Newbie here, doing DME brewing. It seems like the malt extract does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of colors, sugar for the yeast, etc.
What does grain steeping contribute? How does the amount of grains steeped impact the beer? What about the duration of steeping?
I steep for 20 min or until the temperature reached 170 Fahrenheit
The steeping grains add color, flavor, aroma and body, all depending on what the grain mix is. I moved on to partial mashes pretty early in my brewing career(2nd or 3rd batch) but I remember steeping for 30 minutes before removing the bag.
A lot. When designing extract recipes, many brewers just use light DME then steep. Crystal malts, roasted malts, etc, are pretty important. Think of them as the sauce that goes on the protein in your meal. The 20 minutes is fine. For amounts, it depends. A pound for a five gallon batch is a good guideline to start with.
I’ll vouch for steeping grains adding a lot. I moved to partial mash early on as well, then quickly got away from kits and into making up partial mash recipes. I was using the partial mash to get everything I needed and the rest I made up with light DME or sometimes added some Amber DME to boost the Crystal/Caramel content a little more.
The neat thing is, it’s easy to start partial mashing. Get a bigger bag for the grain, add the steeping grains from a kit and a pound or two of a crushed base malt like 2-row, 6-row, Maris Otter, etc. “Steep” for 45-60 minutes and you’ve just partial mashed. Granted, the gravity boost is going to be minimal from a small mash like that, but it’s a way to get used to the process. Just make sure it stays under 170* for the “steep.”
Think of yer DME/LME as a blank canvas on which you apply specialty malts to make the the picture, adding color taste and fermentables. Yer DME/LME came from these types of malt… Sneezles61
Not much experience here. I’ve only done 2 batches. One was a LME kit, second was a partial mash. The partial mash was a far superior finished product. Has fresher flavor, better head retention and better color.
great description! thanks
Great tip, lil blue!
Question: Which has a bigger impact: Steeping 8oz of grain for 2x longer, or steeping 16oz of grain for the same amount of time?
Depends on the grain. If it’s just the more specialty malts like Crystal/caramel, Cara____ malts, Special B, Roasted Barley, etc or other adjuncts like Flaked Wheat, you’re really not going to benefit from a longer steep time. Most of the color and aroma comes out of the crushed grain fairly quickly. What does make a difference is when you have base malts in with the specialty grain. That’s when you need a longer steep time to let the conversion process work. That’s where the sugars get extracted and broken down into pieces that the yeast can consume, to put it simply.
So it sounds like the type of grains is most important, followed by the amount. The duration of steep/boil isn’t nearly as significant.
Type of grains determines the length of the steep. If it’s all specialty grains, you just need the recommended 20 minute steep. If it’s specialty and base grains, you need 45 minutes to 1 hour to achieve a significant amount of conversion. The amount of grains is relatively inconsequential other than if you’re trying to achieve conversion, you need an appropriate ratio of base grains to specialty grains. The only other things that the amount of grain really affects is the amount of water (grain soaks up water and you don’t get it all back) and the temperature of the water (which is where strike temperature comes into play, but it’s not as much of an issue with partial mash as it is with all grain).
