Forgot to add some dark grains to my RIS; Can I still recover?

[SP_Spiff]

Hi,

I made a Russian Imperial Stout last night and while cleaning up today I found a 6lb pail of dark grains I forgot to add ....12G, allgrain batch.....the grains are probably special B, UK pale chocolate, US chocolate, Caramel munich 60, and caramel 80. Fermentation just started today. Can I mash/steep these on stovetop, boil them, chill, and add them to the current fermentation?

If so, how would I go about doing this? Do I need to mash them at 1.25qt/lb? Normal mash temps? How do I figure out the boil volume for this? And how long do I boil it?

The fermenting RIS preboil OG was 1.090 but I added DME to get to 1.05. My final OG was 1.112. I just want to get this roast/complex flavor that is sitting in my bucket into my RIS.

Any advice would be appreciated!

SP_SPIFF

 

[Qhrumphf]

If they're just specialty grains, you could just steep them like an extract batch (no need to actually mash them), boil them, and then take a gravity reading, (which probably would be rather low, but you may get a couple points from the crystal malts). Then you can work via "gravity points" and correct the OG based on the addition of volume plus new sugars. 12 gallons at 1.112 means 1344 gravity points. Plus say another 2 gallons of steeped grains wort at 1.020 or whatever it ends up being, meaning 40 gravity points. A combined 14 gallons at 1384 gravity points gives you a corrected OG of 1.098.

Now, that's going to throw your bitterness off, and may affect your FG slightly too. And if there's any base malts in there that actually need to be mashed, then that's more complicated. If it's 5% base malt and 95% roasted and darker crystal malts, I'd be worried that the mash pH would be so low you'd have a hard time getting proper conversion.

Just my 2c.

 

[butterpants]

Dude, how on earth did you not notice they weren't in there?

 

[SP_Spiff]

Well I had over 50 lbs of grain in 5G buckets and would add each bucket to the MLT/16G of water and stir. At the end, I was close to the top of my 20G mash tun and missed the bucket with the grain mill on top of it....

 

[SP_Spiff]

Thanks Ohrumphf,

Thanks! This really helps. I did put the grains and 1.5G of water into beersmith so should change my OG from 1.112 to 1.108. I will do a 20 minute boil with the grains in a bag and then chill this.

This did prompt me to search and find this good article: http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/11/17/brewing-beer-with-dark-grains-steeping-versus-mashing/

Thanks for the prompt response.

 

[MindenMan]

I have a thought, how about you remove enough of the RIS to mash out. That way you will not possibly water down you beer

 

[SP_Spiff]

Interesting idea. I guess I would have an extra 1G of water being added to my 12G (in reality I have 10.5G in the fermenters). So you are suggesting I use some of the RIS in the steep/boil ( I dont think I need to mash given these are specialty grains, but Special B does show a mash is needed in some tables).

Great point I need to think about more.

 

[MindenMan]

I use Special B 50 all the time, I mix it with whichever 2-row I happen to have. Personally, I would mash the bunch together. But WAIT!, Don't call yet! ( sorry I was in one of those radio announcer mode. I used to be a radio DJ)
In my experience, Special B adds a certain toasty, bready, roast flavor but it doesn't leave behind any "coffee" type flavor. And, good 2-row, and Special B can fool a judge to think it's all Maris Otter... Not like I would know personally.

 

[MindenMan]

And... you could use some of the other part of the wort to sparge your grains.
Damn, that suggestion is finer than frog hair. You ever seen frog hair?, That's what I'm saying it's really fine.