SO in a different thread there was discussion of caramel malts adding fermentables to the wort after steeping. So I popped some numbers into my Q-Brew software and it showed about a 6 point increase in gravity steeping vs about 4 points for mashing. So thinking it may just be the free software I use, I went to a couple of online calculators and they gave inconstant results, some gave half as much for steeping while others gave more. So what is it? I would assume, yea I know, that if mashing I would get more extraction due to the conversion of any remaining carbohydrate chains, where as with steeping you are basically just heating the converted sugars and rinsing them out. Does anyone have an answer for this?
I guess the extraction rate of the steep is a function you can change. It appears the extraction is different depending onm the type of roasted malt. the crystal malts with a lighter kiln are a lower extraction whereas the darker the malt the more extraction you get, however according to How To Brew, the extraction rate was about 20% less than the mashing extraction, with the exception of those lighter crystal malts (~20 and lower). interesting.
I think that Kai (http://braukaiser.com/) did some experiments a couple years ago that dealt with this issue.
there is also a big difference between crystal and several caramel malts depending on the maltster and how they're roasting the malt (drum vs. kiln). Crystal malts should add relatively the same fermentables between mashing vs steeping since most all the carbs were converting to sugars while many caramel malts need to be mashed to convert any remaining starch, some caramel malts still have like 50% of the carbs still in starch form. Steeping maybe able to extract some of these starches, but they won't be fermentable. November '13 issue of BYO had a great article on it by some Briess folks. Searched, but it isn't linkable...
