BradleyBrew
Well-Known Member
Has anyone done this with success? I was thinking about trying it with my next stout to cut down on some of the harshness from the highly kilned malts. Thanks! 
Cold Steeping Specialty Grains
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Stauffbier
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Try putting your dark grains in the last 10 minutes of the mash to cut down on the harshness. I've been reading up on it, and I'm going to give it a try on my next stout. You can even add it after your first run-off right before you sparge...
Cold steeping works great for the really dark stuff. 24h at room temperature, then add directly to the boil. No trouble getting it all to dissolve.
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BradleyBrew
Well-Known Member
I get the principle of mashing / steeping and why its done. I'm more interested in the technique of cold steeping certain specialty grains regardless of the fermentables or unfermentables they produce.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
You don't get any souring with this technique?
This is for very dark roasted malts. There's not a lot of sugar left in those to go bad.
(And no need to just trust me.
Gordon Strong talks up this technique quite a bit in his book.)
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
This is for very dark roasted malts. There's not a lot of sugar left in those to go bad.
(And no need to just trust me.
Interesting! I'll have to give it a try. Do the dark grains impart much of a roasty, malty flavor when doing this, like in a typical stout?
Yep. Do a side-by-side sometime. Buy a pound of roast barley and cold steep half and hot steep the other half. In my experience, the cold steeped liquid had all the rich roast but less acrid bite.
Stauffbier
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Thanks MalFet! I'm definitely going to try that!
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BradleyBrew
Well-Known Member
thanks, do you feel it is necessary to increase the specialty grain bill to achieve the same flavor?
The whole point is that it doesn't produce the same flavor, so there's no apples to apples comparison. That said, I don't increase the quantity and I like the results I get. YMMV
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
The whole point is that it doesn't produce the same flavor, so there's no apples to apples comparison. That said, I don't increase the quantity and I like the results I get. YMMV
What kind of water/grist ratio do you use when cold steeping?
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BradleyBrew
Well-Known Member
The whole point is that it doesn't produce the same flavor, so there's no apples to apples comparison. That said, I don't increase the quantity and I like the results I get. YMMV
ahbhh, good point. Yes water is your water grain ratio?
Like a quart per pound. If you're using a lot, you can use it as sparge water.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
When you say use it as sparge water, do you mean at room temp, or are you heating it up to typical sparge temps first?
EDIT: Sorry BradleyBrew, I've totally hijacked your thread.
Stauffbier said:
I haven't played with this too much, since I'm rarely using more than half a pound of roast. Plus, I usually cold sparge. But, in any case, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't heat it to sparge temps after you've strained out the grain.
I was doing some searching on this subject and came across this thread.
I am doing an all grain brew where I was wanting to cold steep 4oz. each of roasted barley and chocolate and add the extract at flameout. Today when I bought the grains the guy at the LHBS accidentally dumped in the 1/2 pound of dark grain in with a pound of crystal 80.
Is the 80 steepable? Do I need the sugars from the cyrstal or am I after the flavors that it imparts? I hope this isn't as confusing as it reads!! I've been reading Gordon Strong's book and he talks about steeping the dark grains but never mentions anything about crystal malts.
Thanks,
Ben
I am doing an all grain brew where I was wanting to cold steep 4oz. each of roasted barley and chocolate and add the extract at flameout. Today when I bought the grains the guy at the LHBS accidentally dumped in the 1/2 pound of dark grain in with a pound of crystal 80.
Is the 80 steepable? Do I need the sugars from the cyrstal or am I after the flavors that it imparts? I hope this isn't as confusing as it reads!! I've been reading Gordon Strong's book and he talks about steeping the dark grains but never mentions anything about crystal malts.
Thanks,
Ben
Sure, that's fine. There are some unconverted starches in dark crystals, but not much.
It won't be much of a difference, if any. Depending on how you do your steep, it would be a couple of points at most.
Thanks a bunch. I kinda wanted to just steep the dark grains but now that the 80 is in their I am contemplating steeping the pound of munich as well....hmmm...
I am also planning on adding the extract at flameout.
I am also planning on adding the extract at flameout.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
You can just steep crystal grains. It's no different than if you were doing an extract/steeping grains batch of beer. They don't need to be mashed.
Since I posted in this thread I've tried MalFet's "cold steeping" method a few times. It works just as described. I've discovered that I actually like the astringancy that comes from mashing roasted/dark grains for the full extent of the mash, so I likely won't do it again in the future. With that said, the cold steeping method made very good beer. It's just different....
Steeping in hot water (150s), you will get about 10 points per lb from the dark malts, and about 18 from the Crystal. If you 'cold' steep I expect you will get a lot less.
Steeping Munich will get you almost nothing. It does not contain sugars, so needs to be mashed to convert the starches. Since it can self convert, some stray enzymes might convert sugars if it is at mash temperatures, but it will yield nothing at cold temperatures.
Both dark and crystal malts have starches that can be converted by mashing. If you mash either dark or crystal malts, you can get similar sugar extraction as you get from base malts (25 to 30 points per lb depending on your mash efficiency).
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