First Go At Steeping Grains

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mosto

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Hi all,

I'm slowly but surely expanding my knowledge / palate on all things homebrew. The last couple of kits I've done I've added ten minute boil of hops, which I've been impressed with the flavour it's adding. I'm now looking to steep some grains and then boil hops in the resulting liquor. I've come up with the following recipe for a Vienna Lager style of brew:

1.7 kg Coopers Draught
1.3 kg DDME
200g CaraMunich 1
100g CaraPils
15g Strisselspalt @ 10 min
15g Strisselspalt @ 0 min
S23 yeast

I've read a lot of conflictiing views on what volume of water to steep the grains in. What I was thinking was roughly 3 times the amount of grain, so about 1 ltr. Does this grain / water volume seem OK? Also, I've read it's better to cold steep darker grains, so would you recommend I do this for the CaraMunich?

Cheers,

Mosto
 
I've read a lot of conflictiing views on what volume of water to steep the grains in. What I was thinking was roughly 3 times the amount of grain, so about 1 ltr. Does this grain / water volume seem OK? Also, I've read it's better to cold steep darker grains, so would you recommend I do this for the CaraMunich?

Cheers,

Mosto

a lot of advice on volume of water to grain, and/or temp for steeping, is given with the thought that you may one day progress to mashing base grains, and is really a set-up to get you into the (good) habits, more than anything else. ;)

3x water to grain would be fine.
Cold steep vs hot (as long as under 78C) steep....irrelevant, imo. Doesn't really matter. You may have heard of cold steeping for darker grains being better, as darker grains can........tannins.....extract.....not good.....whoosh, over your head. Short version; as long as the temp is <78, no problem here, move along.....
 
Mate, just steep the lot. I don't cold steep CaraMunich when I am mashing in an All-grainer. It all gets mashed with the rest of it. There might be a good reason to cold-mash the darker grains but unless you know what you are after in doing it, keep it simple.

Regarding water vol, I would use more than 1L. The water absorption of grain is approx. 1L per 1KG of grain I have found. So, the grain is going to take about 300mls of water from that litre - 700mls might be a little to small amount for boiling hops and DME....at least it might be messy.

I would just go by the pot you are going to use. I use a 10L pot that I fill with about 8L. I would steep in that, then boil the hops and DME. Even with evap from the boil, you should still have around 7.5L if boiling on a stove. Using cold tap water, filling up the fermenter with the remaining 12L or so, you should find the temp gets down to what you need to pitch the yeast.

I essence, it is a bit easier to manage the steeping then boiling process if you have a decent amount of water to work with.

Others may vary though!
 
Cold steeping dark grains is a technique relevant to mash brewing (and not necessary - just a technique some use for a particular reason).

I'd hot steep the lot (much quicker) for your brew.

klit man has the other bits covered but there's a longer version of what he says here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=80

Worth reading thoroughly.
 
[quote name='Mike L'Itorus' post='938043' date='Jul 24 2012, 03:17 PM']That looks familiar....if I was soberererer, I would have linked to that. Duh. :rolleyes:[/quote]


I'm sober and I didn't even THINK about it! Ages since I read it but worth another read.
 
Thanks for the replies all, and in particular for the link Manticle, pretty much answers all my questions. I did use the Google search function prior to posting but that article didn't come up for whatever reason.

Cheers,

Mosto
 

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