Steeping

[John Burns]

Hey guys, this is my first post. I've been brewing for the last 5 months now. I'm switching up my style from using mostly liquid malt syrup to using more grains in hopes to eventually go all grain. However, I've got mixed suggestions on how long to steep grains for. The batch recently made, I used 7 lbs of grains and steeped for 30 minutes but I've heard from others say 60 minutes is better. I've made previous batches steeping for 30 minutes and they've turned out good however, I only used around 3 lbs of grains and a lot of syrup. What's your thoughts on how long steeping process should go for? Any suggestions is helpful. Thanks!

 

[Kent88]

The batch recently made, I used 7 lbs of grains and steeped for 30 minutes but I've heard from others say 60 minutes is better. I've made previous batches steeping for 30 minutes and they've turned out good however, I only used around 3 lbs of grains and a lot of syrup. What's your thoughts on how long steeping process should go for?

Just want some clarification, what grains are you steeping? You might be better off doing a mini-mash rather than steeping.

When you steep grains you are mostly after color and flavor. Usually if you just have caramel/crystal, roast, or black malt you can steep.

When you mash (or mini-mash) you are after color, flavor, and you want enzymes to convert starch to fermentable sugar. If you have base malts like 2-row, 6-row, pilsner, Munich, Vienna, Maris Otter, etc, you need to mash.

When I steep grains I usually aim for 20 minutes at roughly 140 degrees. You can check out my signature for a podcast all about mashing.

 

[IslandLizard]

Welcome to the HBT Forum!

Although they look similar, there's a big difference between steeping and mashing:

• All-grain and partial mash brews need to be mashed. In the mash starches from the grain are converted to sugars.
• In steeping you dissolve sugars from the grain, nothing gets converted.

Read that chapter under the link.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

What grains did you steep? That will help us figure out if you were truly just steeping or actually mashing.

 

[kh54s10]

Agreed, If steeping you are getting flavor and aroma which will add little in the way of ABV. The timing or the temperature are not critical. If you really want to increase the amount of grain and lessen the extract, you need to use base grains with specialty grains, calculate their contribution to the fermentable sugars and adjust the amount of extract accordingly. In this case temperature is important as well as enough time for conversion.

You will need to use a recipe builder, or do the math to build a balanced recipe and know the alcohol content, IBU's from the hops etc. You cannot just add grain and take away extract without knowing the effect.

 

[John Burns]

Just want some clarification, what grains are you steeping? You might be better off doing a mini-mash rather than steeping.

When you steep grains you are mostly after color and flavor. Usually if you just have caramel/crystal, roast, or black malt you can steep.

When you mash (or mini-mash) you are after color, flavor, and you want enzymes to convert starch to fermentable sugar. If you have base malts like 2-row, 6-row, pilsner, Munich, Vienna, Maris Otter, etc, you need to mash.

When I steep grains I usually aim for 20 minutes at roughly 140 degrees. You can check out my signature for a podcast all about mashing.

That's very informative and thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure if their was a difference was between steeping and mashing. I have a local brew store in my city which I got my supplies, I used 5 lbs of 2 row base malt, 1 lb of carapils, and 1 lb of honey malt after steeping and had the temperature between 170 to 150 degrees, then when finished and started the boiling process I added 3 lbs of golden liquid malt sugar right before so I'd have more ferment-able sugar. So I feel like I did this completely wrong then? Can you explain more about the mashing process?

 

[John Burns]

Agreed, If steeping you are getting flavor and aroma which will add little in the way of ABV. The timing or the temperature are not critical. If you really want to increase the amount of grain and lessen the extract, you need to use base grains with specialty grains, calculate their contribution to the fermentable sugars and adjust the amount of extract accordingly. In this case temperature is important as well as enough time for conversion.

You will need to use a recipe builder, or do the math to build a balanced recipe and know the alcohol content, IBU's from the hops etc. You cannot just add grain and take away extract without knowing the effect.

Thanks for the advice, I found a recipe online that I'm copying just to get practice. I used 5 lbs of 2 row, 1 lb of honey wheat, and 1 lb of carapils. I steeped for 30 minutes between 150 to 170 degrees. I also do use a recipe building app it's called "Wort" it's free on the galaxy phone. I used the recipe to place all the ingredients on the app to give me a indication on what the beer could potentially turn out to be. Do you know of a good website that explains more about base and specialty grains? Thanks for all the info

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

OK, so now we know you mashed ... sort of. Using the 2-row makes it a mash since it has the enzymes to convert itself and the other grains. Temperature is critical when mashing. When you say you steeped between 170 and 150, that's a big range. If it was mostly closer to 170, you likely denatured the 2-row and didn't actually mash much. If it was closer to 150 for most of the time, you may have had some conversion and added fermentables to your extract. Either way, you likely got the flavor the recipe was seeking from the honey malt.

 

[John Burns]

OK, so now we know you mashed ... sort of. Using the 2-row makes it a mash since it has the enzymes to convert itself and the other grains. Temperature is critical when mashing. When you say you steeped between 170 and 150, that's a big range. If it was mostly closer to 170, you likely denatured the 2-row and didn't actually mash much. If it was closer to 150 for most of the time, you may have had some conversion and added fermentables to your extract. Either way, you likely got the flavor the recipe was seeking from the honey malt.

Gotcha, so does each type of base grain has a different temperature range to get the most out of the grains or is 150 degrees a universal temperature?

 

[kh54s10]

Mashing is more temperature sensitive. For a dry beer you might mash at 148-150 for the usual 60 minutes. For a Malty beer you might go 152 - 156. You can fine tune somewhat by selecting a temperature somewhere in that range. Or even slightly higher or lower. Until you gain knowledge I would recommend about 150 for dry beers like APA and 155 for a beer like a Stout. Or follow a good recipe.

When you mash you need to get your water to a "strike" temperature. This is a little higher than your mash temperature since when you add the grain it will cool off. Get the mash to your temperature then insulate the vessel as best you can to keep the temperature as stable as possible for the hour.

 

[Kent88]

The enzymes in base malts work best between 147(ish) to 156(ish).

There are two enzymes that we brewers really pay attention to. We typically mash for an hour, but I have heard of 30 minutes all the way to 90 minutes.

Check out the Mash Time links in my signature.

 

[John Burns]

OK, so now we know you mashed ... sort of. Using the 2-row makes it a mash since it has the enzymes to convert itself and the other grains. Temperature is critical when mashing. When you say you steeped between 170 and 150, that's a big range. If it was mostly closer to 170, you likely denatured the 2-row and didn't actually mash much. If it was closer to 150 for most of the time, you may have had some conversion and added fermentables to your extract. Either way, you likely got the flavor the recipe was seeking from the honey malt.

When you are mashing how do you keep your temperature constant? I've seen people just keep the flame to a low setting but I've also seen others turn the heat off and use a insulating blanket too.

 

[ancientmariner52]

When you are mashing how do you keep your temperature constant? I've seen people just keep the flame to a low setting but I've also seen others turn the heat off and use a insulating blanket too.

Hello, John, welcome to the hobby. I think what you are missing is a good basic text, such as John Palmer's 'How to Brew'. Once you leave the safe waters of extract kit brewing, you need a lot more background info than recipes can give you.

To partially answer your question: So many different ways! Personally I mash in a converted plastic ice chest. I start out a couple of degrees warm and just live with the few degrees drop over an hour or so. Other folks have other ways that are more precise. Look in the DIY area under mash tuns and you'll see some of the variations.

 

[RM-MN]

When you are mashing how do you keep your temperature constant? I've seen people just keep the flame to a low setting but I've also seen others turn the heat off and use a insulating blanket too.

I don't worry about keeping the temperature constant while mashing because it only matters during conversion which in itself is quite quick. What makes it take the hour long time is the gelatinization of the starches, that is, getting the starches all wet. The smaller the particle of grain, the faster this happens. If you use a conventional mash tun, there is a limit to how finely you can have the grain crushed which is determined by the method you use to get the wort separated from the grains. With BIAB, that limit on the fineness is much smaller. Line your mash tun (which can be the boil pot you use if it is large enough) with a fine mesh bag like a paint strainer bag of one made of Swiss Voille and get the grain milled very fine (a Corona mill works great for this). Now the gelatinization happens very quickly and the conversion is done before the temperature drifts very far down.

 

[eric19312]

Hello, John, welcome to the hobby. I think what you are missing is a good basic text, such as John Palmer's 'How to Brew'. Once you leave the safe waters of extract kit brewing, you need a lot more background info than recipes can give you.

To partially answer your question: So many different ways! Personally I mash in a converted plastic ice chest. I start out a couple of degrees warm and just live with the few degrees drop over an hour or so. Other folks have other ways that are more precise. Look in the DIY area under mash tuns and you'll see some of the variations.

+1 on both many different ways and reading Palmer’s book

Asking on HBT will quickly get you a vast variety of opinions, many suggesting theirs is absolutely the best way to go...

It’s not. Fact is malted barley wants to be beer. Help it out a little bit and you will make beer!

Fine tuning mash parameters including temperatures, water/grain ratio, crush, water chemistry, stirring/recirculating, straining technique are all part of the fun of the hobby for many of us but are not really critical.. keeping the temps between 145 and 160 for 15 to 30 min will get you 90% of the way there. 60 min in the range might be even better. Make sure there is no chlorine in your mash water...a half a campden tablet will do the trick. Stir the mash a few times during the rest. Make beer and have fun.

Get the book or read the free online version.. it’s outdated but my guess is JP was making pretty good beer even when he was on version 2 of How To Brew...