curious what everyone thinks and practices -
its often necessary for me to move a portion of my roasted grains out of the mash and into the batch sparge to hit the target PH for very dark beers.
i don’t usually extend my batch sparge time when waiting to add the roasted grains - but Ive been wondering if i should because you need extra time to extract everything you’d want out of them (color, flavor)?
It all depends on the alkalinity of your water. If it’s low, then this might be a good idea. If it’s high, you might need to roasted grains to get the correct mash pH. Have you know the alkalinity of your water?
no worries on how to get my target PH or when to make adjustments through brewing salts or roasted malts with holdings - just curious about what others think about the roasted malts and adding them during batch sparge…leave them longer or just continue as normal and lauter away.
Oh I completely misread “its often necessary” as “Is it necessary”. :o Sorry.
I don’t adjust my times when doing this, but I’ve never tried it any other way.
yeah im just thinking that when you have roasted malts in a recipe and you want a certain amount of roasted flavor and color, that they usually sit in the mash for an hour or so. so when you move all or part of the roasted malts to the sparge process to hit your PH, i’m wondering if i’m not getting the full flavor profile. i just seemed to notice it in the last stout i made - the roasted flavor wasn’t what i would have expected. my batch sparge goes pretty quickly.
You could steep roasted grains separately during the mash and pour it on top before sparging.
that’s what i had done previously - steep for about 20-30 minutes in 140-150F sparge water. seems like a better way to get the color and flavor profile vs. quick mix in grain after mash and then extracted during quick 5 minute batch sparge.
I cold steep my grains at room temp for about 24 hours at about 2 qt/lb. I feel the roasted flavor is smoother. I do use at least 100% more dark grains this way as I would in the mash. I add this “tea” to the boil with about 20 minutes remaining.
ive read about this but never tried it. sometimes the 400-500+ lov grains really can be harsh and do need time to mellow out and age before drinking.
have you found cold steeping and your descriptor of “smoother” contributes to less aging to reduce any undesired dark grain harshness?
To be honest, I have not brewed a stout or porter any other way so I can’t compare. But to answer your question, I feel that they are ready to drink when they are carbed. Looking at my recipe for my breakfast stout, I cold steeped 2 lb chocolate, 1.5 roasted barley, and black patent. So you do need more. If chosen, I’m entering this beer into the NHC. I won a blue ribbon last year cold steeping with my cherry stout last year… That alone truely sold me on the process.
Interesting. I’ve got a left handed milk stout coming up, and may give this a try to see the difference. What is your increase ratio for cold steep vs hot?
I can’t give a specific ratio. The breakfast stout had four pounds, but it’s a thick beer. My cherry stout is a little thinner and dryer. I think it had three pounds. As far as steeping goes, I put a five gallon paint strainer bag in a 20 qt stock pot. Then crush the grains, toss in the bag, stir, and cover. I’ll stir a few times during the steep.
Huh. If that’s a 5 gal batch, 4# seems like at least twice the amount of dark malts I might use in a normal mash recipe without cold steep
I guess I didn’t make that clear. they are 5 gallon batches. Also, when I mentioned that they are good to drink when carbed… They still get better with age, but not much on the counts of the harshness of the roasted grains. I actually just found four bottles of my cherry stout that I brewed in July of 2012. Wow!
My toasty roasty beers seem better with age which I think is due to roast bits settling out, which for me equates to using less roast up front.
I use about the same amount of roast grains as the recipe calls for and steep them for a day or two in a French press, then add to the boil. I’ve never increased to the 4 pound level. I try to minimize roastiness, though and look mainly to extract color and a touch of roastiness…YMMV, of course.
There is a section in Gordon Strongs book on cold steeping. Mary Ann Gruber of Briess wrote a Zymurgy article on it back in 2002 IIRC. I have been doing it for years, and the results are less acrid. The wife used to call the dark beers “ashtray” beers. I use RO water for the steeping, might try to adjust the pH of the steep next time. It is less efficient at extracting the color/flavor so more is used. Here is what George Fix had to say.
great article. i don’t really do many really dark roasted beers because of some of the “ashtray” or harshness. i’m going to give the cold steep a try with my next brew and try 1.5 to 2x my normal hot mash/steep recipe grain bill for the roasted malts for a cold steep and see how it goes.
I think that you’ll be happy with the results. The only issue that I have with this process is that my mash ends up thicker, because I lose water to the cold steep. I suppose you could stretch out the boil.
Ever think of adding the steep liquid to your sparge water? That would eliminate your volume issue and has the bonus side effect of acidifying your sparge water. Never tried it, but I just had the thought that it might work.