Wort comp, to steep or mash speciality grains?

[bailey mountain brewer]

I've entered my first wort competition, the brewery putting on the comp is handing out the wort and each brewer creates their own beer from said wort... the wort is just a basic 2row pale and I want to make a stout out of it. My thoughts are to add some roasted barley, chocolate malt, some flaked oats and maybe a touch of black patent. So the question is do I just heat the pre made wort to 150 and steep my specialty grains for say 20 minutes then pull them out and start my boil, orrr should I do a separate mash with just the specialty grains and add that to the wort? I'm not concerned about keeping the gravity where it is, and I actually want to increase it a little bit. This is my first time doing anything like this so I wanted to see what the best route is to go with it.

 

[mac_1103]

Do any of the specialty grains you're planning to use have enough diastatic power to convert? If not, you might as well just steep them.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Do any of the specialty grains you're planning to use have enough diastatic power to convert? If not, you might as well just steep them.

I don't think so, that's why my gut was saying to steep them... I haven't steeped grains in over 10 years so I just wanted to make sure I was going about it properly... 150f for like 20 minutes I assume should give me the flavor and srm I'm looking for. The wort ph they posted I think is 5.4 maybe, so should I bother with any baking soda, I could probably get the full water profile but I doubt it had much buffering if they just mashed a simple 2row grain bill.

 

[IslandLizard]

My thoughts are to add some roasted barley, chocolate malt, some flaked oats and maybe a touch of black patent.

The dark roasted grains/malts can be steeped or mashed.
When mashing them, use a mash/water calculator or keep a close eye on the mash pH, they tend to bring the pH down, especially when used in (relatively) larger amounts.

The flaked oats must be mashed if you want the full benefit of them. You can mash them with an equal amount of 2-row or such.
If steeped, you'll just be adding starch to your wort. It will precipitate out.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

The flaked oats must be mashed

Ok, that all makes sense, didn't think about that, so I can do a mini mash with the flaked oats, add the result to my wort and steep the rest.. I don't think I want to mash the dark grains if I don't need to.

 

[odie]

I just toss it all in the mash. I do wonder about the time factor though. My mash is about 10hours long...I let it go while at work so my actual brew session is shorter.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

I just toss it all in the mash. I do wonder about the time factor though. My mash is about 10hours long...I let it go while at work so my actual brew session is shorter.

I typically do as well, but for this competition the base wort was mashed by the brewery so I had no mash to add my specialty grains to.

Fwiw, I did a mini mash of equal amounts of flaked oats and 2row while I went and picked up the pre mashed wort from the brewery. When I got home I heated their wort to 150, added my dark grains to a biab I had sitting around and dropped them in for 20 min, then I dumped my flaked oats and 2row mini mash into the biab to strain it. Lifted the bag, squeezed a little and started my boil. It went well, I got the color and aroma I was looking for, should be ready to keg next weekend. Their wort was base 2row that came in at 1.045 I think and I got it up to 1.072 with some dme, the extra mash, and an extended boil time. Aiming for a slightly stronger oyster stout, hoping it comes in around 7% but we'll see.