Steeping process

[jspain3]

Just curious what everyone else does. I'm in the middle of steeping right now using a turkey fryer. The temp hit 155 and I turned down the heat, then added the grains. I monitored the temp and it continued to rise as I continued to decrease the flame. At 170, I completely shut off the propane and just let the grains steep (flameless) as the temp slowly rolled back towards 155. At 155, I'll crank it up again and try to keep it low. At this point, there's only 10 minutes left of the 30 minutes. Hopefully, that doesn't ruin anything. I just wanted to stay under 170.

edit: FTR I'm using a thermapen for temp measurements. The thermo that came with the fryer kit is horribly inaccurate.

 

[RM-MN]

The 155 temperature is to get you prepared to go all grain as that is in the temperature window for mashing. 170 is the upper limit for steeping because if your pH is too high, you can extract tannins above 170. If you pH is lower than 6.0, you can let the temperature rise above that. The temperature range for steeping is fairly wide as you could steep anywhere between (probably) 100 and boiling and get good results. Mashing requires tighter temperature control.

 

[unionrdr]

I usually try to keep my steep temps down around mash temp, since I do partial mash. But 153 to 165F or so is good for steeping. I avoid the temp vs PH mess that way.

 

[helibrewer]

Just curious what everyone else does. I'm in the middle of steeping right now using a turkey fryer. The temp hit 155 and I turned down the heat, then added the grains. I monitored the temp and it continued to rise as I continued to decrease the flame. At 170, I completely shut off the propane and just let the grains steep (flameless) as the temp slowly rolled back towards 155. At 155, I'll crank it up again and try to keep it low. At this point, there's only 10 minutes left of the 30 minutes. Hopefully, that doesn't ruin anything. I just wanted to stay under 170.

edit: FTR I'm using a thermapen for temp measurements. The thermo that came with the fryer kit is horribly inaccurate.

You don't need a lot of liquid volume to steep. When I did this, I used my oven preheated on the lowest setting. In a pot, I heated the water to about 160-165, put my grain bag in the pot and mixed well. Turn the oven off, put the pot in the oven and come back 30 minutes later....super easy.

 

[ajstrider]

I am an extract brewer and I use my electric stovetop. I boil 3 gallons. I bring my water temperature up to 155 and turn the heat off completely. Three gallons of water at 155 shouldn't lose much temperature in 30 minutes. After I get done steeping, I add my extract, mix it good, then turn the burner on high and bring it up to a boil.

 

[Calder]

Why do people steep for 30 minutes? All you are doing is disolving the sugars off the grains.

When I steeped, I would add rhe grains in early (maybe 100 F), and heat the water. Once the water reached about 170, I removed the grain. No particular time involved. Higher temps help disolve the sugars.

 

[unionrdr]

I do 30 minutes with a sparge to get more out of the grains. My OG's went up doing it.

 

[RM-MN]

Why do people steep for 30 minutes? All you are doing is disolving the sugars off the grains.

When I steeped, I would add rhe grains in early (maybe 100 F), and heat the water. Once the water reached about 170, I removed the grain. No particular time involved. Higher temps help disolve the sugars.

Why steep your teabag for 5 minutes? Because there is more to be had by taking the time. Same with steeping grain. Unless your grain is milled very fine it takes a bit of time to leach out the color and flavor. There is more to it than just rinsing off the sugar. It may not need 30 minutes but you're pretty much guaranteed to get most of it by then.

 

[Reindeer]

I am an extract brewer and I use my electric stovetop. I boil 3 gallons. I bring my water temperature up to 155 and turn the heat off completely. Three gallons of water at 155 shouldn't lose much temperature in 30 minutes. After I get done steeping, I add my extract, mix it good, then turn the burner on high and bring it up to a boil.

Pretty much exactly what I do, except I turn it to low and monitor the temp, and adjust as needed. I try to stay close to 155-160. I also wait until the water is near boiling before I add the extract. The lasts couple batches I've done I've sparged the grains after steeping. Not sure it really makes a difference though.

 

[RobInOre]

When doing a full boil on the turkey fryer, I get the temp up to 150-160 then shut off the flame completely. When covered for a half-hour, it holds temp ok. Then I remove the grain bag, relight the flame and continue.

Recently I've been experimenting with a "no boil" method. I steep the grains in a slow cooker while making a hop tea in a separate pot. Then combine these with DME in the brew kettle with cold water from a Brita pitcher. It works pretty well, no chilling needed and clean up is a little easier.

 

[eadavis80]

I heat my full boil up to about 165 and then turn off the flame and put my grains in and let them sit - covered - for 20 minutes. The temp drops a few degrees when you put the grains in, but covered it maintains a temp of at least 158-162 for the 20 minutes I need.