Mashing dark grains and Crystal Malts - issues?

[GPNewBrew]

Looking for opinions/experience.

As I understand (from brewing techniques texts), it is not necessary to mash Crystal grains and dark grains (chocolates, roasted barley, grains above 80 or so lovibond). Actually, I was surprised to find out that you shouldn’t mash your darker grains, as you are likely to add some harshness or astringency to your brew. The advice given was to add them during mash out, during vorlauf, or steeping. The analogy I guess is leaving a tea bag in hot water too long - gets pretty harsh! Anyway, I’ve never considered this, and always grind my grains together and mash all together. I’ve not noticed a problem, but I’m not looking for any either.
What are other people’s experiences? Any recommendations? Thanks!

 

[day_trippr]

My experience is if the water chemistry is proper one can throw everything including ~400°L stuff (roast and black barleys) in the tun and let it rock.

I do a 1.107 imperial chocolate stout and there's plenty of roast and black barley in it for the whole mash. And it's pretty much the opposite of harsh - in fact I'm going to up the black barley a bit more as I like the character (I also like really dark roast coffee, so... )

Anyway, not interesting, really. What is interesting is until you get up into the 200s, most crystal malts have convertible starches if enough diastatic power is provided by the base malt. Imo any all-grain brewing should at least include all but the blackest malts in the mash, and if one is so inclined, do a separate steep of the black stuff.

And make sure the water chemistry is right regardless!

Cheers!

 

[thehaze]

You do want to mash all malt together, especially when using Crystal and Roasted malts. They might not have much starches in them, but they will provide aroma, flavour and colour to the final beer, so if you're not mashing those, you'll not be getting a lot from them. This is my experience. I've tried dark beers that were brewed the way you are describing, and they are lacking, both flavour and colour wise. I still remember one batch I did, where I mashed Roasted Rye and Roasted Wheat for just 30 minutes because I wanted a shorter brew day ( boil was also 30 minutes ) and the colour was not black. It was a murky deep brown ( each malt was 10% of the grainbill, which means SRM was far over 35, which is dark ). I'm not doing that again.

 

[shoengine]

Looking for opinions/experience.

As I understand (from brewing techniques texts), it is not necessary to mash Crystal grains and dark grains (chocolates, roasted barley, grains above 80 or so lovibond). Actually, I was surprised to find out that you shouldn’t mash your darker grains, as you are likely to add some harshness or astringency to your brew. The advice given was to add them during mash out, during vorlauf, or steeping. The analogy I guess is leaving a tea bag in hot water too long - gets pretty harsh! Anyway, I’ve never considered this, and always grind my grains together and mash all together. I’ve not noticed a problem, but I’m not looking for any either.
What are other people’s experiences? Any recommendations? Thanks!

I wouldn't add them to mash-out as astringency extraction tends to increase with temperature.

Just mash them all together. If you like your extraction and fermentation profile, just change the quantities of darker roasts that you use.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Soaking grains in cold water will produce different results than soaking them in warm water (or boiling them). Sometimes it's done to avoid off flavors, some times it's done to enhance flavors.

Yesterday, I mentioned some resources that talk about how one could and why one might want to cold steep dark grains over in this topic: Cold Steep Extract Efficiency.

Anyway, I’ve never considered this, and always grind my grains together and mash all together. I’ve not noticed a problem, but I’m not looking for any either.

If you're getting good results with your current process, keep doing it. If you are getting harshness or astringency, cold steeping the darker grains may help.

If you're interested in experimenting with cold steeping, this could be an interesting area for some "confirmation of previous results" experiments.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Different processes. Not a "should" in either direction.

I mash all my grains together. It's simple. I keep pH under control and keep it from being too low (most homebrewers strive for too low a mash pH as it is). I have no issues as long as I'm not doing something stupid like 25% black malt.

I'm not gonna fix what ain't broken.

Experiment with both and see what you like better. Simple as that.

 

[Vale71]

The analogy I guess is leaving a tea bag in hot water too long - gets pretty harsh!

That is due to oxidative polymerization of polyphenols contained in tea. This is not a concern when mashing malt.

 

[BrewMan13]

Just going to state my opinion that steeping dark grains is unnecessary. If your process and water chemistry are under control, astringency is a non-issue. I use a minimum 10% roasted malts (combo of black patent, roasted barley, and any flavor of chocolate) in all my stouts and porters, and there isn't any of those types of flavors.
I see that's what you're already doing, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Alex4mula]

Looking for opinions/experience.

As I understand (from brewing techniques texts), it is not necessary to mash Crystal grains and dark grains (chocolates, roasted barley, grains above 80 or so lovibond). Actually, I was surprised to find out that you shouldn’t mash your darker grains, as you are likely to add some harshness or astringency to your brew. The advice given was to add them during mash out, during vorlauf, or steeping. The analogy I guess is leaving a tea bag in hot water too long - gets pretty harsh! Anyway, I’ve never considered this, and always grind my grains together and mash all together. I’ve not noticed a problem, but I’m not looking for any either.
What are other people’s experiences? Any recommendations? Thanks!

Where you got this info? Never heard of it in two+ years here. As others said. Mash all together.

 

[Twinkeelfool]

I’ve been adding dark malts at the end of the mash for many years. I find the beers much smoother. If you like intense roastiness you may have to add more, but I’m happy with how they taste, and it’s easy to do, so I just do it

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Where you got this info? Never heard of it in two+ years here.

See reply #5 above (as well as the Similar Threads section below).

 

[tracer bullet]

I do a 1.107 imperial chocolate stout and there's plenty of roast and black barley in it for the whole mash. And it's pretty much the opposite of harsh - in fact I'm going to up the black barley a bit more as I like the character (I also like really dark roast coffee, so... )

Have you ever shared this recipe? Sounds yummy.

 

[OldDogBrewing]

I've never had an issue throwing everything at the beginning, my water is really good for dark beers and I mainly use dehusked dark malts, so I'm pretty safe

 

[day_trippr]

Have you ever shared this recipe? Sounds yummy.

I have, a few times, but it has evolved a little over time as I've simplified it, so here's the latest version.

For 5.5 gallons to the fermentor:

15.5 lb 2 row pale malt (I usually use Golden Promise)
1 lb chocolate malt
1 lb crystal/caramel malt 40
1 lb flaked barley
1/2 lb black patent malt
1/2 lb roasted barley
1/4 lb Honey malt

1 oz Chinook pellets, 60 minutes
1 oz Chinook pellets, 45 minutes
1 oz Cascade pellets, 20 minutes
1 oz Cascade pellets, 10 minutes
1/2 lb low fat cocoa powder, 5 minutes
2 lbs honey, end of boil
Fermentis S04 yeast, 2 packs

1/2 lb cocoa nibs + 2 scraped and smashed vanilla beans soaked in dark rum for a week, added to secondary.

Mash low and long - I try to hang at 148°F for an hour before ramping to mash out then the typical lengthy fly sparge.
OG 1.107, typical FG if the mash went right is 1.025-1.028...

Cheers!

 

[Alex4mula]

See reply #5 above (as well as the Similar Threads section below).

I see that. I guess not as common as the "do not do secondary" topic for example that you see every week and not every other month. Too many ways to brew good beer. I guess this is just another variation.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I guess this is just another variation.

Cold steeping dark grains can be be viewed as just another variation.

Or cold steeping dark grains can be part of a larger approach for brewing (see Brewing Better Beer and Modern Homebrew Recipes). Please be aware that these books may not be interesting or useful if one is satisified with the results from recipe software and water chemistry spreadsheets.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

the "do not do secondary" topic

Mostly off topic: there's a delightful article in the /r/homebrewing WIKI/FAQ that may become the new 'auto-reply' for "should I secondary?". I was cautiously optimistic skeptical about a FAQ rewrite - but more and more I'm seeing value in what they are adding to their FAQ.

 

[day_trippr]

^Excellent^ reference. I should bind the url to a hot key

Cheers!