Some of my beers don't seem to be as strongly flavorful as they should be. Especially when doing a side by side tasting when I clone. I'm going to brew a couple clones soon (Full Sail Amber and Dragonmead Final Absolution) and want to get it right. I am all extract brewer right now. The steeping grains must play a huge part of the beer since light extract is light extract. My question is could I bump up the grains to supercharge the flavors. For the Full Sail, malty, caramel chocolate flavors are pretty strong. I know when I brew tea that 2 tea bags (don't insert joke here) are stronger than one. I'd be curious to everyone's thoughts on that. Why not amp up the steeping grains as an extract brewer? Those and the hops are the only things different from beer to beer in most recipes.
Flavors seem light - bump up steeping grains??
- Thread starter mdawson9
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Short answer is yes. But I have a suspicion that not all specialty grains contribute a better flavor in higher quantity. I might suggest taking a look at the water you are using, or slightly increasing the specialty grain bill. A partial mash would give you a little more control on the flavors and mouth feel. You could also decrease the water volume but use the same ingredients.
Well, I learned on this site to use distilled water as an extract brewer and that's been fine. I will say that the flavors seemed stronger when I topped up the water to 5 gal post boil vs start at 6gal and boil to 5.25 to 5.5 and end up with 5 after trub and transfers.
Are your specialty grains well crushed? The finer the crush the easier it will be to steep the flavors and sugars out of them.
+1, and how well are you keeping your steeping temperature?
You don't have to sparge it per say, but you can squeeze the bag to get out all of the liquid. 160 might be a little high, I usually shoot for 154. Higher temperatures, and lower, affect the sugar conversion and can give you less efficiency.
I "sparge" mine with 1 qt of hot water (~120*). I steep for 30 mins also and bounce in between 148-165* while trying to keep it as close to 155* as I can. My numbers are usually higher than the brew calculator figures.
I've also typically pushed my steeping grains to the max side using 20-25%.
I've also typically pushed my steeping grains to the max side using 20-25%.
For steeping highly modified grains the temperature doesn't really matter all that much. Keep it between 150ish-160ish to disolve the sugars. As you get closer to 170 you will begin to extract tannins and phenols, which will make your beer taste astringent. A good rule of thumb (or at least what I did when extract brewing) is steep with about 1.5 qt per 1# of specialty grains for 30 min. Pour off the wort and steep with 1 qt per 1# at 160 for 10 min. That will get you the most disolved sugar for the least amount of work. Lastly, too much specialty grains will make your beer tast cloyingly sweet. For 5 g I would stick with a total of less than 2# of specialty grains.
