Can i steep partial Mash grains

[Jimmyone]

So i found this in a BYO mag and wanted to know, is he talking about a 2-row pale malt that is a steeping grain or one that needs a partial mash?

Cheers

" In extract brewing, the extract manufacturer collects the wort and concentrates it. When the wort is concentrated into extract, some volatile compounds are lost. To brew the best extract beer possible, you need a way to replace at least a portion of them. The simplest way to do this is to make some wort yourself by doing a partial mash in your brewpot.

To do this, add some 2-row pale malt to your recipe. For every 0.45 kg of pale malt, subtract 0.24 kg of dried malt extract o 0.33 kg liquid malt extract. When making a19-L extract beer, I usually shoot for “steeping” a total of around 0.91–1.1 kg of grains, including base malt and specialty grains. Steep this liquid in 3.2–4.2 L/kg at 64–70 °C for 45–60 minutes. After increasing your boil volume, I feel that doing small partial mashes — which are really just glorified grain steeps — is the technique that will help extract brewers brew better beer. Note that partial mash wort is also typically more fermentable than that of malt extract, which can help if your beers consistently finish at a high final gravity."

 

[manticle]

The term steeping is a little confusing , as is the difference between mashing grains and steeping them.

Base grains, like the one he is talking about need to be mashed as they contain starch that needs to be converted to sugar. Specialty grains in most cases have either had starch already converted in the malting and kilning process (crystal malts for example) or converted and burnt off (schocolate or black for example). To do this, the water needs to be within a certain temperature range as the enzymes responsible for the conversion (present in the malted grain) are optimised at this temperature. Steeping can happen at any temperature, mashing can't. However if you 'steep' at that particular temperature, you are actually mashing. You can steep specialty grains at that temperature too so base and spec can be done together. Same process for you but different processes happen inside the grain.

The author in the above instance is talking about mashing in regards to the 2-row (pale malts available here are all 2 row as far as I'm aware).

 

[sponge]

2-row pale malt is a base malt that requires mashing, and what he is explaining to do in that article is essentially a 'small partial mash'.

2-row mashed at 64-70 (lower for drier and higher for sweeter) for 45-60min, and boiling the liquid.

EDIT: Beaten by a much more informative answer.

 

[Jimmyone]

Ok cool that makes sense. I assume that the amount of water not just the temp are important in this method of "steeping"?

 

[manticle]

You should have a minimum of 2.5 L water per kg of grain but you can have much more than that. The more hot water, the hotter the mash so bear that in mind when calculating.

 

[Jimmyone]

Ok no worries.

Thanks guys