my brew be ok? It's fermenting perfectly fine at like 64-68 f right now with the airlock goin about every 3 seconds today.

If you kept your temps where you said you did, then there should not be any problems. Relax and have yourself a cold one!

The only real danger is if your steeping grains get above about 180 you will start to extract tannins from the grains. It is fine to leave the heat on as long as you don't burn the grains or go above 180. If your recipe called for something like 154 and you got up to 160, you are just going to have a bit more flavor and color from the specialty grains than the recipe intended, but it won't have enough effect on the final product to notice that much.

In a few books and such I have seen that 170 +/- 10C is fine for grains so 180 should be fine.

If, say, you had mistakenly gotten it to 200F for a while, you would still have bubbling go on in the airlock all else being equal. It would be in the astringent taste when you sampled that you'd realized what overheating grains can do.

But I think you're fine.

B

Tea my temps definately didnt get anywhere near 180 so i think im good

Thanks everyone

I did that my first brew also.

Now I get it to about 160 then kill the heat and leave the lid on.

Why are tannins not extracted when people do a deconcotion mash? I thought tannins where associated with the ph of the mash.

To extract tannins you have to have elevated temperature and high (or is it low) pH.