Instructions confusion (for ME anyway)

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Wheat King

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i have a kit for a Scotch Ale that i havent had a chance to get started on, but decided to open it up and check out all the ingredients etc. So i was reading the included instructions and the first couple steps were boggling to me. here they are, any help is appreciated:

1. Steep Grains in hot water at 155 degrees for 30 min.
2. Drain tea from grains into boiling kettle, rinse one or two times with hot water (170 degrees).

so my question is this: why would i steep the grains outside of the boiling kettle? and what does it mean to drain the tea from the grains? isnt the "tea" the water that the grains were steeping in? and lastly, why am i rinsing the grains with hot water, and does that water im rinsing with go into my boiling kettle or down the sink?

call me crazy or stupid, but im having a hard time wrapping my head around these simple instructions :cross:
 
I always steep right in the brewpot, no reason I can think of not to. The most important thing is temperature control, you want to maintain 155 as close as you can (couple degrees one way or the other won't make too much different, but don't go above 160).

Basically, once your water is up to 155 (and you back off the heat to maintain that temp), add your grains, in a grain bag, to the water. Let them steep for between a half hour and 45 minutes. Then, you can sparge with 170 water. I'll pull the grain bag out of the water and place it in my stainless steel strainer, then run 170 degree water over it for a short while to get all the flavor out. You don't want or need to get everything out of the grains, I'll just rinse until it starts running a bit clearer.

If you sparge (and you don't HAVE to sparge, most of the goodness will be already released into the "tea"), just remember to start out with less water than you plan to boil. If you're doing a 2.5 gallon boil, do your steeping with less than 2 gallons, because you'll sparge right into the brewkettle.

Most important:

1. Do not sparge with water hotter than 170F; above this, and you'll pull tannins out of the grains.

2. Do NOT squeeze the grain bag - this will also release tannins.

After than, discard the grain bag, bring the water to a boil, add your extract and go from there. Pretty straightforward.
 
why would i steep the grains outside of the boiling kettle?

If you are brewing inside on a stove top, you might want to have separate steeping and boil kettles, just to save time. You could steep the grain while heating more water to 170F in the boil kettle. Once the steeping is done, rinse the grain bag in the boil kettle, THEN pour the "tea" into the boil kettle. I can't think of any other reason.
 

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