Time between steeping and boil?

[Cicada]

I'm doing an extract wheat brew, and 5 minutes left in the boil a friend calls me because he's liked out of his house and I have a key. Is there any harm in finishing the steep and leaving the wort for 20 minutes while I go to his house? When I get back I'll bring it to a boil and start from there. Is this bad?

 

[unionrdr]

Make sure to put a lid on it & don't be long getting back...

 

[Cicada]

Thanks! I'll do that and be back ASAP

 

[freisste]

How long can your friend realistically wait on his porch? If he's good for another hour/hour 45, leave him there. I bet he wouldn't lock himself out again....

Just saying.

 

[Cicada]

That would be my ordinary reaction, but I was house sitting and forgot to leave the key where he told me to, and now his wife and her 1 year old are on the porch...

 

[freisste]

That would be my ordinary reaction, but I was house sitting and forgot to leave the key where he told me to, and now his wife and her 1 year old are on the porch...

It is probably best to go and help.

(And I was mostly kidding...)

 

[BansheeRider]

I'm a little confused because you said you had 5 min left in the boil but then you mentioned steeping. Kinda sounds like you are boiling the grains, which I hope that's not the case.

 

[freisste]

My guess was when he wrote boil, he meant steep. Replaced that in the first post and everything since has made sense.

Not that I am trying to put words into OP's mouth. If you did boil the grains, that was not the best move.

 

[Cicada]

Totally meant steep, my bad. Kept them at 150 for 30 minutes. I was able to run to his house and back in about 30 minutes. When I got back I added water to get it up to boil volume and continued on like nothing happened. When I got up this AM my fermenter was bubbling happily

 

[woozy]

>Make sure to put a lid on it & don't be long getting back...

Why? You don't need to worry about infection as you're going to boil the whole thing later. And the flavor of the steeped grain isn't going to change just sitting (without the bag in of course) there for an hour or three.

I don't see why you can't finish the steep, bottle it up, and come back *days* later to start the brew.

(I should add that I'm a noob and don't know anything. But beer making *isn't* magic. Common sense says that steeping the grain creates a liquid medium in which to then brew some beer. Nothing magical should happen between the creation of the steeped liquid and the start of the boil. Now I could be wrong and something very important and chemical in nature could be required. But if so, I think the rules of common sense speculation require that I should assume *not* in the absence of any evidence that it *would*.)

(In fact, in a hypothetical universe, I don't see any reason, other than utter and complete lack of demand, a beer supply store couldn't sell pre-steeped brewing liquids and brewing liquid concentrates. I mean *yuck* and *huh?* but hypothetically, why not?)