Beer Forum

I was wondering if anyone knew what would happen if I steeped grains that are usually mashed? For example pale ale, munich, and wheat. I have a recipe that calls for steeping these grains, and I didn't think that it would do anything. Will I still get some color and taste by steeping these grains? I steeped them @155F for 30 min in 5 gal of water. Thanks in advance for the help.

You actually used a better method than the recipe, most times steeping means put the grains in the cold water and pull them when it gets to 170*. You actually did a mash by keeping the grains at a set temp for 30min, so you should get much better utilization from those grains.

Those grains need to be mashed in order to convert the starches to sugars. If you want to steep them you're better off doing a mini mash, just use less water than you'd use for steeping, hold the temp for about 1 hour then rinse with 170* water. If you just steep them in a lot of water you will get some conversion, but you'll wind up with a lot of starch in the boil and in your beer. Do a search on mini mashing, you'll see it's not much different than steeping. I think.

If you are making an extract kit, steeping will add color and flavor. The way you did it is more like mashing. It depends on what you are going for. As Sheen said, look up mini-mashing, I think that is closer to the method you performed.

I seriously doubt that you would get any flavor from the 2-row or the wheat. You might get a little from the Munich. I'd be skeptical of any recipe that calls for steeping these grains.

That being said - the only difference between what you did an a partial mash is the grist to water ratio. Like Sheen said - you will have some of those startches converted - but in such a thin grist/water ratio it would take a real long time for the enzymes to "find" some starch to work on.


Mylo