Some questions about the grain bag.

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enderwig

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Hello everyone, I am new to these forums and to beer brewing. So please bear with me!
I stopped into the LHBS yesterday for some things for my mead brewing, and they gave me sample of an Imperial Stout that was so creamy and smooth I just had to have it! So I told the guy, give me the ingredients that I need for this recipe, please.
Here are the ingredients:

12 lb dark unhopped malt extract
1 lb pale brewers malted barley
1/2 lb roasted barley
1/4 lb black patent malted barley
1/2 lb medium crystal malted barley
1/2 lb special B malted barley
1 oz Chinook hops (bittering)
1/2 oz Northern Brewers hops (flavoring)
1/2 oz Willamettes hops (finishing)
1 pkg Nottinghame ale yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar (priming)

Now, I realize that my first mistake was letting him give a sample of such a good beer, that happened to be a partial grain recipe. I should probably have used an all extract recipe for my first. Oh well, too late, I'm in it now.

So next he hands me an instruction sheet:

1. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil
2. Add grains
3. Add bittering hops
4. Boil for 20 minutes
5. Turn off heat and stir vigorously while adding the extract
6. Turn the heat back on
7. Boil for 10 minutes
8. Add the flavoring hops
9. Boil for 10 minutes
10. Turn off the heat
11. Add finishing hops
12. Cool wort
13. Siphon to carboy
14. Fill carboy to 5 gallons with water
15. When wort is room temp., pitch yeast

I followed these directions to the letter. Now to the gist of my question.
Nowhere in the directions does it say to remove the grain bag, so here is what I did. It was to late to call the LHBS to ask, so I put the grain bag in at the beginning of the boil as per direction #2. When I get to #5, adding the extract, I think to myself, probably not a good thing to dump the extract on the grain bag, so I removed it to a big bowl. I added the extract, turned the heat back on, and replaced the grain bag with the wort that drained out into the bowl. I then followed the rest of the directions, then when I put the pot in the ice water, I removed the grain bag to a strainer and held it over the wort till it quit draining.
At this point, I opened the grain bag and dumped it into my compost pile, then racked from the pot to a 7 gallon carboy.
As of today, the primary fermentation is going well, I have about 3 inches of bubbling foam on top.
I am still concerned that my brew won't taste like what I had at the LHBS, because of the grain bag.

Any information or advice anyone can give on how to manage the grain bag in a recipe like this?
 
It isn't a good idea to boil grains, although you might not notice the astringency in a big stout.

What would have been better is to heat the water to 170F, shut the flame off and put the grain in. Wait about 30 minutes, remove the grain bag and proceed.
 
I think you will be fine. research this board well before your next batch. Not to knock your LHBS, but I think you'll get better intruction than what was in that instruction list.
 
I may try this same recipe again using the method that you mentioned:

david_42 said:
What would have been better is to heat the water to 170F, shut the flame off and put the grain in. Wait about 30 minutes, remove the grain bag and proceed.

When I realized the directions were, uh, lacking, I was about 3/4 of the way through, so, live and learn.
Thanks for the replies
 
Boiling the grains is a no no, but your beer will be ok. A little longer in the bottle and it will be even better. Boiling grains releases tannins that contribute to the astringency already mentioned. It will hide some though in a stout like that and dissipate some as time goes on.

No reason to not go extract and steeping grains to start. Now while you wait it's time to have a couple of brews and plan out your next batch.
 
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