Can stop pellets, will it work for grain?

Getting ready to go full boil here shortly and started thinking about making changes in my processes. Been reading on steeping/mashing/sparging. Will be using the 3 quarts of water per pound of grains at 150 and then sparging with a quart. Anyway, do I need to put the grain in bags or can I just dump them in the heated 3 quart pot of water and then pour it out through a screen that I use to stop hot pellets when I dump into primary? I mean if the screen will stop hop pellets, it should stop the crushed grains, right? Or am I missing something? Seems like doing it this way would make for better water contact with the grains.

Isn't 3qt/lb on the high side? I assumed the range was 1 to 2qts per pound. I don't see any problem dumping it through a strainer except for the possibility of hot side aeration. The easiest way into mashing/sparging is a round cooler with a big grain bag so you can drain out the spigot.

As this is listed in extract brewing, are you going to steep or mash?

If you are just steeping water amount is not as critical and sparging is not really necessary as you are only extracting flavors and colors and not so much of the fermentable sugars. You only need to hold it at that temp for maybe 30 minutes

If you are attempting to mash you want to use about 1.5 quarts per lb. and sparge with about 3 times as much water. If mashing you need to hold the temp at 149-158 for 45 minutes to ah hour. A little trickier in a pot on the stove, but definately doable.

In either situation you can dump the grains straight in the water or use a grain bag. Graibn bag is easy but there are other ways of "getting the grains out". If they are just in the water and you are only steeping, you can actually just use a mesh colander and scoop them out. A little more work, but effective. I assume the screen you speak of is placed in a funnel? This will work as well if your funnel can hold all of the grains. You will need another pot to pour into if you are pouring from the brewpot.

hope that helps.

I did not think of that. bobbym makes a good point about hot side aeration. Splashing the hot wort through a strainer could be detrimental to the beers flavor.

Sorry about the confusion, it's my part. I WAS thinking that if I steep, I could use the benefit of the sparging technique to the steeped grains. But, I know there is lots of discussion on this here, but if I would get some of the fermentables out of the grains if I steep at 150 for 20 minutes and then sparge into the kettle prior to boiling?

knights of Gambrinus said:

I did not think of that. bobbym makes a good point about hot side aeration. Splashing the hot wort through a strainer could be detrimental to the beers flavor.

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HSA seems to be a myth when it comes to homebrew.
Every ones heard of it an knows how it could happen but that's as far as it goes.

I suppose you would get some. It also depends on what grains you are talking about. If they are just specialty grains, than they do not have much in the way of starches to begin with, therefore not much conversion to sugars if any. If you are using base malts, then yes. If that is what you are after than why not just hold it for longer time at that temp. That way you would definately achieve this.

Sounds like you are ready to try partial mash... come over to the dark side luke.

Ol' Grog said:

Sorry about the confusion, it's my part. I WAS thinking that if I steep, I could use the benefit of the sparging technique to the steeped grains. But, I know there is lots of discussion on this here, but if I would get some of the fermentables out of the grains if I steep at 150 for 20 minutes and then sparge into the kettle prior to boiling?

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I sparge when I steep, just like to get as much out of the grain as I can. I typically put the grains in a grain bag and steep in 1.5 gallons of water (less if I don't have much grain) at 155 deg. Then I sparge with another qt. of water.

If you are taking about going mini-mash (the direction I am headed) then I believe you let the grains sit for longer in less water, but I could be wrong, and then drain the wort into your brewpot and sparge.

It's my understanding that for true AG you need some kind of mashing vessel and that the 5 gallon coolers with spigot work well (been researching this to see if it's feasible in my apartment).

Knight...that's funny. I'm thinking joining the dark side, but just not ready to make the quantum leap. Right now, it's not base malts, it's grains such as crystal 60L. I just thought that there would be some non-fermentables I might be able to get out of them. I'm starting to see why my process may not work.
On the grain bag, not a problem, it's just that one time I made a Irish red and it had about 1.5 pounds of grains stuffed into the grain bag and I wondered if I got every bit of flavoring and color out of them being that there was so much. I guess the efficiency is something I'm trying to improve on from a steeping standpoint. I know, you AG'ers are all laughing in my face, BUT....it's a thougth. Also, I ran out of muslim disposable bags and was thinking of my next brew.

Going back to you original question, I don't see any problem with using a screen, except for volume. Catching a few ounces of hops is different from dealing with 6-10 pounds of hot damp grain. A very large nylon grain bag (17"x24") can be purchased for about $10 and is the cheapest and easiest way to start mini-mashing.

Never stuff a grain or hop bag full. In both cases, you reduce water movement too much & you get very little out of your materials.

I heat 2 qts water to about 165 and just throw the steeping grains in. I don't adjust the water volume for the amount of grain used. Then I put a lid on the pot and kill the heat. The temp settles in at about 155 and holds pretty steady for the 1/2 hour I steep, but I will add heat it if drops much below 150.

I pour the liquid thru a kitchen strainer into my brewpot which has 1 1/2 gallons of water already heating - trying to save time on getting everything up to a boil. I rinse out the grains in the strainer with another 2 quarts of 165 degree water.

I haven't had any problems with this other than my strainer is a bit too small. I haven't noticed any hotside aeration issues.

Maybe my LBHS is unique but they have reuseable nylon (large) grain bags for $5, also have bucket size straining bags for same.

I do not think anyone is laughing (I am only a pm'er though) rather they are likely more than happy to corrupt, er, I mean convert you.

As for a stuffed bag, I am not sure, but I do not think that is a problem. It is more desirable to have a thicker mas than a thin one, meaning more equal water to grain ratio. But not too thick either. As long as you have at least one quart per lb. it will work. 1.5 is better though I believe.

No quantum leaps necessary. Just little steps. If you have a 2 or 3 gallon water cooler it is really easy to mash. The absolute simplest way is to put you grains in a nylon bag in the cooler with the water. At the end of the time drain with the built in spigot. here is an article to check out.

http://byo.com/feature/1536.html

If not a water cooler other things can be improvised. Regular pot with something wrappped around to insulate...

Have fun.

If you know someone (or you yourself) are handy with a sewing machine you can make a grain bag any frickin' size you want.

SWMBO has made me some rather large bags before for straining sake lees and I have used them for beer grains too. Just buy some white silk screen mesh. It is exactly what the bags you buy are made of. Can have any kind of drawstring, handles, whatever you want, fully customized.

That's what I've been thinking about and hence my ideology for better "efficiency."
Cool, so I was thinking right. Homebrewing, you just gotta LOVE it!!!
So, what exactly could I use for grain bag if I don't have any muslims left and there is no homebrew store nearby but there is a Walmart? I'm worried about melting around 160F. I think I remember reading something about pantyhose, but don't think they would stand up to the heat and plus, I don't want all those chemicals off gassing in my wort.

I tend to use the disposable grain bags for steeping. If I have a lot of grain I just use more than 1. They are really cheap at my lhbs so i never worry about that.

If I go partial mash, what kind of reduction am I looking at as far as LME or DME go? Or does it matter?

anyone got anything???

Ol' Grog said:

If I go partial mash, what kind of reduction am I looking at as far as LME or DME go? Or does it matter?

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Well, it does depend on how much/what you are mashing! If you use 1 pound two row, for example, not any reduction to speak of really. But if you're doing a larger PM, you can really reduce your extract. If you find a recipe you like, post it, and I'll run it as an extract and then a PM in my Beersmith and we can see the actual numbers.

I totally skipped partial mash because it didn't seem like a reasonable incremental step. If I'm going to mash at all, why not just get all the fermentables from it and skip the expensive extract?

To your other question, you can expect about 6 gravity points per pound of 2-row, at least according to Qbrew which I set at 75% effeciency. So 3 pounds would be 1.018 and six would be 1.036.

Is it worth it? Well, to get 36 points you'll need either 6 pounds of 2-row ($6) or 4 pounds of DME ($12) so obviously the more points you get from mashing, the cheaper the batch gets.

So, again I say, why not go all grain?

Lack of room, equipment and time. But, don't THINK I ain't thinking it!!! Probably down the road with the above mentioned setbacks subside.
I was thinking along the lines as increasing the sweetness of the brew. And from what I've learned so far is that adding corn sugar won't help, only non-fermentable type of sugars such as lactose. With that in mind, I read that some grains or malts, have different percentages of fermentables vs. non-fermentables. So, if I add some non-fermentables to my extracts, hence the sweetness factor would go up somewhat. Now I'm trying to figure out which or what kind of grains/malts to use and do a mini-mash or partial mash while still using extracts. Does this make any sense? I know could add a ounce or two of lactose when I keg it, but I'm kind of concerned about infections at this point, with that particular technique.