Paradigm Shift

[Lynx Brewery]

I’m brewing this for the second time, using the recipe from James Morton’s excellent book “Brew”.

It calls for an overnight, cold water steep of 1.5kg of Carafa Special 3.

Instructions say “Bring 35 litres of water up to 72.5. Include in this your overnight grain poured through a sieve or bag. Mash in …. “

Question is, do I add both the grain and the liquor from the Carafa to the mash? It would seem odd not to add both but why sieve through a bag?

I can’t remember what I did last time. My notes just say it was a Monster of a Brew Day

 

[Agentgonzo]

The cold overnight steep will extract a bunch of sugars and flavour from the carafa (theoretically giving you a less harsh flavour like cold brew coffee). At this point, you want to discard the grain as it's done its job. So you pour the cold-steeped mixture through a sieve/bag to sieve out the grain (which you discard) and keep the liquid and include this in your 35 litres of mash water.

If you were to include the carafa in the mash, then there wouldn't be a lot of reason for the overnight step.

 

[Lynx Brewery]

Thanks @Agentgonzo. That makes more sense.

I plan to split the 16kg grain bill and do two separate mashes.