steeping grain bill

[Ster]

If I use a grain that is recommended for up 20% of grain bill, how does that correlate to extract with steeping grains?

Is It as simple as whatever my weight of extract is, use up to 20% by weight of the steeping grains?

 

[guldalian]

Unfortunately not. The % is referring to the "total extract" or "total gravity" of the grain bill.

Each grain (or anything else that adds gravity) has a "potential extract". For instance, dme usually has a pot. extract of around 45 (I think). Which means 1 lb of it dissolved in 1 gal of water will yield an OG of 1.045. Pot. extract assumes 100% efficiency.

The thing that makes it complicated is dme is 100% efficient, but grain is not. Usually around 70%-80%. So whatever grain you are using, find out the pot. extract, then multiply by .7-.8 to account for loss of efficiency, then multiply by lbs of grain (or extract) to get the total "ingredient gravity".

Add up all of the ingredient gravities and you have your total gravity. The ingredient's % of the total grain bill is just ingredient gravity divided by total gravity. You can also rearrange the #s to figure out how much grain you'd need for a certain percentage.

Lastly, you can get ballpark numbers by doing % by weight, but it's just not as accurate. Hope this helps.

 

[Trox]

For steeping grains you will get next to no fermentable sugars from them (basically you can call it zero), all of your fermentables will be coming from the extract. All you use steeping grains for is taste and color. At that point you will be dealing in mostly .5 lbs or less and it really depends on the color and taste you are going for is how much you'll use.

Best bet is to see what others have used in their recipes and then just modify yours to your tastes.

 

[guldalian]

For steeping grains you will get next to no fermentable sugars from them (basically you can call it zero), all of your fermentables will be coming from the extract. All you use steeping grains for is taste and color. At that point you will be dealing in mostly .5 lbs or less and it really depends on the color and taste you are going for is how much you'll use. Best bet is to see what others have used in their recipes and then just modify yours to your tastes.

True, but specialty grains still add gravity whether it's steeped or mashed and whether the sugars are unfermentable or not. When you mash all your grains together, you are essentially "steeping" the specialty grains in the mash, since they can't be further converted.