Steeping Crystal Question

[voytekl]

First post.. so hi everybody. Great board you've got here. But stop encouraging me to brew dammit! As if I have enough time!

anyhow... my problem. I've been mucking around with kits and extract and so forth for a while but am trying to develop my brewing a bit more now so am getting into steeping grains as a prelude to getting into mashing. I bought me some Crystal (Joe White 145 EBC from ESB) and whacked 250g in my last pale ale. I steeped it in a bag at 70C in my boil volume (about 10l, before anything else went in) for about 30 mins, then took it out. It did nothing apart from a little colour... ok I worked that one out it's cause I didn't crack the grains. Smart lad. Technique ok otherwise?

So last night I'm thinking I gotta find a way crack these buggers. Bodged it up using a glass jar against a hard benchtop and kept crushing them till there were no whole grains. I then made up a mini "wort" using 30g of this stuff in a litre, same technique as before just to see what happens. This should be heaps as it's equivalent to 3/4kg in a full brew, no? It did more, but still not a lot. A fair bit of colour, a little bit of astringency (i squeezed the grains a little too this time, maybe that's why? or is it my bodgy cracking?) and a bit of a watery malty taste but none of the sweetness or body everybody talks about for crystal. None at all. The gravity went up 3-4 points. Is this what I should expect? It just seems sort of pointless so I'm presuming I'm doing something wrong...

thanks for any help y'all can give me.

 

[dirty mac]

Hey, I'm pretty new to steeping as well but never had a prob. You can buy Crystal pre-cracked if youve got no equipment. Otherwise get yourself a nice large granite morter and pestle, like Jamie Oliver uses to crush spices..pucker. I've heard of other dudes using a teatowel and rolling pin. Anyway I always start with cold water and oh so slowly bring up the heat then steep for 30min, this will leech out the sugar. Also you should steep your grain separately in just a couple of litres of water not 10L. Hope this helps. :beer:

BTW I'm not sure If you should be expecting some sort of magical malty sweet full bodied liquid. Maybe your expectations are a little high. Its really just to freshen up the kits that can lack a lot of flavour.

 

[Justin]

Hi Cow and Dirtymac,

Yep, this is pretty much what you would expect it to taste like Cow. A grainy, slightly sweetish/toffee/caramel kind of taste but quite weak. It's hard to get a real feel for how it tastes when you test it like that. Trust me, at the end of fermentation the taste is much better as your pretty much adding non-fermentable sugars that boost the flavour of your brew. It's hard to get a feel for it just testing it like that though. Add it to a brew

I used to just crush my grains on the bread board (it will dent your bread board by the way if it's wood ) using a champagne or wine bottle as a rolling pin. I just used to crush it in batches of 50-100g at a time so it was easier and less messy. Stick it in a bag (I made mine out of muslin or cheese cloth) and drop this into a pot containing your hot water. Hold it around the 65-70 mark for 30mins, remove the bag and ruun some hot water over it or give it a gentle squeeze and then boil the liquid. A good figure to use is around the 2.5-3L per kilo gram but this is very flexible when steeping. It's really not critical, but that will give you something to aim for.

You don't necessarily have to boil the kit or liquid extract but I used to do it and then add some more hops. I'd definitely boil the liquid off the grains, some people don't and get away with it but I think it's better practice to boil it.

Basically your technique is pretty sound and you're heading down the right track. 250-500g (max) is not a bad place to start. I wouldn't go over 500g for a 23L batch but that's my tastes.

Have a read of www.howtobrew.com as there is a good section on steeping grains, it will answer all your questions.

Best of luck. All down hill from here mate

 

[pint of lager]

A few more sugestions besides the very helpful comments others have written.

The temperature is not critical. Anywhere from 30-70 is fine for 30 minutes. This is different from mashing base grain, where temperature is very critical.

After rinsing and throwing the grains away, the resulting solution should be boiled for 10 minutes to sanitise. Grains are notorious as a source of infections. Do not boil the grains, this extracts tannins from the husks which is an unpleasant flavour.

Do not squeeze the grains. This will also extract tanins from the husk. Rinse only.

Use 250gms as a starting point for a 23 litre brew.

Adding a bit of crystal is a great way to improve your kit brews. When you boil the soultion. This is an ideal time to add some hops for flavour and aroma, which many kits are also lacking.

 

[voytekl]

thanks for the help all...

Nice to know i'm at least on the right track. I'll put it into practice next brew (this satdy hopefully).

 

[bconnery]

thanks for the help all...

Nice to know i'm at least on the right track. I'll put it into practice next brew (this satdy hopefully).

You may have found it already but I've started this a guideline for me to use when deciding on grains etc to use.

By no means is it complete but it does say which grains have to be mashed and which don't and other helpful things.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry135275