steeping grain time

All my kits so far tell me to sterp the grains for 45 min to an hour. I always do the full hour. Does this help with flavor and would another 10-15 min extra hurt my wort

 

It would not hurt at all! In part, steeping washes the fermentable substances off the grains, so it probably helps to a degree.

 

Hard to say. If water temp is too high or grains steeped too long you risk extracting tannins that mess up the beer. No way to really tell while steeping without a PH tester.

Follow the recipe. If wanting to steep longer is due to wanting a stronger result, you should up the quantity of grains rather than steep longer.

 

Or like I do,steep for 30 minutes & sparge the steeping grains to get more of that nectar out of them. Seems to work quite well so far.

 

I do the same. 30 mins, then whenever I finish the beer I'm currently working on I strain and then sparge the grain. I'll confess I haven't experiemented with 60 mins, but all the research I've done seems to suggest that you're not really gaining anything after 40-45 mins.

It doesn't hurt anything to go longer, but since you're not getting anything out of it, it doesn't really make sense to.

 

I was thinking that maybe they steep longer because they don't think to sparge the steeping grains as one would mashed grains. I'd rather sparge them after 30 minutes.

 

Good point thanks