Squeezing Steeped Grains

[symphony1975]

hello i was just reading an article on steeping grains and it states 'lift the grain bag out of the pot and let the excess water drip back into the pot - don't squeeze the bag as it can add excess tannins from the grain husks'. now i have just done 4 brews withs steeping in each of them and have squeezed the bejezuz out of the bag thinking i was getting all the 'goodies' out of it.....this was a term from one of the recipes!

have i done something bad to my brews?

what does everybody else do? squeeze or not squeeze?

thanks

 

[Pennywise]

I squeeze the grain bag with a pair of tongs, have done for quite some time, never had any issues.

 

[enoch1973]

Tongs!!! Why didn't I think of that!!!... Thanks for the tip HomeBrewer79...
Super idea that...

 

[Boognish]

i do a sort of mini-sparge with mine i move the grain bag into a sanitised steel colander that sits over a sanitised steel mixing bowl and pour 1 litre of hot, but not boiling water over the grain bag to extract more goodies and pour that into the pot and then i squeeze out the bag over the mixing bowl and pour that into my pot just before the boil.

 

[ekul]

I steeped some grains tonight, i thought it was going to smell alot better then it did. Threw in some dry hops to cover up any nasty taste just in case!

 

[ianh]

I squeeze my steeped grains. What I do is use a kettle (1.7 litres) to heat the water initially to 70C using a digital thermometer the check temperature. I steep my grains usually 500-600 grams of grains in 3.4 litres of water for 30 mins.

I then squeeze the grains and put the resulting liquor into a pan for the hop boil. The pan is put on the stove and heated. Whilst the pan is heating, I steep/sparge the grains with another 1.7 litres of 65C water and add that liquor to the pan. I repeat this another three times each time squeezing the grains and adding the liquor to the hop boil.

So I finish with a 10 litre hop boil and all the water has been used to steep/sparge the grains.

 

[WarmBeer]

i do a sort of mini-sparge with mine i move the grain bag into a sanitised steel colander that sits over a sanitised steel mixing bowl and pour 1 litre of hot, but not boiling water over the grain bag to extract more goodies and pour that into the pot and then i squeeze out the bag over the mixing bowl and pour that into my pot just before the boil.

Why do you bother sanitising your colander and bowl? Just make sure it's reasonably clean, and contains nothing that might impart flavours. You must boil the liquid after it's all drained, though, as malted grain contains all sorts of of bacteria, and it is the boiling that does the sanitising for you.

 

[Shed101]

+1 for squeezing the bejesus ...

why would you use tongs though, much easier to use your hands, surely?

 

[MHB]

I would go with No-Squeeze, nothing to do with Tannins. Quite a lot of proteins precipitate at relatively low temperatures (similar to Hot Break) in a conventional Lauter Tun these are trapped in the grain bed when you recirculate. Anyone brewing in a bag of any size will see if you squeeze too much a lot of milky crud coming out some of this is just grain dust and some is protein gels. In either case they just add to the trub load when you boil the sweet wort.
Some stuff is better left behind, a bit of a dunk sparge or a gentle rinse with water under 80^oC will get all the goods worth getting without any down side.

MHB

 

[Bubba]

Hi, maybe I am off track but I simply put my cracked grain in a sterilised coffee plunger for 20 minutes steeped with boiling water, then pour all the nice, cludy, aromatic juice into my fermenter with all the grain and husks kept in the plunger.

Nice and simple.

Brett

 

[jyo]

Hi, maybe I am off track but I simply put my cracked grain in a sterilised coffee plunger for 20 minutes steeped with boiling water, then pour all the nice, cludy, aromatic juice into my fermenter with all the grain and husks kept in the plunger.

Nice and simple.

Brett

You should be aiming to steep your spec grains between 65 -70' -Using boiling water will give you tannin extraction, which is supposed to taste quite bitter.
You should always boil the wort after your steeping mate, you are risking a nice little infection.

Cheers, John.

 

[Pennywise]

You deffinatly need to boil the sweet licquor from the steepings, I usually boil it with some of my hops to get a better bitterness utilisation.

 

[superdave]

Boiled grains isn't great. I thought I had turned the heat off on my first steeping brew and ended up boiling the grains; rookie mistake. The beer wasn't fantastic but wasn't overly bitter.

You should be aiming to steep your spec grains between 65 -70' -Using boiling water will give you tannin extraction, which is supposed to taste quite bitter.
You should always boil the wort after your steeping mate, you are risking a nice little infection.

Cheers, John.