Separate Steeping of Dark Grains

I just read that section last week and have been meaning to post a similar thread. Hopefully someone can hook it up with some solid info.

 

I've been interested in it as well. I like the idea of mellowing some of those dark grains out--I really hate the idea of adding it to fermentation, as I assume you'll be adding lots of volume to the beer this way. I'm leery of adding a quart of starter and a quart or 1/2 gal of dark malt after trying to get my boil to the correct volume. Maybe the end of the boil would be the way to go for me.

 

If you cold steep the grains you should add it to the boil as it will most likely have some lactobacillus floating around in it (plus it would be a pain to calculate hop utilization). I've never tried either method as I haven't had astringency issues, but I have seen recipes that call for adding dark grains to the mash during the last 10-15 minutes.

 

Do a search on cold steeping. There was an article in Zymurgy about 2001 or so by Mary Ann Gruber of Briess, and I have been doing it since then. Works for me. You avoid the astringency and acrid taste that you can sometimes get with dark malts.

These days you can also try Carafa, Sinamar, or the roasted wheat and rye products that are out there to have less of the flavors you avoid cold steeping.

 

I tried cold steeping and hot. I wasn't a fan of the cold method, too many chances for infection and o2. I recently made a stout and only mashed the base grain. When I began to sparge, I added my dark malts to the top of the mash. As I watched the pale run off, I was getting nervous, then, it was like black ink. Very happy with results as it had less astringency than when they are just mashed.