Steeping grains in muslin bag or straining into boil kettle?

I normally steep a pound of grains in a muslin sock in 1 gallon of water. Splitting the boil kettle helps me boil faster as I can heat the other 2 gallons of water as I maintain about 160* for 20 minutes.

I have the ability to strain the grains through a large double mesh SS strainer. Would there be any pros doing it this way or any cons? Maybe more grain bits would get into the kettle? Eventually the grains would act as a filter as it filled up the strainer. My thoughts are better extraction and the temperature would be a little more uniform compared to the grains in the middle of the muslin sock.

I’ve done both in the past and really couldn’t notice a difference. I ended up using a bag because I would pour my cooled wort through the strainer, didn’t have to clean it twice. If your bag is big enough, extraction and temp. differences won’t be an issue.

Here’s a crazy idea I thought of for doing partial mash indoors… what about converting a lunchbox sized cooler to a mini mash tun. Forget the sock, forget running it through a strainer, do a midget mash tun. Batch sparge and done.

Although it would probably be more for the novelty than anything since the efficiency compared to doing a steep would probably be minimal. Although if I would go back to partial mashing on the stove at any point, I might do it just so I don’t have to deal with a grain bag again and it would give me a little more flexibility with my mini mashes.

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I do mine in a separate smaller pot like you were suggesting all the time. I got tired of the little bags tearing on me.
Typically I make 2.5 gallon batches. I will soak my grains in 1 gallon while heating the other 1.5 gallons. Then I will just pour it thru my strainer and do a full boil.
For chemistry reasons, I’ll use less water if doing a mini-mash. That’s what the experienced people say to do :smile:.