Do I HAVE to use a steeping bag?

[I_Brew_Drunk]

I brewed up an IPA (extract + steeping grains) the other day and realized a bit too late that my steeping bag was barely too small to fit all my grains. I ended up just dumping them all into the pot and then just scooping as much of them out as possible before adding my hops. After I cool my wort I usually pour it through the steeping bag to collect as much of the hop matter anyway so when I did it this time it collected the rest of the grains I didn't remove pre boil too.

My thought is that this would increase efficiency due to larger surface area of water:grain and I'm curious why this isn't common practice? Do people just not want to have to take the extra time to scoop out the grains?

When I took the OG it was on the higher end of the projected gravity range from tastybrew.com

 

[unionrdr]

While you may've gotten more efficiency,you also got grains left in for the boil. That can make off flavors. Those that don't biab have false bottoms,ball valves,etc to filter the wort through the grain bed in a mash tun. Than put it in a BK for the boil.

 

[I_Brew_Drunk]

I scooped out most of the grains but there definitely were still some in there during the boil. What sort of off flavors should I expect?

 

[zeg]

I did that (intentionally) for my first batch. It's fine, but is a bit of a PITA. That's the only downside---you'd probably have to leave a lot of grain behind before you're going to get any bad effects on flavor.

 

[Harvestsmiles]

I think you will extract tannins from the grain if boiled. Not a huge deal to worry about, but since you asked...I had my bag sitting in the pot and turned the burner on low to maintain temp...yup, bag got scorched and burnt a hole through so while I was draining excess wort I saw I was also draining grains! beer was fine in the end, but to prevent extra tannins try to keep that from happening.

 

[unionrdr]

I'd say alittle tannin & some burnt toast sort of flavor,depending on how much grain was left. I use a cake coolin rack in the bottom of the BK to keep the grain sack off the bottom.