Squeezing the grain bag

[Neill]

Why should I never squeeze the steeping bag to get out all the licquor out of the speciallity grains?

[guildofevil]

Squeezing the grain bag will release tannins into the wort which leads to a nasty off flavour in your beer.

As has been said before, if you want to know what tannins taste like, squeeze the grain bag into a cup after you're finished with it, and taste the result. Then you'll know ;)

Séan

[zoom6zoom]

From the thread title, I thought maybe it was another of those NC-17 Jokes....

[Neill]

What about flushing the bag through with some hot water? Or just leave well alone?

Neill

[fuji6100]

Flushing with hot water after you have already removed the sugars/flavors from the grain can also leach tannins from the grain. When steeping, you aren't looking to reach a specific gravity from your runnings, just adding body, color, and flavor. You will get plenty from the steep itself, why risk harsh flavors for a few more drops? Quality over quantity.

[Neill]

Ok I give in, I promise I won't be tempted.;)

[I'mRocketMan]

Originally posted by fuji6100
Flushing with hot water after you have already removed the sugars/flavors from the grain can also leach tannins from the grain. When steeping, you aren't looking to reach a specific gravity from your runnings, just adding body, color, and flavor. You will get plenty from the steep itself, why risk harsh flavors for a few more drops? Quality over quantity.

But isn't that what sparging does? I've been steeping the grains then sparging with 170* water to rinse the grains...

[fuji6100]

It depends on how much water you steep in. Many people steep in the volume that they boil in, and in that case much of the "goodie" has already been separated from the grain.

Others use closer to mashing volumes and thus a sparge probably isn't a bad thing since there are still sugars left in the grains.

Personally, I always got a little astringency when I rinsed my specialty grains, even when using lower water volumes. Perhaps because a grain bag lets SO MUCH of the water out (unlike a mashing vessle which always has places for wort to hide) that what is left inside is quickly diluted by the flowing water that it begins leeching tannins. (Much like those that do all grain will leech tannins if the runnings get below 1.010.)

Each person has their own experience on rinsing steeped grains, so my advice to a beginner is "why risk it when you can make great beer without trying to get that extra few drops color/flavor/body."

[I'mRocketMan]

Yeah, I can see where that would be the easiest course of action.... Thanks for the insight.

[BluesHarp]

In the "Beer Captured" book, nearly every recipe calls for steeping the grains at 150° for thirty minutes in a gallon of water, then rinsing with a gallon of 150° (with slight variations based on amount of grain or beer style). I've done this the last few batches I've made with no ill effects; in fact, my Belgian Dubbel is very delicately flavored with no trace of harshness or astringency.

[cluckk]

During my brew I have a few plastic dixie-cups on stnadby. At each stage I ladle a couple table spoons into a cup and cool it. Once cooled I drink it to see where my flavors are.

I followed the instructions in this month's BYO magazine article ('Steeping, getting the goodies from your grain' by Chris Colby) and got very good results.

I steeped in a ratio of 2 quarts of water for a pound of grain at around 155 degrees for 30 minutes. I then placed the grain bag in a collander in my brewpot. Added about 1 quart of 160 deg water to the grain tea and sparged with this. After this process there was little bitterness even using dark grains.

I do this with the cups all the way through at each stage to try and train myself to recognize the different flavor elements (maltiness, hop bitterness, etc.) in my beer.

[Joe D]

Basically what you are doing is rinsing the grain. The problem new brewers get into, is if a little is good, more is better. Then they wonder why the finished beer has an astringent taste. Another trap new AG brewers fall into is over sparging, with the same results. As formyself when I don't have the time to do an AG batch and just want to throw tigether a quickie extract I steep the grains in 1 gal of water @ 150* for 30 mins then put the grain bag into a collander and "sparge" them with 1 cup of 160* water. Any more than that and I can taste the tannins. My grandfather was a wine maker. Every year he made 200 gals of wine and 50 gals of vinegar. When we got down to the last 2 barrels the tannins would take the top of your head off. Buts thats the nature of "Dago Red". Ever since then I have been very sensitive to them.