Cold Steeping Roasted Grains

I have never cold steeped my dark grains when I brew my annual Robust Porter; I instead conduct a short hot steep.

Here is a discussion about how to conduct a cold steep from the AHA website:

https://www.homebrewersassociation....steeping-getting-the-most-out-of-dark-grains/

Cheers!

 

Yeah, I have not read anything either on this topic.

Here is more discussion but again no specific discussion on water chemistry:

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/11/17/brewing-beer-with-dark-grains-steeping-versus-mashing/

Maybe Gordon Strong verbally discussed water chemistry in the Beersmith podcast/video interview?

Cheers!

 

No, as I made mention above I have never conducted a cold steep.

Yes, I add the steeped liquid to the kettle for the duration of the boil.

My personal rationale here is that a short steep will create less astringency vs. mashing them for 60 minutes. I have no 'science' or anecdotal demonstration experience to substantiate this reasoning. I can report that I am personally very happy with how my Robust Porter tastes from my brewing process.

Cheers!

 

Cold steep definitely changes the chemical profile of the steeping liquid, but it is not changing the chemical profile of your mash and that is one of the perceived advantages. Of course, the other perceived advantage is a less harsh roastiness, some say.

More on water: when you use dark grains in the mash (including crystals), you may not have enough alkalinity to counter the acidity released by the grains, which could take your mash chemistry out of the optimum pH range. So you would need to counter with added alkalinity in the form of bicarbonate ion, carbonate ion, or hydroxide ion. If you cold steep, you don't need to add alkalinity to your mash. Is it beneficial to avoid adding alkalinity to the mash? Gordon Strong seems to think so (he advocates a late addition of dark grains, during the sparge). An interesting question to pursue might be what the impact is on the final pH of the beer, and how that affects flavor. I never drank one of Gordon's beers, but he is sort of a legend, so I'm inclined to believe that good beers can be made with his techniques. But that doesn't mean an alternate approach won't work. Unless your competing, you get to be the judge.

 

I suspect you'll be able to tease out chemical impacts on flavor of tisanes made from roasted barley, and I expect you will find temperature impacts on flavor, and just because science is rarely neat, there are probably temperature and chemical interactions. But ultimately, you want to know how these different approaches to steeping impact beer. Just based on dilutions, the impacts should be lessened. Still, you might be able to detect some flavor differences that allow you to optimize your recipe to your palate. Me, I've liked my stouts when I cold steeped, I liked them when I mashed the grains.

 

I have done a cold steep a few times, for both big imperial stouts and more delicate beers such as Dunkel and Schwarzbier. I never adjust the water, in fact, I use distilled for my cold steeping fluid. I worry about my mash and kettle pH when brewing and adjust, not the small amount that I'm steeping with (which is maybe 2-3 cups?).

It works well, though. My current Dunkel has almost no roast character at all, compared to my prior one which had a very similar recipe but I mashed the grains. Both great in their own ways though... I liked both very much.

 

I'm just curious, who's using roasted grains in their dunkels and schwarzbiers? Show of hands. Percentages?

And has anyone tasted the same beer, steeped versus not steeped side by side?

Also, let me throw this in there, I sometimes appreciate a slight bit of dark malt acidity in an Imperial stout if there's enough malt to balance it.

 

Dunkels typically feature Carafa type malts for color. Maybe 2-3%? Give or take.

Schwarzbiers are even darker variants and probably 5% or more of similar malts. A Schwarzbier is practically a German Porter, if you will.

What else would you use for these styles? Munich alone, especially for a Schwarzbier, won't really work to produce a beer to style. Some people will use 100% Dark Munich for Dunkels, though. I like a faint roast note, though.

 

Cold steep/late in mash for color only...full mash temp/time for flavor...or in between for something in between

 

I pretty much agree. Well, I mean there will be some flavor from cold steeping or adding to the mash late, but obviously not as much. People often tout getting less astringency with these methods, but often don't acknowledge the reduction in flavor and color. To get more color and flavor, you'd need to add more grains. I guess the important question is: Can you add more grains in a cold steep or late in the mash, enough to get roast flavor and color equivalent to the full mash with less grains, and still get less astringency? I don't know (I have my doubts), but I also have not done an A/B comparison.

 

Brewed one of each of these. In both cases, used some Carafa Special, for color, The dunkel was Carafa Special III, for sure. I used maybe 2 oz, and used a low SRM value from Beersmith. Consequently, my Vienna Lager became a Munich Dunkel. My memory of the other beer disappeared into the Schwarz. However, the amounts I used imparted no roast.

In October, I brewed an altbier, if you are willing to accept that as comparable to a dunkel in some dark ale is to dark lager analogy, and I used chocolate wheat for color. It was ~2.5 oz. All of these are huskless grains, so imparted a very low level of roast, if it all. I used the remaining 13.5 oz of the chocolate wheat in the Janet's Brown Ale inspired beer I made this weekend and the wort did seem to have detectable roast levels with that + 1 oz of a 600L roasted barley (yeah, I was getting of small amounts of excess grain, hiding it in a dark beer, like I always do).

 

Tasting the hydrometer sample of this beer. Fermentation is essentially done, down to 1.010. The hops are not delivering like they should, but the roasted malt combo is pure coffee. I never experienced a beer (without coffee) that reminded me so much of coffee as this combo of Weyermann Chocolate Wheat and Baird's Roasted Barley.

 

This sounds tasty, can you spell out your process with these roasted grains? Were they added to the mash?

 

Definitely more of a robust porter than a brown ale... not the BCS Janet’s brown but inspired by it and altered according to ingredients on hand. Didn’t have carapils (almost never do) but (oddly) had mild malt and figured that could add dextrins that otherwise might have come from the carapils.

1.061 OG, 5# briess 2 row, 5# muntons mild malt, 8 oz briess c60, 5 oz muntons c60,13.5 oz weyermann chocolate wheat, 1 oz bairds roasted barley. 0.5 oz ctz for 70 min, 1 oz northern brewer for 15 min, 1.5 oz cascade for 10 min, 2 oz centennial and 1.5 oz cascade whirlpool at 180 F for 20 min. Fermented with Nottingham 62-64 F.

All grains in the mash for the full 60 min mash at 152 with alkalinity added in the form of baking soda to target pH 5.4 in BrunWater using dark bitter profile. BIAB style, so no sparge. No mashout.

 

I love brewing stouts...cause I've got really hard water and I don't need to do anything to the water and just toss all those dark grains right into the mash. Tried cold-steeping, tried hot-steeping...too much of a hassle for me personally. If anything, the cold steeping was the bottom of three techniques but I didn't fine tuned roast levels to improve it. Love to hear how it comes out @wasatchback but I already know what works for me.

 

Dave, what mash pH do you achieve with your water?

I have municipal tap water that is highly alkaline but not alkaline enough for when I brew Stouts. I need to add 'stuff' to increase the mash pH.

Cheers!