The Beer Borg

Was at the LHBS chatting with the Local… and we started talking about grains and what we could do with them…more for informational purposes than anything else.

So, as a General Rule:

Any “Cara” or “Crystal” grains are “steepable”.  So you don’t have to worry about a full blown Mash, just soak these in 150-ish water for at least 30 min.

Dark Grains… Steepable… they’ve already been converted as it were. So trying to mash these, well.. um.. nah. You can get the same stuff your gonna get by just steeping them.

As far as the rest of the “named” grains… well, yeah, yer gonna have to Mash them suckers.

That would mean they’re gonna have to soak in 150-ish water for about an hour to a hour plus. Then get hit with a hot water bath for about 10-15 min. That bath washes off the rest of the good stuff into your wort pot.

But for a biginner, what can you do to work up to “mashing”?  um, STEEPING. In my mind, that’s just a short version of mashing, Kinda like getting the hang of it.

Equipment for that? well.. that’s up to you. But a simple version would be to just Commando your steepables in a pot big enough, and then, when your done, have your boil pot ready, put a colander over the boil pot, and gently pour your steeped grains in it.

Now keep in mind, using a very small one isn’t going to hold all that grain if you’ve used too much. Think about what the volume of the grain is going to be. Don’t steep 1 pound of grains for a half pound colander.

Let the grains sit there long enough for the steep to drain thru, then continue on. I normally use about 1.5 quarts to a pound of grains… so do your own math for water needs. As far as Water Temps for steeping, there are calculators online that will figure that for you.

This one has a infusion brew calculator.. it’s the one I use.. http://www.brewcalcs.com/

I use this one for all my water temp calculations.

Steeping grains is a great way to improve your beers. Be they Extract to all grain. They can add flavor, body, color, head… the list goes on. There are grain profiles all over the net.. give them a perv and see if they have what you want.

How much to use? For a 2 gallon size, anywhere from 1/2 pound or less, depending on what your going for.

Here is a simple Mash Tun… most kitchens have them. Now the question is, will SWMBO  let you use her stuff…

Poor Man’s Mash Tun

it’s a 3 quart pan with a steamer pot insert in there. that will hold most of the grains, and can be pulled out and drained. That way, you don’t have THAT much grain to filter out. At which point, you could use a standard strainer for the rest while you’re dumping the wort juice into the brew pot.