Wondered what effect this would have...

[Schneider89]

My cousin and I just brewed our first partial mash, although this is only our 2nd true attempt at making beer. We heard it wasn't too difficult, as there are a number of guides on this site, and we just wanted a good wheat beer, for which the extracts at the certain shop we visit couldn't provide.

There was a problem.

After boiling the grains in our 6 gallon pot, we lifted the grain net and strained it out over the original wort. But... the net ripped. Only a few grains fell into our wort. Because of this, we weren't able to teabag our grains into the other pot for sparging. When we added our wort to what was supposed to be the sparge water, we did pour it through a strainer, catching the few grains that fell in. I just have a couple of questions.

1.) What did we miss out on by not sparging the grains in the other pot of water? Flavor? Alcohol content?

2.) When we put it through the strainer, we noticed a fine sediment left over in the strainer. Did that belong in the wort? Did we possibly miss out on more flavor by leaving some sediment behind? *Note* -- we did use a strainer with larger holes, so while we could see that no grains got through, there wasn't that much sediment left in the strainer.

In addition, we didn't understand the concept of making a starter w/ liquid yeast, and although we let it adjust to room temperature for about 2 hours, the bottle told us to wait for 3-6, but we had plans with our friends and couldn't wait any longer to pitch.

Thanks guys! I know we'll only get better with your guys' help and some more experience.

 

[FireBrewer]

After boiling the grains in our 6 gallon pot

NEVER boil grains! Doing so will denature enzymes present in the base malt that is used to convert starches into sugars and extract some unpleasant flavors from the grains. You do heat the water higher than what you're going to mash at (~148-158° for your sacc. rest), but that's intended to make up for temperature losses which varies and is dependent upon how you're mashing (the kind of vessel you're using, the temperature of the grain, etc).

1.) What did we miss out on by not sparging the grains in the other pot of water? Flavor? Alcohol content?

When you sparge, you use the sparge water to rinse the residual sugars from the grains. So some flavor and alcohol content, yes, due to less yield. However, if you boiled the grains and denatured the enzymes, you may have destroyed any chance of conversion. Did you use a hydrometer?

In addition, we didn't understand the concept of making a starter w/ liquid yeast, and although we let it adjust to room temperature for about 2 hours, the bottle told us to wait for 3-6, but we had plans with our friends and couldn't wait any longer to pitch.

Read up on it a little more. Basically you're growing the yeast to have the ideal amount to ferment the wort. The bottle says 3-6 because you want the wort to be a pitching temperature. Use a thermometer to tell you when. Under 80° is best, pitching at or just below the yeast strain's fermentation temperature is ideal.

BTW, welcome aboard! Stop by here and say hi.

 

[Schneider89]

Thanks for the info. I'm a little relieved; I said boiling out of habit -- we actually dropped grains in at around 165 and it got down to about 150 for for the conversion period, so we never actually boiled it. Hopefully, then it still turns out fine.

Thanks!

 

[FireBrewer]

Shew! Good to hear. Keep us posted on the progress.

Cheers!