Steep or mash?

[foxhound]

I'm starting to move away from brewing beer with kits. I've read some books and found some information on several websites, but I'm still confused. I want to brew with Malt extract and a small amount of grains to add flavour. Some recipies say how much malt extract and then maybe crystal malt or black malt and some flaked barley, for example. Now I've read that some grains need to be steeped and some mashed. The big question is how do I know, with a simple rule, which to mash and which to steep please? Is it as asy as anything with malt included in the name I mash? :

 

[RobWalker]

Things like caramalt/crystal malt, black malt, carapils (especially good for extract brewing as it adds loads of head and body and doesnt need to be mashed, get some!,) can be steeped if you want. If it's already been malted and you just want to add colour and flavour, then steeping is fine. Smaller quantities can even be chucked in the boil instead of steeping, 100g black malt for a guinness clone won't need to be steeped and can just be thrown in. Only small quantities though, any more and you risk tannin in your beer.

Unmalted adjuncts need to be mashed. Torrified wheat, flaked barley, rolled oats, flaked maize, anything along those lines. You'll need to mash them with pale malt for them to have any effect on your beer. On top of that, you will also need to mash wheat malt if you want it to have any effect on your beer as it's a base malt.

Part mashing will save you money and introduce you to all grain brewing, so it's worth doing sometimes. I too can't be bothered for a bit of crystal malt here and there, but with beers with a more complex grain bill, it's worth considering! I usually just use 1.5x the amount of pale malt to speciality malt. Ie 300g crystal, 100g carapils and 50g black malt would need 750g to be easily mashed. Just a ballpark figure, but you don't wanna undershoot it.

 

[foxhound]

Thanks Rob. It sounds a lot easier than I thought. Most recipes I've seen for Malt extract tend to have less than 100g of malted grains. So putting them in the boil would be a lot easier.

Carapils, never heard of that before! Just looked on the homebrew shop and they have some. I'll give that a go as well, cheers for that. :

As far as the flaked barley etc, I've been steeping them, so no wonder I've been disapointed with some of my beers.

As you've guessed, this is me practicing to get towards an all grain beer which everyone says is much better.

 

[RobWalker]

Yeah, that could be it - adjuncts have no effect unless fully mashed. Some do have extract alternatives though - rice syrup for rice, corn syrup for maize. Carapils is really good but adds a lot of sweetness in high quantities - the extra head is definitely noticable on young light beers, although in large quantities it can add a sickly sweetness. Great for me because I've just started making gourmet beer, maybe not so good for those wanting a dry ipa

I do want to stress that only low amounts should be used in the boil - you can really ruin it if you boil up a lot of speciality malt, but for the odd bit it's a good cut corner. I prefer partial mashing just to lengthen the brewday tbh

 

[Aleman]

Ideally you do not want to be boiling any grains, you will always extract tannins.

As far as which grains must be mashed, it is quite simple . . . anything with starch in must be mashed, any of the 'crystal' malts, and the majority of the dark malts can all be steeped.

 

[foxhound]

Sorry to be a bit thick guys, but anything with starch must be mashed? The point I was trying to make in my original question was, when I see a recipe I need to be able to simply know which is which as a lot of recipies don't say the method. So my simple rule of thumb says any ingredient without "Malt" in the name (rob's example Torrified wheat, flaked barley, rolled oats, flaked maize) I mash otherwise I steep. Is that rule OK? Otherwise it would be great if I could find a chart or list somewhere I could refer to.
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