adding dark grains at vorlauf

What I plan on doing is using 1.5 qts per pound for cold steeping the dark grain. I'll cold steep for 24 hours. Then I'm going to dump the entire contents (grains and water) into my MLT when I sparge....

Stauffbier said:

What I plan on doing is using 1.5 qts per pound for cold steeping the dark grain. I'll cold steep for 24 hours. Then I'm going to dump the entire contents (grains and water) into my MLT when I sparge....

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That's interesting! Can't hurt. Post how it turns out.

steelersrbrun said:

That's interesting! Can't hurt. Post how it turns out.

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I should also mention that I'm considering trying a cold sparge on this batch as well. I've heard interesting things about it, so I want to try it....

Stauffbier said:

I should also mention that I'm considering trying a cold sparge on this batch as well. I've heard interesting things about it, so I want to try it....

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A cold sparge? I have never even heard about that. Wouldn't that just leave most of the sugar behind?

steelersrbrun said:

A cold sparge? I have never even heard about that. Wouldn't that just leave most of the sugar behind?

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Nope
http://braukaiser.com/lifetype2/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=129&blogId=1
Though it doesn't seem overly attractive to me.

steelersrbrun said:

A cold sparge? I have never even heard about that. Wouldn't that just leave most of the sugar behind?

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I'm told it will rinse the sugars just fine. From what I understand the reason we use warm water is to stop conversion and to keep our wort closer to boiling temp, so it doesn't take as long to reach a boil. The only problem with this is, depending on pH, the higher temps can extract tannins. So, using room temp water has a lesser chance of extracting tannins, still rinses sugars just fine, and still stops conversion. The only draw back is that your wort will be a lower temp, and it will take a little longer to reach a boil. I don't really mind it taking longer, myself. If you don't have to heat sparge water then you save time and energy (fuel), so it's kind of the same difference.... I've spoken to a well known brewer on this forum about it, and he has very good results with this method....

So I brewed a milk stout today. It was a last minute idea since work got canceled this morning, so I didn't have a chance to cold steep my dark grains as planned. I decided to add them late in the mash instead. I added them in the last 10 minutes of the mash and then I sparged. I sparged cold for the first time. Did a double batch sparge with room temp water. I managed 74% efficiency. I usually get 79% with a typical hot sparge, so I'm happy with that. The wort had a beautiful color, just like you would expect for a stout. It tasted magnificent! I can't wait to see how it turns out! Cheers!

Stauffbier said:

I'm told it will rinse the sugars just fine. From what I understand the reason we use warm water is to stop conversion and to keep our wort closer to boiling temp, so it doesn't take as long to reach a boil. The only problem with this is, depending on pH, the higher temps can extract tannins. So, using room temp water has a lesser chance of extracting tannins, still rinses sugars just fine, and still stops conversion.

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These two statements seem contradictory:

"the reason we use warm water is to stop conversion"
"using room temp water...still stops conversion."

BrewThruYou said:

These two statements seem contradictory:

"the reason we use warm water is to stop conversion"
"using room temp water...still stops conversion."

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They do if you split hairs, but I see what he is saying. Raising the temp will denature the enzymes thereby stopping conversion. Doing a cold sparge will lower the temp below the enzymes optimal range thereby drastically slowing conversion which pretty much accomplishes the same thing in the scale of time we are looking at here.

Stops is probably too strong a word, but the reaction rates for the enzymes are substantially lower at tap water temperatures compared to typical mash teperatures. So not stopped, but pretty darn slow.

I have started adding any sugars and my steeping grain liquor to the boil with 5 minutes remaining. I essentially boil with only base grains and hops. The cold sparge sounds like a very interesting idea since I use a small HLT that really is just my heat exchanger for my HERMs...it solves the problem of heating my sparge water in the BK.

BrewThruYou said:

These two statements seem contradictory:

"the reason we use warm water is to stop conversion"
"using room temp water...still stops conversion."

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It does come across that way. Sorry. What I mean is any temp above or below typical mash temps will stop (or slow) conversion. I think people choose to use higher temps because of the belief that it increases efficiency and puts you closer to boiling temp.

helibrewer said:

I have started adding any sugars and my steeping grain liquor to the boil with 5 minutes remaining. I essentially boil with only base grains and hops. The cold sparge sounds like a very interesting idea since I use a small HLT that really is just my heat exchanger for my HERMs...it solves the problem of heating my sparge water in the BK.

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I have to admit it was really nice just dumping room temp water in there. Saves time and energy. The temperature of my wort after sparging was about 118F, and it didn't seem to really take that much longer to get to a boil than it normally does.

I have used the cold steep method of dark grains 2 times now for my oatmeal stout. I used Gordon Strong's ratio of 2qt cold water to 1lb of grain in a very large glass bowl. I let the grain steep in a large muslin bag at room temperature for approx 24 hours, dunking like a tea bag every now and then. I let the bag of grain drain over the bowl until it stopped dripping and added the very dark liquid to the last 15 min of the boil. He actually states this liquid is stable and could be added directly to the fermentation vessel but I felt had to boil it a few minutes for sanitation purposes.

I think the roasted flavors came through very well without any of the harshness I had experienced before in some of my earlier stout attempts. YMMV

Stauffbier said:

So I brewed a milk stout today. It was a last minute idea since work got canceled this morning, so I didn't have a chance to cold steep my dark grains as planned. I decided to add them late in the mash instead. I added them in the last 10 minutes of the mash and then I sparged. I sparged cold for the first time. Did a double batch sparge with room temp water. I managed 74% efficiency. I usually get 79% with a typical hot sparge, so I'm happy with that. The wort had a beautiful color, just like you would expect for a stout. It tasted magnificent! I can't wait to see how it turns out! Cheers!

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Post it here and let me know how it goes. The cold sparge isn’t something I will try but now I know to trust in Kai and if I have to, I can sparge in emergency conditions.

I kegged mine yesterday. It's a bit too roasty but that was an obvious error on my end. In short I about tripled my quantities on the chocolate and carafa III. Apparently I’m too poor to pay….pay attention that is;-) I will definitely use this type of dark grain addition again. The late add made my wort jet black….had I used the proper amount I bet it would have been a nice mellow roastiness to it as well. I will post any re-brews here as well but I’m a big fan. Thanks to Jamil and Peter Zien, I late Hop. Now thanks to Gordon I will …umm…late dark grain mash.

Well time to report back....I used two pounds of Carafa II for 11 gallons of a Black IPA. The Carafa II was added during the last 5 minutes of the mash and during the vorlauf. It gave it a nice dark brown/black color going into the fermentor. Finally tasted it today after dry hopping. OUTSTANDING!!! Exactly what I wanted....a dark IPA with very, very little roastiness. I think if you drank this with your eyes closed you might think you are drinking a "traditional" IPA. No harsh roastiness at all!!

Phunhog said:

Well time to report back....I used two pounds of Carafa II for 11 gallons of a Black IPA. The Carafa II was added during the last 5 minutes of the mash and during the vorlauf. It gave it a nice dark brown/black color going into the fermentor. Finally tasted it today after dry hopping. OUTSTANDING!!! Exactly what I wanted....a dark IPA with very, very little roastiness. I think if you drank this with your eyes closed you might think you are drinking a "traditional" IPA. No harsh roastiness at all!!

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Good going! I can't wait to try my stout...

Phunhog said:

Well time to report back....I used two pounds of Carafa II for 11 gallons of a Black IPA. The Carafa II was added during the last 5 minutes of the mash and during the vorlauf. It gave it a nice dark brown/black color going into the fermentor. Finally tasted it today after dry hopping. OUTSTANDING!!! Exactly what I wanted....a dark IPA with very, very little roastiness. I think if you drank this with your eyes closed you might think you are drinking a "traditional" IPA. No harsh roastiness at all!!

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Awesome.......I need to get a re-brew on my oatmeal scheduled.

I did the dark grain at vorlauf brewing my most recent stout. I think it came out great. My once concern is that while there is some nice roast character, it appears to be a bit less than how the recipe is described in the linked thread. I suspect that bumping the dark grain amount by ~10% or so may be a good way to go.

ResumeMan said:

I did the dark grain at vorlauf brewing my most recent stout. I think it came out great. My once concern is that while there is some nice roast character, it appears to be a bit less than how the recipe is described in the linked thread. I suspect that bumping the dark grain amount by ~10% or so may be a good way to go.

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I bumped up my dark grain amount when I tried cold steeping them, but I didn't for the late mash addition...

Glad to have found this thread after listening to Gordon Strong on Brew Smith on this topic. He makes a lot of sense, I love to see some one think out of the box. Link to show below. It should que to 19:10 into the show when they are talking about stepping specialty grains vs mashing them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w0BfUARazw&feature=player_embedded#t=1149s

So I assume the roasted malts will still have an affect on the pH. The grain will acidify the steeping water or the mash water if it is added at dough in or end of the mash during the vorlauf. Would we still adjust our brewing salts and water according to the spreadsheets, or is there a certain percentage of acidity or buffering that is gained or lost in the steeping process?
If it's added at the vorlauf, are we just assuming a half hour or so of sparging(diluting) isn't enough to extract tannins?
Is anyone adding brewing salts to their steeping water?

JustusLiebig said:

So I assume the roasted malts will still have an affect on the pH. The grain will acidify the steeping water or the mash water if it is added at dough in or end of the mash during the vorlauf. Would we still adjust our brewing salts and water according to the spreadsheets, or is there a certain percentage of acidity or buffering that is gained or lost in the steeping process?
If it's added at the vorlauf, are we just assuming a half hour or so of sparging(diluting) isn't enough to extract tannins?
Is anyone adding brewing salts to their steeping water?

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Tannin extraction occurs at high pH not low pH, adding dark grains lowers the pH. Low pH is actually desirable after enzyme activity in the mash is over for a variety of reasons.

And to be clear, the (non-flavor) reasons that you add the salts are for the enzymes to work at the correct pH as they convert the starch to sugar. So when you are adding the dark grains, you are indeed lowering the pH, but that doesn't matter any more for mash purposes since you're waiting till conversion is complete.

Therefore, proceed with your salt additions as though there were no dark grains at all (I suppose that adding the grains will lower the pH in the kettle relative to a recipe with no dark grains at all, but that isn't as important of a factor in the brewing process [I think it's not totally irrelevant but I can't recall the details.])

I sort of tried the BIAB version today. I mashed only four ounces of chocolate and waited til the final two minutes when I stir constantly to add the 8oz. of black patent to a porter I brewed. I then put the bag in another vessel and 'dunked' it in about two gallons of 170 degree water and added to the boil. I'll see if I can taste a difference in a couple weeks.