BeerSmith wants to mash my steeping grains (PM)

[Greyhound]

So far, I've been an "extract with steeping grains" brewer, but I'm planning my first partial mash using BeerSmith. For those with the book, I'm using the Cowboy Alt recipe from Brewing Classic Styles as my basis. I plan to mash the Munich malt and steep the Aromatic, CaraMunich, and Carafa Special.

I set the BeerSmith type to Partial Mash, but it assumes I'm mashing all of the grains, which throws off my OG, mash water volume, etc. Is there a way to tell BeerSmith which grains I want to mash and which I want to steep?

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

So far, I've been an "extract with steeping grains" brewer, but I'm planning my first partial mash using BeerSmith. For those with the book, I'm using the Cowboy Alt recipe from Brewing Classic Styles as my basis. I plan to mash the Munich malt and steep the Aromatic, CaraMunich, and Carafa Special.

I set the BeerSmith type to Partial Mash, but it assumes I'm mashing all of the grains, which throws off my OG, mash water volume, etc. Is there a way to tell BeerSmith which grains I want to mash and which I want to steep?

Thanks!

That doesn't make sense. You put all the grains together, and mash them. You don't get much in the way of fermentables out of carafa, or caramunich, but they should be mashed together. Aromatic malt must be mashed, as munich must be. Are you using a grain bag?

 

[Greyhound]

Brewing Classic Styles give an extract recipe which says to steep those grains. They also give an all-grain option, which says to mash the Pilsner and Munich, but doesn't mention what to do with the "steeping grains". I assumed I'd still steep them, but like I said, I'm new to PM.

According to BeerSmith, the Aromatic and Cara's add about 8 points to the OG. I'm still confused. Are steeping grains ever used in a PM? If so, I should be able to do this in BeerSmith. If not, I'll just mash them.

 

[Chad]

Brewing Classic Styles give an extract recipe which says to steep those grains. They also give an all-grain option, which says to mash the Pilsner and Munich, but doesn't mention what to do with the "steeping grains". I assumed I'd still steep them, but like I said, I'm new to PM.

According to BeerSmith, the Aromatic and Cara's add about 8 points to the OG. I'm still confused. Are steeping grains ever used in a PM? If so, I should be able to do this in BeerSmith. If not, I'll just mash them.

Steeping is like a pseudo-mash. Most steeping grains are in the crystal family so don't actually need to be mashed to convert starches to sugars. That has already happened. However, if you are mashing (whether a partial mash or AG) you put your specialty malts (crystal, et al) in the mash with the base malts. The base malts undergo conversion, and you extract all of the sugars together. So if you are doing a partial mash there is no need to do a separate steeping step, just add the steeping grains to the mash grains. All covered fairly well in BYO's Countertop Partial Mashing.

 

[Greyhound]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the noobish question. So, I'm going to mash all my grains, but maybe adjust my base malt (extract) down to hit the target 1.050 OG.

Chad, thanks for the link. I'll read that before I get started.