Cold Steeping & Mashing Stout

The last Stout I brewed had a odd taste I am not overly keen on, although not nasty I think this is the "astringency" taste that's talked about, the dark grain was mashed with the other grain on this brew.

Right have a brew day planned for Sunday, my plan was to cold steep the dark grains in my BIAB bag Saturday then on Sunday prior to brewing remove the bag, bring the liquor up to mash temps and then continue to mash as normal in the cold steeping liquor from there out.

However all the other information I have read/seen talks about adding the cold steeping liquor in the last 10 minutes of the boil, is there a good reason for this, or any reason I should not proceed as above?

I tend to mash at full brew length (ish) with no sparge, boil and then liquor back to my required brew length.

Have a look here for some info that might help.
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/steeping-specialty-grains/why-why-not

cheapbrew said:

Have a look here for some info that might help.
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/steeping-specialty-grains/why-why-not

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Thanks Cheap,

Was not really what I was looking for, however I think this gives me the answer I want, which is odd because that was the original article I had read, must just have not taken on board this

"pour it in within the last 5-10 minutes of the boil. If you add it earlier, the length of the boil can bring out some of the harsh attributes",

will teach me to skim read.

I guess cold steeping overnight will extract the sugars as well as heating from 4 minutes up to 22 min as Palmer mentions.

Can I ask a question please
I'am a kit Brewer looking to move up to the next level
If I cold steeped chocolate type grains, could I add the juice to a kit beer
Or would I have to boil it, if so how long etc

In Palmer's book he says soaked in hot 150 - 170°F degree water for 15 minutes for chocolate malt, but others say cold steeping overnight works the same.
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/steeping-specialty-grains/mechanics-of-steeping

Cqr said:

Can I ask a question please
I'am a kit Brewer looking to move up to the next level
If I cold steeped chocolate type grains, could I add the juice to a kit beer
Or would I have to boil it, if so how long etc

Click to expand...

yes you can.
ive done it in the past to a mild kit and it turned out rather nice.

Thank you so much for the info/link
Can I just use the juice from the steep with the kit
Or do I need to boil it

Hi Cqr,
You can add the liquor from your cold-steeped grains directly into your FV with the kit, or you can boil it if you prefer.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/cold-steeping-getting-the-most-out-of-dark-grains/

Smileyr8 said:

The last Stout I brewed had a odd taste I am not overly keen on, although not nasty I think this is the "astringency" taste that's talked about, the dark grain was mashed with the other grain on this brew.

Right have a brew day planned for Sunday, my plan was to cold steep the dark grains in my BIAB bag Saturday then on Sunday prior to brewing remove the bag, bring the liquor up to mash temps and then continue to mash as normal in the cold steeping liquor from there out.

However all the other information I have read/seen talks about adding the cold steeping liquor in the last 10 minutes of the boil, is there a good reason for this, or any reason I should not proceed as above?

Click to expand...

I did a vanilla porter a few weeks back using cold steeped chocolate/chateau coffee/crystal and added the steepings to the boil and the result was very mellow and smooth tasting. If I were doing it again I'd probably increase the quantities of roast malts versus what I'd use if I was mashing them. Am waiting a few weeks to see how it develops since the vanilla is slightly dominant at the moment. ...actually it tastes like tiramisu...with the coffee and vanilla flavours....very strange..but not unpleasant.

Bigcol49 said:

Hi Cqr,
You can add the liquor from your cold-steeped grains directly into your FV with the kit, or you can boil it if you prefer.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/cold-steeping-getting-the-most-out-of-dark-grains/

Click to expand...

I'd definatly boil it as grain has all kinds of microorganisms on it which will transfer to the seepings and then go on to infect your brew (@cqr 15 mins boil will do the job)

TartanSpecial said:

I did a vanilla porter a few weeks back using cold steeped chocolate/chateau coffee/crystal and added the steepings to the boil and the result was very mellow and smooth tasting. If I were doing it again I'd probably increase the quantities of roast malts versus what I'd use if I was mashing them. Am waiting a few weeks to see how it develops since the vanilla is slightly dominant at the moment. ...actually it tastes like tiramisu...with the coffee and vanilla flavours....very strange..but not unpleasant.

Click to expand...

I am already quite heavy or dark and roasted grain

Pale Ale Malt 3.5kg 77%
Roasted Barley 250g 5%
Flaked Barley 175g 4%
Chocolate Malt 150g 3%
Chocolate Wheat Malt 150g 3%
Black Malt 100g 2%

Hopefully this should turn out fine and without the astringent taste.

That's a lot more roasted than I was using , so expect it will be plenty and turn out nice with lots of non astringent dark flavours. Curious to see how you get on.

TartanSpecial said:

That's a lot more roasted than I was using , so expect it will be plenty and turn out nice with lots of non astringent dark flavours. Curious to see how you get on.

Click to expand...

Its only been steeping a couple of hours & its really black, a lot more so that I was expecting.

Smileyr8 said:

Its only been steeping a couple of hours & its really black, a lot more so that I was expecting.

Click to expand...

I was surprised how thick the steepings were after an overnight soak.

Tartan with the steepings so thick how are you going to sparge, dunk sparge to reign in all the sugars?

I had mine in a grain bag, drained, put the drained bag into a seive and sparged with a couple of litres of warm water.

TartanSpecial said:

I had mine in a grain bag, drained, put the drained bag into a seive and sparged with a couple of litres of warm water.

Click to expand...

I would "dunk sparge", by adding the grain bag to 1 litre, pushing it around a bit, then repeating with the second litre.

Looking at smileyr8's recipe, there is only the base malt and the flaked barley that need to be in the mash, so I suggest mashing them and steeping the rest by whatever means.

All the wort HAS to be boiled, but it could be boiled for as little as a few minutes, in the case of the steeped grains. 15 mins, as Myqul suggests, should be fine to kill the many bacteria associated with dried grains.

Results of the first overnight steeping where not as I had really expected, I put this down to the grain being too tightly packed in the bag, not allowing movement and good extraction of flavour and colour.

Right onto the second attempt and more experimentation.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-Mashed-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
3kg Pale Malt 67%
470g Caramel/Crystal Malt - 113 EBC 11%
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-Mashed-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-Cold Steeped-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
348g Roasted Barley 8%
340g Weyermann - Chocolate Wheat 8%
300g Chocolate Malt (UK) 7%
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-Cold Steeped-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

(I used up the grain I had at hand as I was clearing down stock)

The method was as follows, crush the grain to be cold steeped and add to a large bag place the bag in the boiler & add 15 litres (ish) of cold water, leave this over night agitating occasionally.

Remove the bag and squeeze to extract as much of the steepings as possible.

Top the steeping up to 22 litres (ish), mash, boil and ferment as normal (I tend to liquor back post boil to achieve desired brew lengths).

Right the findings using the brew calculator I was expecting 1048 OG, 1012 FG 4.8% (based on 89% efficiency), the reality 1048 OG, 1018 FG 3.95%.

So based upon this process, I would say cold steeping does not produce any fermentable sugars or very little (removed the steeped grains from the calculator and came up with 4.1%).

Right tastings, this has only been maturing for 3 weeks but its a lot more where I wanted it to be, its very dark so much so that you can only see a tiny amount of light refractored through the very bottom corner of a pint pot, there is a strong dark chocolate/coffee flavour as I was hoping for, the crystal does not bring as much sweetness to the party as I would have hoped. I think this is going to need a few more weeks at least maturing to get to perfection.

cheapbrew said:

In Palmer's book he says soaked in hot 150 - 170°F degree water for 15 minutes for chocolate malt, but others say cold steeping overnight works the same.
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/steeping-specialty-grains/mechanics-of-steeping

Click to expand...

I would suggest a pseudo mash at 65c for 30 mins and then keeping the strained wort in the fridge overnight. As long as this boiled, it is going to be OK.