Steeping Grains in a Second Pot, Adding Late in Main Boil

Normally, when an extract recipe calls for steeping grains, I follow the typical process of bringing water in my brew kettle up to 150-160, add the grains, and hold the temp for 30 minutes. Then I remove the grains, sparge, and bring the wort to a boil. Then I add 1/2 my extract and proceed with my normal extract brewing process.

I recently heard of someone separating the steeping process, which would cut down on brew time, and wanted to get some opinions on it. So basically while doing a normal extract brew in your kettle, you would be steeping your specialty grains in a separate pot. Then you would add the wort from the steeping pot to the wort in your main brew kettle towards the end of the boil, say around 15 minutes. You would have to make some slight adjustments to your hop schedule since the SG during most of the boil would be somewhat lower.

An alternative method would be to boil the wort from the steeping grains in that second pot (for something less than an hour) and then combine the main wort and the steeping wort in the fermentation bucket.

I'm not looking to cut corners, was just curious about what others have done in this regard.

I guess it would work, but that's adding more cleaning / equipment to save not too much time. You might get slightly less flavor due to steeping the grain in a lower water volume.

When I do extract that's basically what I do. Palmer recommends steeping in a lot less water than you are going to boil. So what I do (for my 2.5 gal batches) is steep the grains in about .75 gal in one pot and get the other pot with most of my brew water to boil. Then add some of the extract to the main pot and the hops and when the steep is done add that too. Then add the remainder of the extract at the last 15 min with whirlfoc. This supposedly improves the flavor extraction from the grains and cuts down on time. It ends up being only one extra small pot to clean and saves at least 30 min.

This is what I do. I use my 4 qt pot to steep while my 5 gal kettle comes to temperature....since my stove takes an hour to get to boiling.

When you steep your grains do you use full volume?

Thanks for the replies so far. I was basically planning to follow the method fatnoah describes. I'm not too worried about extra cleaning and equipment since that can be prepped and handled outside of my actual brew time. It's the time from turning on my burner to pitching yeast that I was looking to optimize.

will_rouse said:

When you steep your grains do you use full volume?

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I traditionally steep in all the water I'm using for my partial boil, 2-2.5 gallons, but I've seen a lot of comments (when searching for answers before starting this thread) recommending much lower volumes for steeping. I'd definitely steep in less water if I was doing it separate from my main boil to keep my combined volume within the range of my brew kettle.

I've been thinking about steeping the grains in one pot while boiling the wort in my kettle. Curious if it makes a difference in flavour or hop utilization.

It would be awesome (much more efficient) to cut out that extra 30 mins.

Brew-Dog said:

I've been thinking about steeping the grains in one pot while boiling the wort in my kettle. Curious if it makes a difference in flavour or hop utilization.

It would be awesome (much more efficient) to cut out that extra 30 mins.

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Do it! I doubt it makes much of a difference at all.