Beer Forum

Howdy.

I am an all grainer. I love brewing beers from the book, Brewing Classic Styles. However, I am a bit confused about adding the steeping grains.

1) Do I add the steeping grains to base malt and put it all in the mash?

2) Do I mash the base malt first, then put the steeping grains on top of the mash before I start fly sparging?

My friend suggested the later of these two questions, and it has been working fine. However, I am now looking at the dry stout recipe. It is talking about a step mash. Is this because of the Flaked Barley? If that's the case, then question "1)" Is the way to go. Is this same for all recipes in the book, or does it fluctuate?

Thanks

Traditionally, all the grains were thrown in together and mashed together.
However, for grains that don't need to be mashed (such as crystal malt, and any of the roasted grains -- anything that has no starch and only contributes color/flavor) this is unnecessary.

You can add those to your mash late before sparging. Gordon Strong is a big proponent of this because it draws out less of the harsh compounds found in roasted grain.

So, it's your choice. you can do some of them, all of them, or none of them, as long as the "them" don't have starch that needs to be converted.

HTH-

Kincaide wrote:1) Do I add the steeping grains to base malt and put it all in the mash?

2) Do I mash the base malt first, then put the steeping grains on top of the mash...

1) Yes. The all grain version tells you to replace the extract with grain and mash.
2) As BDawg stated, you can add some steeping grains (especially highly kilned) to the top of the mash before/during vorlauf.

Kincaide wrote:before I start fly sparging?

Why would anyone want to do such a thing?