Quick ? about partial extract taste

[knox_brew]

Long time lurker. I have a quick question about the taste of the water I am mashing the grains in. I am doing a 2.5 gallon batch of NB Dead Ringer and the water I am steeping the grains in isn't tasting as strong as I expected. I thought it would have a more pronounced taste or sweetness to it. While it does have some taste of the grains it just doesn't seem that strong of a taste to me. Is this normal or are the grains more for color than the extract is?

Thanks and

 

[AdamPag]

shouldnt matter, Ive had it be real sweet and not very sweet at all. just, 30 mins at 154* and RDWHAHB

 

[knox_brew]

Ok sounds good. The final taste after all the LME and hop additions sure did taste good though!

Another quick question. While brewing and having some Lost Coast Indica I sort of just measured the gravity of the wort before the addition of the top off water. The gravity was 1.170 or there abouts. I added it to 1.5 gallons of water. Is there a calculation to maybe figure out the actual gravity reading?

Oh and also while adding my carboy plug I stuffed it into the carboy with a bit to much zeal and fell to the bottom of my carboy. It was sanitized with starsan so I hope the beer will be ok.
Thanks!

 

[JLem]

Are you sure it was 1.170? That seem high, though perhaps not for a partial boil.

If it was 1.170, you can calculate your OG by:
(Original volume x 170)/final volume

This will give you the gravity points. If it comes out to say 70, your OG was 1.070

 

[AdamPag]

um, He did say BEFORE he added it to the top off water so dont worry, let it ride.

Btw ,this is the 2nd post today where someone said they pushed the stopper INTO the carboy... wtf? HOW?!

 

[jonmohno]

sounds like too small a stopper.I can barely get my airlock out of my stoppers sometimes when i use the stopper though,and i think i broke an airlock one trying to get it out of the plug once.
To the op if you split that kit batch i would just plug in the recipe or assume it is what the kit says that is if you had your volume and ingredients evenly split.but Jlem's got the math skills there.

 

[knox_brew]

Yeah it was before the water addition so 1.170 or close enough not to matter one way or the other. The carboy is a 3 gallon culligan water bottle and the stopper was a 9.5 and with the starsan on it when I went to put the air lock in the starsaned lubed stopper slid right in. Good thing I had a an extra stopper on hand.

I took the recipe and divided it by half and then purchased the ingredients from my LHBS.

 

[AdamPag]

OG is like never right anyway, dont worry and let it ride, next time, OG is taken after top off, and it still wont be right.

and +1 to my #10 stopper being way bigger than the carboy mouth, being a pain to pull out, and breaking an airlock.

 

[rl1373]

Mashing is different then steeping. Mashing is actually the conversion of starch to sugar by an enzyme contained in a base malt. In order for the enzyme to be activated and the conversion to occur the temperature of the mash (grains and water) is typically in the temperature of 148-160 degrees. This temperature is held for typically an hour depending on the recipe.

Steeping grains is similar to making a cup of tea. The hot water is used to extract the flavor from the grain.

With that being said, you could theoretically steep any grain you wanted but you will only see true benefit from steeping specialty grains. Specialty grains have already went through conversion therefore can just be steeped.

A great read on this is "how to brew" by john palmer. http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12.html Chapter 12 deals with extract brewing with steeping grains. Hopefully this helps!

 

[Stauffbier]

You could always take another gravity reading now if it hasn't started fermenting yet.

 

[knox_brew]

The grains I steeped were 40L and I brought them up to around 168 and let them sit for about 30 minutes or so.

 

[JLem]

The grains I steeped were 40L and I brought them up to around 168 and let them sit for about 30 minutes or so.

How much extract did you use? What was the final volume?

 

[knox_brew]

I used approx 4.5 pounds of golden light LME added to a gallon of water along with the 1/2 pound of 40L. I added the wort to 1 1/2 gallons of water. Total volume of this batch is just under 2 1/2 gallons.

 

[JLem]

I used approx 4.5 pounds of golden light LME added to a gallon of water along with the 1/2 pound of 40L. I added the wort to 1 1/2 gallons of water. Total volume of this batch is just under 2 1/2 gallons.

If you assume the LME gives 36 gravity points per pound per gallon, the extract alone gets you to an OG of 1.065. I'm not 100% sure how much sugar you get out of steeping the grains, but if you assume you get their full potential of 34 gravity points per pound per gallon, your OG would be approximately 1.072.

LME: (4.5 lbs x 36 points/lb/gal)/2.5 gal = 65 points
Grains: (0.5 lbs x 34 points/lb/gal)/2.5 gal = 7 points

Total = 72 points --> 1.072 OG

 

[knox_brew]

Awesome! Thanks for the help

 

[rl1373]

1/2 lb of crystal 40 in a gallon of water isn't going to yield a ton of sweetness.

 

[Stauffbier]

1/2 lb of crystal 40 in a gallon of water isn't going to yield a ton of sweetness.

Especially if steeped at 168F..

 

[JLem]

Especially if steeped at 168F..

Not sure if temp matters. Crystal malts have already had their starches converted to sugars, which are then crystallized through a special kilning/stewing process (hence their name). All the sugars and other "caramel" compounds should be there already.